Production or Extraction: The Dual Logic of Platform Economy in Reshaping Urban Space

Abstract

The development of the platform economy has profoundly influenced urban spatial production and governance in contemporary society. Whether this impact constitutes creative production or exploitative extraction is a crucial issue for understanding urban transformation in the digital age. Taking Chengdu as a case study, this paper explores how the platform economy enters urban space by building on Lefebvre's theory of spatial production and critical analyses of capital accumulation. The research finds that, on one hand, platform companies promote functional reorganization and efficiency improvements in urban space through constructing data infrastructure, fostering shared office spaces, creating new consumption scenarios, and expanding community-based group-buying networks. This process gives rise to innovative business models and employment patterns, demonstrating positive contributions to spatial production. On the other hand, platform capital employs algorithmic dispatching, traffic monopolization, and rent transfer mechanisms to place delivery riders, merchants, and consumers within an unequal value distribution system. This leads to fragmented labor spaces, privatization of public spaces, and concentration of urban resources among a few dominant platforms—revealing clear characteristics of spatial extraction. Through field visits and in-depth interviews in typical commercial districts, community group-buying sites, and delivery workers' workplaces in Chengdu, the study reveals that while the platform economy fosters spatial production, it simultaneously exploits the value of urban space through concealed capitalist logics. These two processes are not entirely opposed but rather interact dynamically and continuously. Furthermore, the paper argues that local governments’ regulatory capacity, platform companies’ sense of social responsibility, and grassroots communities’ self-organizing capabilities are key factors determining whether spatial production or spatial extraction prevails. Finally, the article recommends establishing a multi-stakeholder co-governance mechanism from the perspective of spatial justice to regulate platform capital, protect workers’ rights, preserve the public nature of urban space, and provide insights for managing the platform economy in megacities.