Navigating digital food platforms and spatial inequality

This project explores how digital food platforms (DFPs), such as food delivery apps like Foodora and Uber Eats, are transforming cities and urban food environments. It focuses on how food is supplied by kitchens and restaurants, how gig workers deliver food, and how consumers receive these services in Stockholm.

The project investigates how digital food platforms affect urban infrastructure and public spaces and contribute to spatial inequalities. By examining where kitchens, restaurants, and catering services operating on these platforms are located, how gig workers deliver food, and identifying the primary areas of service demand, the project will map the spatial manifestations of these platforms. This will help assess their potential to create spatial (in)equalities in cities.

In addition to focusing on Stockholm, the project will draw on international case studies, such as New York City, to understand how other cities manage the impacts of digital food platforms on urban spaces.

This collaborative research, conducted by IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute and Linköping University's Department of Technology and Social Change, aims to provide insights into governance strategies that ensure digital food platforms contribute to more equitable and sustainable urban development.