An ‘informational right to the city’?

Journal article

When you type the word ‘Jerusalem’ into Google, it is likely that you’ll be shown an infobox declaring the city to be the ‘Capital of Israel’. The problem is that the state of Israel is the only country on earth to recognize the city as Israel’s capital. Many Palestinians consider the city to be the capital of the Palestinian state. But the rest of the world either explicitly states that the city isn’t a capital, or refuses to take a position on the issue.

This is but one example of how code and databases that are deployed by a search engine can help to define what a place is. Contemporary cities are much more than bricks and mortar; streets and pipes. They are also their digital presences – abstract presences which can reproduce and change our material reality. If you accept this premise, then we need to ask important questions about what rights citizens have to not just public and private spaces, but also their digital equivalents.

Authors: Graham, M; Shaw, J

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: New Internationalist
• Journal: New Internationalist
• Publication date: 2017-02-01
• Acceptance date: 2017-02-08
• Keywords: Letter