States of speculation: Speculative urbanism and the modalities of state-sanctioned risk absorption in Toronto’s platform economy

Conference: Neue Kulturgeographie (NKG), University of Augsburg, 30 September–2 October 2025

This paper argues that the capitalist state functions as an important risk absorber for digital platforms in times of urban speculation and heightened uncertainty. First, the regulatory state takes over a crucial function in defining, upholding, and, if necessary, punitively defending the social and legal boundaries of newly formed markets of the platform and gig economy. Second, the partnership state similarly absorbs parts of the risks for platform enterprises by providing short-, mid-, or even long-term contractual grounds for platform activities at particularly privileged urban sites. Both of these two speculative state-spatial dynamics are empirically substantiated via the case of Uber in Toronto.

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