Mapping Amazon’s urbanism from the cloud to the curb - Lecture Series "Urban Future-making"

Prof. Dr. Armin Beverungen and M. Sc. Maja-Lee Voigt

Automating the logistical city: Mapping Amazon’s urbanism from the cloud to the curb

The central premise of our collaborative research projects exploring Amazon’s logistical urbanism is that Amazon must be understood as a key actor in contemporary urbanism, impacting contemporary cities from the curb to the cloud through its logistical operations and antecedent practices of space-making. In this presentation, we want to provide insight into three aspects of Amazon’s urbanism: first, the ways its administrative (and algorithmic) headquarters and their shiny front ends reshape global cities; second, how its warehouses integrate into existing infrastructures of transport and labour in urban peripheries; and third, how the topologies of its logistical operations are employing what is known as an ‘urban stack’ for (last mile) delivery. In the process, Amazon is not only infrastructurally and algorithmically remaking cities, it is also turning cities into testbeds for automated futures.