The last meter problem in cities: digital platforms, urban signage, and the enduring analog

Abstract

Digital platforms are premised on the frictionless brokering of access to urban goods, services, and amenities over the distance of the “last mile” in cities. Yet platforms’ purported capacities for coordinating urban space-times for platforms frequently lose prowess over the final, crucial spatiality of the “last meter” where rides are hailed, meals are delivered on-demand, and shared bikes and e-scooters are parked. Resolving the last meter problem in cities necessitates analog spatial interventions in the built environment to close logistical and mobility gaps left open by insufficiencies of algorithmic management. Drawing on the results of a geosemiotic analysis of a selection of primary image data, we identify one such analog intervention that makes digital platform operations function as intended: urban signage. Signs emplaced in the cityscape outside of restaurants, at the door of residential buildings, or on a sidewalk maintain interaction order between human actors engaged in digitally-brokered transactions, enabling a hailed ride, the delivered meal, and micromobility stationment to actually take place in urban space. We connect these findings to the heterogeneity of cities and the messiness of digital fulfilment, demonstrating the limits to algorithmic management of goods and services and attesting to the enduring salience of the analog.