In this article we explore the decent work standard developed by Richard Heeks for digital online labour markets and use a review of empirical research about ride-hailing to adapt this framework to the location-based service delivery market. The framework is then tested against an in-depth analysis of informality and precarity in the ride hailing sector in Cali, Colombia. Findings show that location-based platform workers in Cali lack many decent work protections. However, the case study also demonstrates that workers are evolving creative ways to grapple with specific aspects of precarity within the ride-hailing sector. Based on this analysis, we argue that policy analysis and worker innovations need to 'meet in the middle' rather than follow policy recommendations emanating from other jurisdictions. We suggest some specific policy reforms that will be appropriate to the Colombian and Latin American context.

Covid-19 has led to unprecedented changes in functional structures in our cities. Since the mid-20th century, central business districts (CBDs) worldwide have hosted economic and employment activities, leaving suburbia to home the residential function. However, the global Covid-19 responses have resulted in changes in some urban functions, and it is yet to see if these changes would transpire as temporary or permanent. Some argue that the broad macrogeographical pattern of urbanisation is unlikely to be changed. Still, that significant intra-metropolitan, neighbourhood-level and daily life changes are to become part of the new reality. Thus, this article considered these changes by focusing on property trends in the Sydney CBD to reflect on future trends, urban structures, and associated functions. An evaluative single case study desktop analysis was conducted to investigate commercial vacancy rates and rental prices within the CBD of Sydney (Australia) between 2018 and 2021 to reflect on the Covid-19-drive changes and their implications for urban planners. Findings highlighted that before Covid-19, both residential and commercial markets were growing, with rising rental prices and decreasing vacancy rates. However, commercial vacancies in the CBD have increased, and rental prices have decreased since 2020’s lockdown, stressing the dropping demand for commercial spaces. The residential market experienced a different trend with dropping vacancy rates and increasing rental prices. The data analysed provide an initial understanding of how Covid-19 has impacted the Sydney CBD. It poses some insights into potential future trends and changes in the urban landscape. It highlights the implications that the planning profession should consider in the quest to realise sustainable and resilient cities.

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New models of peer governance are emerging from online communities in the Global South. This is visible in an understudied case of ridesharing “platforms” created on social media communities and materializing in Latin American cities. In this article, I investigate these online communities in different cities of Colombia and how they develop peer governance models. A particular focus is paid to developing organization forms that do not follow the typical structure of firms. In these communities, I study the relationships between members, community managers, and the governance rules they create, while illuminating the hierarchies present, the accountability of their administrators, and its legitimacy. The emerging literature on platform cooperativism, platform urbanism, and peer governance is used to structure a way to understand this new phenomenon with its “southern” particularities. Moreover, in-person and online qualitative research methods are incorporated to engage with the elusive nature of these structures. This will be one of the first studies engaging with the peer governance dilemmas emerging from online communities in the Global South. An analysis on what the platform literature and the institutional ecosystem in developing countries can harness from the particularities of these community-platforms as they evolve in these contexts is also included.