The Hack: what is it and why it matters to urban studies

Abstract

This commentary advances the ‘hack’ as an urban concept. While the hack transcends existing literatures on the digital and informality, the hack is a distinctive concept and is being used systematically in new domains. I situate the hack conceptually, outline its empirical and methodological value, and propose a framework to research the urban hack. Importantly it is not just the technologies of hacking but the translation of computational logics to the urban, that underpin the importance of the hack, and the critical need to set out a research agenda surrounding the hack within urban studies.