Factors influencing the platform regulatory stringency in EU cities

In recent years, urban landscapes across Europe have witnessed a significant transformation due to the emergence of platform companies, which have prompted city authorities to reassess their regulations. Initially welcomed, these platforms now face stricter regulations as cities seek to address the social and economic impacts platforms have on local communities. This dynamic between cities and platforms presents a new battleground for establishing a more equitable and fairer urban digital ecosystem. This paper investigates the structural, institutional, and political factors that shape the level of regulatory stringency for digital platforms at the local level within European cities in housing and transportation sectors. We argue that greater openness in the regulatory process to diverse stakeholders correlates with stricter platform regulations, subsequently diminishing the power of these platforms. To test our argument, we build a platform regulatory stringency index for 135 European cities from 7 countries from 2012 to 2022 and analyse how the strength of formal organization of actors—including taxi drivers, hotel owners, tenants, and residents—, protest events and local government ideology affects regulatory stringency. Our results suggest that regulatory outcomes are more stringent when regulatory processes incorporate the formal voices and concerns of various stakeholders, overshadowing the interests of platforms but only when the regulatory competence sits at local level. In the sectors regulated predominantly at the national level the greater openness in the regulatory process does not lead to more stringent regulation.