Level 0 of the digital divide
Algorithmic redlining and online food deserts in Santiago de Chile
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7472446 |
|---|---|
| Authors | N Valenzuela-Levi (Federico Santa María Technical University, corresponding author), N Gálvez Ramírez (Federico Santa María Technical University), V Llanos (Federico Santa María Technical University), A Ovando (Federico Santa María Technical University), F Rodríguez (0000-0002-3774-7517, Federico Santa María Technical University), N Torres (Federico Santa María Technical University) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 173 |
| Pages | 106874 |
| Publication date | 2026-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Cities (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0264-2751 • E-ISSN: 1873-6084 |
| Publisher | Elsevier BV (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.cities.2026.106874 |
| OpenAlex | W7131637589 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 35 |
While research on the digital divide has traditionally focused on individual access, skills, and benefits, this study proposes a “Level 0” conceptual framework to account for the institutional and supply-side barriers that precede individual agency. Using a reverse-geocoding and web-scraping methodology, we conduct a geospatial market analysis of the three leading food delivery apps (FDAs) in the Santiago Metropolitan Area—PedidosYa, Uber Eats, and Rappi. We investigate how corporate business models and “unwritten rules” produce digital redlining, effectively creating “online food deserts” in specific urban territories. The results of a Binary Spatial Autoregressive (BSAR) model demonstrate that territorial exclusion is a collective geographic phenomenon driven by socioeconomic signals (i.e. residential density and educational levels) and institutional factors (i.e. the role of informal labour), such as residential density and educational levels, rather than the “objective risk” of crime often cited by corporations. By identifying this “Level 0” institutional divide, the study contributes to a comparative theory of digital inequality in the Global South and underscores the need for policy interventions that regulate the supply-side logic of the platform economy
Agency (philosophy) · Conceptual framework · Digital divide · Geospatial analysis · Inequality · Metropolitan area · Vulnerability (computing) · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · ICT Impact and Policies · Social Media and Politics
Social and spatial inequalities of contemporary food deserts
Crime as an excuse for not providing internet in specific neighbourhoods
The written and unwritten rules of internet exclusion
La segregación, los guetos y la integración social urbana
Embodied Precariat and Digital Control in the “Gig Economy”
The emergence of a “digital underclass” in Great Britain and Sweden
Covid-19 and Inequity
Digital Redlining
Cherry picking and social dumping
The Institutional Digital Divide
Platform capitalism and neo‐normative control
Residential segregation of ethnic minorities and sustainable city development. Case of Kumasi, Ghana
Contrasting migrants' sense of belonging to the city in selected peri-urban neighbourhoods in Beijing
Toward a Multifaceted Model of Internet Access for Understanding Digital Divides
Good Government Means Different Things in Different Countries
The Digital Divide
Towards a Comparative Theory of Locality in Migration Studies
Beyond the ethnic lens
Walls and white elephants
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |