This research project focused on how existing – and relatively ordinary – social media are informing processes of contemporary urban transformation, and specifically those related to the field of urban planning. It focused on a controversial transportation scheme in the London Borough of Waltham Forest (UK), officially as well as popularly dubbed ‘Mini-Holland’.

Using a cross-disciplinary methodology that combines big data analytics (natural language processing, social network analysis) with ‘small data’ qualitative methods (digital ethnography, in-depth interviewing), it explored the extent to which social media platforms (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) have become important intermediaries in public debate and discussion relating to urban transformations, specifically those brought about by local authority schemes. More conceptually, it explored how social media platforms might afford new forms of ambient participation in urban planning and governance, mixing emotions, views and facts within an emergent, always-on, asynchronous discursive space.