Over the past three decades the global tech industry has grown and prospered. This has led to the emergence of the tech elite. Concerns have been raised regarding the power the tech industry has on managing and transforming urban spaces and particularly those neighbourhoods the tech elite members settle in (Zukin, 2020;2021). This research looks at privately owned and managed neighbourhood groups associated with the tech elite which operate in hybrid spaces (i.e. virtual and physical spheres). These groups are examined within the setting of urban entrepreneurialism (Harvey, 1989) and its extended discourse on neo-liberalisation. Curation is used here as the framework for exploration. It aims to link between the role of the curator to new strategies of entrepreneurialism and their expressions within cities (Raco and Tasan-Kok, 2020). This phenomenon is conceptualised here as urban curation which is used to deconstruct power and control mechanisms inherent to neighbourhood groups and members belonging to the tech elite. While unwrapping how urban curation is delivered, the research also questions its wider implications in terms of inequality, exclusion, as well as roles and responsibilities when it comes to shaping and transforming neighbourhoods. The research uses the city of Tel-Aviv as its case study. The city was chosen due to the strong presence of tech culture and the growing socio-economic and spatial inequalities the city has been experiencing over recent years. To address these research objectives, this research will use multiple case study research design, with qualitative methods for data collection.
