Google's 'secret' smart city on Toronto's waterfront sparks row
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Although it mentions partnership, there are no concrete projects in Toronto mentioned from Sidewalk Labs even in the AMA. Whereas for City of Toronto, I would say they just have no clue whats really going on.
I would hazard a guess to say that maybe its too early to come up with anything as they're dealing with physical buildings and some sort of land/property development or that there just wasn't that much planned in the first place because its an initial trial.
> Q: I'm trying to understand what Sidewalk Labs actually does? Is it, for the most part, a consulting firm? A developer?
> A: ... We want to ... we launched ... with ... belief ... we hope ... not going to build the whole thing ourselves ... need to work with all kinds of partners ... We see our role ... as trying ... things like people-first street designs, an energy system that could one day be climate positive ... all kinds of local innovators, civic groups, academics, etc, will fill in the details will their ideas and creations.
Google will be Google and local developers will build condos there. Don't worry. It's Canada ;)
The short answer is: We want to build the first truly 21st-century city.
The longer answer is we launched Sidewalk with the broad belief that if we combined the best in urban planning and design with the latest in technology and open digital infrastructure, we could meaningfully improve quality of life for people in cities. But one of the big challenges we saw was that no single city in the world could really stand out as a model how to do that. That’s what we hope to achieve with Waterfront Toronto: neighborhoods that pilot ideas, new and old, to solve big urban problems that cities everywhere are facing.
Of course, we are not going to build the whole thing ourselves, because real neighborhoods can never be completely planned. We’re going to need to work with all kinds of partners and groups in Toronto and beyond. We see our role with Waterfront Toronto as trying to put in place some of the underlying infrastructure — things like people-first street designs, an energy system that could one day be climate positive, buildings that can adapt to new uses. On top of those systems, all kinds of local innovators, civic groups, academics, etc, will fill in the details will their ideas and creations.
Sidewalk Toronto is our main focus. But there are also areas where we think real innovation is possible today that no one is working on yet, and when we find those opportunities we incubate companies to take them on. For example, we incubated a spin-off company called Cityblock Health that now works to improve health care delivered to low-income urban populations.
> we launched Sidewalk with the broad belief that if we combined the best in urban planning and design with the latest in technology and open digital infrastructure, we could meaningfully improve quality of life for people in cities [...] That’s what we hope to achieve with Waterfront Toronto: neighborhoods that pilot ideas, new and old, to solve big urban problems that cities everywhere are facing. [...] We see our role with Waterfront Toronto as trying to put in place some of the underlying infrastructure [...] On top of those systems, all kinds of local innovators, civic groups, academics, etc, will fill in the details will their ideas and creations.
How is this meaningfully different from what I said? Suppose we rewound time to before cloud infrastructure like AWS and Google Cloud existed, and Google came out with App Engine saying, "we put in place the underlying infrastructure so people can build useful things on it".
And people just keep asking, "but what does it do?" In both cases, the answer seems to be that it provides a platform for other people to implement their own innovative ideas. Given it's Google, this neighbourhood will probably provide ubiquitous wifi and power availability, fiber internet everywhere, and the "livable city" constraint means it will be a walkable space, so few cars, if any. I'm sure there will be plenty of other useful infrastructure I haven't even thought of.
Those are two different things.
Back to the original question: Is it, for the most part, a consulting firm? A developer? A construction company?
They would act kind of like a developer here, but it's not to develop specific things, like commercial or residential space, it's probably a lot more open than that, which is why people are having trouble classifying it using traditional terms.
It's like trying to classify App Engine or AWS before cloud infrastructure became a thing, when everyone ran their own servers; it requires a new category all its own.
“We are going to waste public money and screw up Toronto’s urban design and pocket a bunch ourselves while hoping no one catches us and yes we are in way over our head.”
I loved that.
Sidewalk labs is not constructing. They are not consulting for anybody. They are not designing a city. They don't want to take any liability for anything.
So the only thing they are doing is being a think tank, sort of an imagination company. They identified a site for development that could play host to their ideas. And now they want others to participate in their idea. City of Toronto is one. Their role is to establish policies. Developer will be two. Their role is to establish an overall design. Consulting firm is three. Their role is to create a design. Construction firm is the fourth piece. Sidewalk Labs will facilitate the process.
The rest is a blur like financing, market, economic incentive, actual policies versus urging versus encouragement.
They will figure it out eventually.
I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. They say they will create some core infrastructure, including internet and power at the very least. They likely aren't constructing it themselves, but they are probably financing and overseeing this core piece.
Given who this is, and the shit they pulled in NYC with the kiosks, I don't trust them for one second to be doing this for any reason other than to enable broader surveillance/data collection using cameras, microphones, etc. in public spaces. All Google is interested in is collecting more data so that they can build better systems to collect more data with and shove ads down your throat + sell your information to the highest bidder.
The rest of the shot can be explained by someone else as I am not very passionate about the issue.
Google is a term used for the conglomerate of Google, which includes Alphabet and due to bureaucracy it's also the "official name" of Google.
Also, the public should have a way to monitor and influence the process of design and development rather than it being only insiders. How do they do that?
If these problems aren't corrected then the government's actions should be blocked through legal or civil action, as they will not be representing the people's interests.