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Comment by mabbo | Hacker News Reader

On the one hand, I appreciate the level of innovation and forward thinking that Google is doing here. It's a lot of neat ideas and designs.

But on the other hand, I don't like the idea of a private company deciding how a city should develop- especially not my city. No matter what they say, they are a for-profit publicity-traded company whose goal, always, is ROI for investors. And that conflicts with the goals of city management, where the goal is the benefit of the public and not just those with money.

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Isn't this how almost all redevelopment happens? The city puts out a call for proposals, and various architectural firms and builders submit master-planned mega proposals, and one gets picked?

Why is SideWalk labs any different than redevelopment projects that happened elsewhere?

I mean, this project is for a location (77 hectares) that is barely bigger than the Apple campus (71 hectares). They've proposing to develop a tiny slice of the city, about the size of most large condominium projects that localities approve.

If SideWalk Labs was not associated with Alphabet, but say, one of these (https://www.cpexecutive.com/post/2017-top-development-firms/) I bet it pretty much would have gone under the radar, and people would be enjoying their new waterfront without batting an eye.

Of course they would. But it‘s an Alphabet company, so it‘s automatically a distopian nightmare and basically cyberpunk. /s

Which is not to say that the actual project plan shouldn‘t be heavily scrutinized. But a lot of the comments around it are just FUD.

> I appreciate the level of innovation and forward thinking that Google is doing here.

I don't really see much innovation in their plan beyond solutions in search of a problem.

What they really want is the data about citizens, I don't see that there's anything to see in this beyond that.

There's a lot here that isn't typical of Toronto.

Wood/timber in commercial buildings and condos.

Public awnings (snow and rain suck).

Better transit to new neighbourhoods, outside the "core".

It's nothing mind blowingly bleeding edge, but it's an improvement over current practices. I see nothing committing them to any of this though, so who knows what gets cost engineered out of the project.

But you're right. It's misdirection. They want more data, and to establish a precedent.

Google is a highly profitable company with tons of smart engineering talent, that can put the time and effort into planning future projects like this. I honestly believe they have good intentions. I also honestly believe that corporate interests will win in the end and this wouldn't turn out well in 20 years.

The wood and timer building are surprisingly folksy, I agree.

However the awnings will do nothing to prevent windblown snow from accumulating.

I mean if they did, then you'd see Torontonians install all kinds of non IOT awnings for this purpose.

I also hear that they will install special pavers that will be heated to melt ice/snow, but that will be very expensive energy wise.

None of it seems practical.

I appreciate that they are proposing better transit connections, but the TTC has a stranglehold on that kind of thing in this city, and I don't see how they are going to get past that.

Also it's a bit patronizing to the local residents to assume that, just because they are Google, that they will immediately have better insights into solving local problems.

It reminds me a bit of that form for telling people why their anti spam idea would never work.¹ They should have one for IOT projects too.

The core problem with their entire proposal, is that they are proposing technical solutions to political problems.

1: https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt

The heated pavers would be terribly wasteful. It's a bad idea.

And awnings aren't a replacement for good indoor walkways. Shitty weather is shitty weather. But they're a huge benefit on sidewalks, for the 90% of rain/snow that isn't shitty weather. I live in a build that has these along the entire block and it's a godsend.

But mass timber / cross-laminated timber is actually projected to be an ideal future building material. Even for high rises. It's not folksy. Almost every architect I've talked to would love to build a mid/high rise with it.

https://www.constructiondive.com/news/mass-timber-101-unders... https://globalnews.ca/news/4957218/canada-mass-timber-high-r...

> It's not folksy. Almost every architect I've talked to would love to build a mid/high rise with it.

I didn't mean 'folksy' as an insult. I was just surprised that google would propose a material outside the usual brutalist design palette (concrete, glass, steel, etc...)

Many towns have found that heated sidewalks actually save money vs snow removal (when lawsuits from slips and falls are included). The main problem with it is public perception its a wasteful luxury item instead of the money saver it is.

> Holland also calls its heating system a money-saver, saying it has reduced slips and falls, requires no snow removal, salt or sand, and has extended pavement life.

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2019/01/30/a-new-canadian-city-f...

Thanks, I hadn't seen this article.

And yes, they might save money on snow removal. Downtown Toronto though, I don't see it. Even if 3 blocks have heated sidewalks, the sidewalk plow has to drive over them to reach the next segment. Those costs wouldn't decrease.

Saving on salting and sidewalk damage from freeze/thaw could be impactful.

But the cost of digging up sidewalks (which happens _all the time_) would increase significantly. Then there's the added expenses of maintenance - leaky pipes that requiring digging up the sidewalk.

The installation and maintenance requires skilled labour - union plumbers. Installing concrete sidewalks and plowing requires much lower wages.

Overall, the article makes no solid argument for it saving money, and does nothing more than speculate it could be cost saving. Where's the actual numbers from other cities who have implemented this?

Toronto already has a steam system that goes through the downtown core. It’s not that far to pipe some of it to the surface.

none of those require google to be around.

Far as I'm concerned, if this happens it becomes the duty of every person to destroy these sensors and destroy the ability to deploy new ones.

Yes but they all require a ~1bn dollar investment by somebody. Let's not forget the price alphabet is paying for this. And they have already agreed that they would not have IP level access to any of the data collected. Nothing personally identifiable. And all data goes through a 3rd party committee over which they have no control. I'm not sure what would lead somebody to vandalize the sensors besides ignorance and paranoia. What people fail to realize is that mass data collection, when done right, can be an extremely useful tool in improving convenience and efficiency of service. While alphabet may have a dodgy history of collecting information they had no right to, they are not Facebook or Equifax. As far as I am aware they havent mishandled or abused the data they've collected and it genuinely seems like they are committed to honest data collection this time around. Honestly I'm more concerned that the privacy committee that Toronto puts together will botch the data collection/storage end up leaking the data. And most likely they will blame alphabet for it in an "see we knew this would happen" kind of way. I lived in Toronto for a decade. Maybe it's because of Rob Ford but I have zero faith in the competence of Toronto city politics and fully expect them to over involve themselves beyond their capacity and royally fuck things up and then shift the blame to somebody else. #blockthesidewalk really says it all.

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