{"id":58067,"date":"2017-10-23T10:00:45","date_gmt":"2017-10-23T14:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=58067"},"modified":"2017-10-23T11:44:41","modified_gmt":"2017-10-23T15:44:41","slug":"alphabet-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2017\/10\/23\/alphabet-city\/","title":{"rendered":"LORINC: We need to Google some questions about Sidewalk Labs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2013\/06\/feature-lorinc.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-44316\" src=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2013\/06\/feature-lorinc.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"85\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In just about every way, last week\u2019s reveal of <a href=\"https:\/\/sidewalktoronto.ca\/#news\">Sidewalk Lab<\/a>\u2019s vision for Quayside, a 4.9-hectare swath of the eastern waterfront near the foot of Parliament, was a masterwork of spin, flattery, and urban myth-making.<\/p>\n<p>The plan, a response from an Alphabet\/Google subsidiary to a Waterfront Toronto RFP, is steeped in a cool, urban sensibility that seems perfectly calibrated to at least one strand of the city\u2019s current notion of itself. The 196-page document meticulously name-checks virtually every project, aspirational plan and policy preoccupation circulating in the region right now, all of it packaged in the hip branding of sustainability, complete communities and inclusiveness.<\/p>\n<p>Yet Sidewalk\u2019s rhetoric, like all such documents, not only flatters and refracts but entices with solutions that, it claims, are not currently on offer but could be, given the right confection of will, resources and imagination. Toronto, it says, has an opportunity to rocket to the very coal face of urban thinking, planning and building.<\/p>\n<p>Thus packaged and marketed, it\u2019s absolutely no surprise that Sidewalk\u2019s pitch was met last week with an almost entirely uncritical media response that reverberated far beyond the echo chamber of our self-involved civic conversation.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t buy it.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/quayside-map.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-58070\" src=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/quayside-map-600x303.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"303\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/quayside-map-600x303.jpg 600w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/quayside-map-300x152.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/quayside-map-768x388.jpg 768w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/quayside-map-940x475.jpg 940w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>What I\u2019d like to argue, instead, is that this proposal actually deserves intense political and civic scrutiny \u2013 much more than Waterfront Toronto provided, unfortunately.<\/p>\n<p>To my eye, Alphabet has proposed a model (\u201cplatform\u201d) of urban development that could be described as a built form version of Facebook \u2013 a highly enticing but heavily surveilled environment literally programmed to capture and sell user information to marketers, technology companies and whoever else can figure out how to monetize the way we live in and move around urban spaces.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, Alphabet\/Sidewalk clearly regards Toronto\u2019s waterfront \u2013 not just Quayside, but the Portlands as well \u2014 as a massive research and development incubator for future product development. In other words, a means to an end.<\/p>\n<p>And after two decades of waterfront revitalization that has begun to deliver great results, my question is whether this is the future we signed up for.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some details that caught my attention:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scale<\/strong>: While WT\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.waterfrontoronto.ca\/nbe\/portal\/waterfront\/Home\/waterfronthome\/projects\/quayside\">RFP called for proposals for Quayside<\/a>, Sidewalk evidently has a much larger canvas in mind. The document has no fewer than 270 mentions of \u201cEastern Waterfront,\u201d by which it means the Portlands. Senior City planning officials told me that they regard the proposal as a \u201ccommercial\u201d initiative for this particular area, but the Sidewalk\u2019s ambitions extend way beyond that tight L-shaped space.<\/p>\n<p>And not just geographically. The document espouses changes in transit governance, health care delivery, and other domains. It also proposes dramatic changes to the land-use and zoning process, recommending an \u201coutcomes\u201d based approach that would somehow allow developers to get fast-track approvals by submitting data and other analytics that somehow predict the impact of their project (emissions, traffic, etc.). It may be a good idea; I can\u2019t really tell based on the general information provided. But in the context of this proposal, Sidewalk\u2019s messaging is clear: we\u2019ll need the runway to be as clear as possible to get this thing going.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Public-Realm-Vision.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-58076\" src=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Public-Realm-Vision-600x237.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"237\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Public-Realm-Vision-600x237.png 600w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Public-Realm-Vision-300x118.png 300w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Public-Realm-Vision-768x303.png 768w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Public-Realm-Vision-940x371.png 940w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Public-Realm-Vision.png 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Surveillance of Public Space<\/strong>. I know even as I type the word that I am raising everyone\u2019s hackles, but key to the whole plan is a deployment of an extensive network of sensors and other network technologies that are designed to quantify the way people use this new community. Don\u2019t be misled by the fact that the proposal assures readers that former Ontario privacy commissioner Anne Cavoukian has been recruited to ensure that privacy is protected; the point of the project isn\u2019t individual surveillance but aggregated and then segmented data tracking movement and usage of all sorts.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not fussed about the vehicle counts or sensors that gauge and assess how much waste material is going into Sidewalk\u2019s high-tech recycling systems. But there are other elements in this plan that are potentially far more troubling. For example, sensors on street furniture (are we going to monitor how well a bench is used?) or inducements for residents and visitors (yes) to sign in to a purpose-built Quayside network that makes it easier for them to communicate.<\/p>\n<p>Easier than, say, texting?<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s the point of a feature like this? I\u2019m guessing it is about capturing aggregated data on the movement and activities of people traveling through this space. Sidewalk\u2019s proposal is fairly explicit about this point. The company wants to use the enticement of Google Canada\u2019s relocated headquarters and this new \u201cplatform\u201d community as a means of attracting tech companies that could fashion and beta-test services \u2013 e.g., a mapping app that allows you to avoid crowds. In the logic of a vast enterprise that sees the world as reducable to analyzable data, I can see the appeal.<\/p>\n<p>But let\u2019s not sugarcoat what\u2019s being proposed, which is the commodification of living in and moving through urban space \u2014 something that only becomes possible if the traces of said movements can be captured and processed.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Community-Vision-copy.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-58079\" src=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Community-Vision-copy-600x337.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"337\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Community-Vision-copy-600x337.png 600w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Community-Vision-copy-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Community-Vision-copy-768x432.png 768w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Community-Vision-copy-940x528.png 940w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Community-Vision-copy.png 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Flexibility<\/strong>: This is other word that shows up extensively in the Sidewalk proposal. Everything about this scheme is meant to be flexible: the housing, the retail, the services, even the cultural venues and institutional buildings. The plan, dare I say, is rigid in its conviction that \u201cradical flexibility\u201d is the hallmark of the future city.<\/p>\n<p>Across history, of course, cities have proven to be complex organisms capable of tremendous flexibility and organic change. But there\u2019s a big difference between flexible and provisional. I\u2019m not interested in provisional urban spaces filled with placeholders; that&#8217;s not city building. Yes, let\u2019s think about designing affordable housing and offices that can be adapted and retrofitted as the needs of the occupants change. Yet I feel suspicious of an urban planning paradigm that makes such a point of foregrounding flexibility, because it suggests a trial-and-error approach that re-confirms for me that Sidewalk&#8217;s development plan is an R&amp;D lab, not a real community.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Sustainability-Vision-copy.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-58077\" src=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Sustainability-Vision-copy-600x343.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"343\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Sustainability-Vision-copy-600x343.png 600w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Sustainability-Vision-copy-300x171.png 300w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Sustainability-Vision-copy-768x439.png 768w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Sustainability-Vision-copy-940x537.png 940w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Sustainability-Vision-copy.png 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Economics<\/strong>: Sidewalk\u2019s proposals for housing and sustainability are reminiscent of good ideas that are in extensive use in places like the Netherlands and Denmark \u2013 very limited private vehicle access, cutting edge green energy\/cleantech infrastructure, modular, pre-fab architecture, etc. The added element is an extensive subterranean network of utility tunnels than not only serve as conduits for cables, pipes and pneumatic waste tubes, but doubles as an internal robot delivery system for cargo and all the quotidian stuff (groceries, the enormously heavy IKEA shelving unit) that\u2019s too cumbersome for people to schlep from the car-share drop-off to their front door.<\/p>\n<p>This is all pleasantly cool and Scandinavian, and Sidewalk, clearly alive to the city\u2019s real estate prices, has made sure to foreground the importance of building affordable housing in its new community (as per WT\u2019s requirements). What\u2019s less clear is how the math works, especially in the context of a highly contaminated, land-filled setting where all those utility tunnels will need to be constructed beneath the water table. It all looks fairly expensive, especially if a portion of the housing is meant to be affordable. Someone\u2019s going to have to pay, and the vision, which, to be fair, is not a business plan, offers very little clarity on this important detail.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Housing-Vision-copy.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-58073\" src=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Housing-Vision-copy-600x311.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"311\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Housing-Vision-copy-600x311.png 600w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Housing-Vision-copy-300x155.png 300w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Housing-Vision-copy-768x397.png 768w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Housing-Vision-copy-940x486.png 940w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/Sidewalk-Labs-Housing-Vision-copy.png 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>If you step back, it\u2019s certainly possible to situate Sidewalk\u2019s plan in the long tradition of idealistic urban reform ideologies that were meant to address the social or economic failings of the city at particular moments in time: Ebenezer Howard\u2019s late 19<sup>th<\/sup> century Garden City suburbs; the Levittown subdivisions of the post-war era; the New Urbanist enclaves of the 1990s, including Celebration, the fantasy town developed in Florida by Disney and meant to showcase nostalgic urban design principles.<\/p>\n<p>In almost all cases, these experiments produced unintended consequences, and I have every confidence that the relentless data-fication of city living will produce so-called use cases that no one\u2019s especially comfortable with.<\/p>\n<p>But in some important ways, Sidewalk\u2019s Alphabet City is a very <em>au courant<\/em> take on the old idea of the company town \u2013 the factory (Google Canada\u2019s HQ) surrounded by purpose-built worker housing (let\u2019s not kid ourselves: Sidewalk\u2019s residential proposals laser target the tech workers it wants to attract) and enough commercial space to accommodate the spin-off businesses that spring up around the main plant.<\/p>\n<p>A generation ago, Microsoft and Apple and all the other tech supernovas built soulless corporate campuses in desperately dull suburban settings that don\u2019t stir the hearts of the new generation of software engineers and coders who populate these firms. Alphabet\/Google not only learned that lesson, but has glommed onto the notion that the projected future of urban living \u2014 with its self-driving vehicles and pop-up shops \u2014 represents the commercial space it intends to inhabit or even dominate.<\/p>\n<p>Put another way, will Toronto become Google\u2019s version of Dearborn, Redmond, or Cupertino?<\/p>\n<p>If that\u2019s the path WT intends to pursue, I think the agency, the City, and Torontonians generally need to ask whether this is what we want from our waterfront, and whether the data-fication of city living is the wagon to which we intend to hitch our future. It may be, I don\u2019t know. But now that Sidewalk\u2019s proposal has landed, that is a conversation the city desperately needs to have with itself.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In just about every way, last week\u2019s reveal of Sidewalk Lab\u2019s vision for Quayside, a 4.9-hectare swath of the eastern waterfront near the foot of Parliament, was a masterwork of spin, flattery, and urban myth-making. The plan, a response from an Alphabet\/Google subsidiary to a Waterfront Toronto RFP, is steeped in a cool, urban sensibility<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2017\/10\/23\/alphabet-city\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;LORINC: We need to Google some questions about Sidewalk Labs&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4051,"featured_media":58078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21758,18,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-neighbourhoods","category-waterfront"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>LORINC: We need to Google some questions about Sidewalk Labs - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2017\/10\/23\/alphabet-city\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"LORINC: We need to Google some questions about Sidewalk Labs - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In just about every way, last week\u2019s reveal of Sidewalk Lab\u2019s vision for Quayside, a 4.9-hectare swath of the eastern waterfront near the foot of Parliament, was a masterwork of spin, flattery, and urban myth-making. 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