Opposition to Sidewalk Labs in Toronto

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47815344

by onemoresoop • 7 years ago

157 103 7 years ago

njepa4• 7 years ago

It looks like every (mostly useless) waterfront, science city or business park I have ever been to. Is there something new here, or is it like with many things these days that people's perception have diverged from reality?

notatoad3• 7 years ago

the most innovative thing i've seen talked about is an a hidden utility corridor running to all the buildings for trash pickup. Which can't actually be an original idea, can it?

underdown• 7 years ago

In a sense isn't that what every alleyway in the world is?

njepa4• 7 years ago

You can probably find it in some '60s future somewhere. Why would you build a perfectly fine tunnel and use that for irregular traffic, when you can hide the traffic and have the street for mixed use [-1]? We have had trash chutes [0] and AVAC [1] for centuries in Sweden (not always connected unfortunately). My local garbage truck have one of those robotic arms, and I don't live anywhere fancy. So I can't say I get it.

[-1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_street [0] https://translate.google.com/translate?langpair=en&sl=sv&tl=... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_vacuum_collection [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sopbil_skelleftea.jp...

dade_4• 7 years ago

Nope, Roosevelt Island in New York: https://www.wired.com/2010/08/trash-sucking-island/

sergiomattei• 7 years ago

Disney does it.

https://www.waste360.com/waste-reduction/look-walt-disney-wo...

reaperducer• 7 years ago

Chicago used to do it.

PorterDuff2• 7 years ago

I think that Google should build company housing at their main facilities, give their people somewhere to live, and watch them 24/7 like lab rats.

You could accomplish an interesting experiment plus deal with the problem of giving new hires a place to live.

luckylion3• 7 years ago

Movie recommendation: We Live In Public

hammock3• 7 years ago

That works if the only places you visit are work and home.

matz12• 7 years ago

Living in company housing means I can't visit anywhere else?

PorterDuff2• 7 years ago

An Android phone should fix that problem.

ilaksh• 7 years ago

To me the most of the ways that I can think of a city being smart are not related to surveillance.

If there is some system that is supposed to benefit the public then its designs should be public and subject to public approval.

What would be reasonable would be something like open source designs and protocols and maybe an electronic bidding system for projects.

But it sounds like its one company embedding whatever spy-tech they want and controlling everything over a large area behind closed doors.

I actually am really looking forward to smart cities. But smart as in high tech and advanced, not smart as in monopolistic surveillance dystopia.

toufka• 7 years ago

Pretty harsh:

Last year, the firm's own privacy adviser Dr Ann Cavoukian resigned. "I imagined us creating a smart city of privacy, as opposed to a smart city of surveillance", she said bluntly in her resignation letter.

swozey• 7 years ago

Her background is impressive. It's refreshing to see ethics. Also, this quote;

Former Blackberry co-CEO Jim Balsillie called the project “a colonizing experiment in surveillance capitalism.”

https://globalnews.ca/news/4579265/ann-cavoukian-resigns-sid...

njepa4• 7 years ago

I think surveillance could be part of a smart city. But for that to be smart it would have to solve the inherent problems with surveillance. An actual smart city project would proudly announce what it did to solve these challenges.

I don't see anything on their website that does this, rather it talks about how developers can enjoy access to ubiquitous connectivity [0]. This is in stark contrast to other successful initiatives like Vision Zero that started with trying to define the fundamental problems.

[0] https://sidewalktoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Sidewa... [1] https://www.monash.edu/muarc/archive/our-publications/papers...

luckylion3• 7 years ago

solve the inherent problems with surveillance

Which problems?

Tsubasachan• 7 years ago

Surveillance already exists. Cameras and sensors are everywhere in any modern city. Selling that data off to Google to do god knows what with it is the issue. Ofcourse I live in a country with a reasonably well functioning government. They can run a smart city without whoring themselves out to Silicon Valley.

Endy• 7 years ago

There is no difference between those last two things. Every time someone talks about a Smart City, I keep thinking back to the horrifying Secret Project video from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri - "The Self-Aware Colony". That's what I fear life will be like in a "Smart City".

lostconfused• 7 years ago

We Must Dissent

hedora3• 7 years ago

Most smart city stuff is ridiculously unsexy, and also isn’t a privacy concern if you don’t allow the underlying databases to he released or joined together.

Here is an example that can drastically lower waste collection costs, and eventually track weekly trends in refuse generation (by putting a scale in the garbage truck), etc:

https://litumrfid.com/waste-management-rfid-system/

Providing such technologies to existing firms that periodically re-bid for government contracts with makes much, much more sense than handling a permanent monopoly over management of the entire city to a for-profit company that will design things to ensure they can never be replaced.

mabbo4• 7 years ago

Sidewalk Labs, a sister company to Google, had acquired disused land in Toronto, Canada for this bold urban experiment

"Disused land" is a bit disingenuous. Toronto real estate prices are very high right now and this is waterfront property. It's former industrial land we're hoping to revitalize.

As far as I can tell, Google isn't doing us a favor here. They're just another developer trying to make a bunch of money off of our huge need for additional housing. They choose to make this money via surveillance and advertising, and increasing demand by promising some neat tech benefits.

But if they weren't here, that land would still be developed. Probably sooner. (And probably by a developer making money by cutting every corner in the build).

sonnyblarney4• 7 years ago

" Google isn't doing us a favor here. They're just another developer trying to make a bunch of money off of our huge need for additional housing."

Though I don't like the prospects of Google doing this, there are two issues with the comment:

- Google is probably 'doing the city a favour'. Google has a gadgillion dollars we've handed to them, and their de-facto cost of capital (internally at least) is very cheap. The project probably won't make them a dime, it's borderline one of those 'moonshot' things, a speculative project that they can maybe learn from, get some PR, a giant branding exercise. They could easily lose a lot of money. They are definitely not doing this is a regular 'real estate play'.

- Toronto 'desperately needs housing'? Then why is Toronto very aggressively bringing in 100K people per year into the city? That seems like a dumb thing to do with a 'lack of housing'? Housing prices are a function of market demand, interest rates, and distorted somewhat by small amounts of inelastic demand from elsewhere.

But your original comment i.e. disusland is apt: the land is very valuable. The city should ideally zone it for whatever purpose we think is best, and then sell it. Then it will very actively 'used' for the purposes in which we have zoned it, and we don't need to worry at all about managing it.

Surely there are some strategic things we could to, but again that has a lot to do with zoning: maybe we want a big park, maybe a huge shopping mall, maybe 10000 identical homes, maybe 10000 entirely unique homes, maybe giant factories, maybe tiny factories - we can mostly zone and regulate for what we want.

dade_4• 7 years ago

There are so many uninformed opinions here. The land is already being developed, it is well underway. There is substantial infrastructure, and decontamination projects ongoing for many years. Waterfront Toronto is a three level of government partnership (Federal, provincial and local) that plans the public spaces, roadways, transit and sells the land to developers to fund their activities (so yes, a lot of money). Sidewalk labs partnered with them to integrate smart city ideas, etc. The complexities of the situation are due to the fact that Sidewalk labs is really just the front end of many different companies that would provide the technology to make it happen.

mabbo4• 7 years ago

Then why is Toronto very aggressively bringing in 100K people per year into the city

Toronto doesn't choose who comes here. It's not stealing people from around the world and forcing them to come, nor does it try to stop anyone from migrating. Toronto is just a great city and the world wants to live here. We're the most multicultural city on the planet for that reason. We're something special, and I live here in part because I celebrate that special quality.

Second, and more importantly, as you said the price of housing is a function of supply and demand. With rising demand, supply side must keep up to prevent housing prices from looking like Vancouver or San Francisco.

Where we do agree is in what should be done: zone for tall buildings and dense land use, auction the land, build as much as we can as quickly as we can.

Fricken6• 7 years ago

A study was done and they determined the main reason Nimbys are Nimbys is because they don't like the idea of developers making money by building things near them:

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/09/what-if-nimbys-hate-d...

mabbo4• 7 years ago

That's really fascinating.

I'm not bothered by developers making money. They're a very important part of the housing system. But what does bother me is when you have buildings poorly constructed, made to be cheap to build but expensive to maintain. Most of the condos along the waterfront meet that criteria.

Even my own building, which on the whole is pretty well built, has to undergo a huge renovation to each unit because the developer used plastic piping instead of copper and it's failing. The developer saved a few bucks, and I'm paying for it years later.

I'm a YIMBY- so long as the developer isn't cutting corners.

hi5eyes• 7 years ago

citylab is also toronto based

null000• 7 years ago

Tbf, the problem comes in when developers (or someone - developers are probably just the most visible) make a pile of cash for coming in, pushing renters out of a small numbed of relatively affordable units, ploping down a building with a large number of completely in affordable units, and causing a huge headache for everyone living in the area in the process.

I'm generally for development, but the way it's carried out in many cases tends to screw over existing residents while benefitting mostly just people-who-dont-live-there.

hedora3• 7 years ago

As is commonly the case with Citylab, this article is drawing conclusions that don’t follow from the evidence. Toward the bottom, it points this out:

But the study wasn’t entirely conclusive, Monkkonen says. By making the development frame about the process as a whole—the question posed to respondents suggests that the city gave the developer a special permit to build at a higher density than usual—they’ve partly conflated a distrust in government with a distrust in development.

It is not surprising if you tell people the local government is letting one developer ignore the rules, and that the developer will make a pile of cash because of it, that people get suspicious.

The reason is that real estate developers routinely openly bribe government officials, ruin existing communities, break community development promises, make tons of money, and are never punished.

The president and his immediate family are high profile examples of this, but this has happened multiple times in every area I’ve ever lived in (in multiple states).

ajcodez• 7 years ago

And probably by a developer making money by cutting every corner in the build.

Well at least Concord didn’t get it. You can remove surveillance but it’s hard to undo a bunch of ugly condo towers.

60654• 7 years ago

The opposition to this is not just from the privacy perspective, there's also the issue of data ownership, and giving all this data away to Google for free. And once it's owned, both cities and citizens lose all control and oversight - you can't get yourself removed from the dataset, impose restrictions on how this personal data will be used, etc.

There are some good quotes in this older Reuters story (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-cities-privacy-fea...):

The proposal amounts to “permanent surveillance” and “massive data scraping” under the guise of fighting climate change, he said. “They are conducting an experiment in real time, in the real world: the privatization of our cities on a large scale. They will have intellectual property rights over all of this (data).”
“We live in a system that values property rights,” Orasch told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “In that system, data is a valuable asset for an individual to have.”

And the developer asking for investment money and a cut of property taxes, on top of gathering all this private data and owning it forever without oversight, is just icing on the cake. :)

rory0962• 7 years ago

This article has poor fact-checking. For example, the quote by the Queen's University professor is not accurate (or, charitably, outdated as of the time of publishing).

The proposal amounts to “permanent surveillance” and “massive data scraping” under the guise of fighting climate change, he said.
“They are conducting an experiment in real time, in the real world: the privatization of our cities on a large scale. They will have intellectual property rights over all of this (data).”

In October 2018 Sidewalk proposed a third party "Civic Data Trust" that would own and maintain the data. Its blog post on the subject reiterates repeatedly that the data cannot and should not be owned by Sidewalk:

No one has a right to own information collected from Quayside’s physical environment — including Sidewalk Labs. Instead, this “urban data” should be under the control of an independent Civic Data Trust.
No one should own urban data — it should be made freely and publicly available.
We believe all data needs protection, but the extent to which urban data specifically may be collected in Quayside is what’s new and different here. Existing laws on urban data do not address ownership. And urban data is only regulated when it contains personally identifiable information. Even then, these rules are often not followed in the public realm. We seek to build on them.

https://www.sidewalklabs.com/blog/an-update-on-data-governan...

hedora3• 7 years ago

Presumably, if the Civic Data Trust proposal was more than a shell game, Sidewalk Lab’s privacy chief wouldn’t have said they were building a surveillance system in the resignation letter.

Barrin92• 7 years ago

Didn't they already break this promise when they absorbed NHS data from deepmind back into Google, only two years after suggesting that Google would never obtain them?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/14/google-be...

In other words, do we have any assurances that these third parties can't be restructured with a sleight-of-hand?

Waterluvian• 7 years ago

Canada is like this little brother always in America's big shadow. One thing we don't talk about as much is how we have this recurring fear that big American corporations think, "oh this won't fly in the U.S. but just use Canada. They're simple and slow and will tolerate it."

I guess put simply, the little brother is worried he'll get exploited. It's partly why the fight for NAFTA and tariffs got so bitter.

sonnyblarney4• 7 years ago

"a smart city built from the internet up "

I really don't understand the appeal of statement.

pxue• 7 years ago

where every sidewalk garbage-bin will have its own instagram fan page!

alxmdev• 7 years ago

And record who throws what out, and issue ads or fines accordingly! So much room for innovation.

scarejunba2• 7 years ago

* Real time additional self-driving buses responding to demand spikes.

* Rubbish bins full? The city knows and sends help.

* Demand pricing parking in a region

I can think of a dozen ideas in seconds.

sunir5• 7 years ago

None of them are happening. What is happening is a vague statement that left a void where futurists like yourself have filled in with hype fueled imaginings of their own.

The basic economics deny all 3 of your suggestions. The TTC doesn’t have smart buses. Garbage collection is regulated through citywide contracts to private collectors who are not going to waste their own margin on off schedule collection. Same with parking, which is run through a city agency Green P that would have to adapt its systems for one neighbourhood?

While all are theoretically possible it would require a lot more economic infrastructure than one corporate neighbourhood.

So set your expectations to more mundane levels. Public wifi and surveillance cameras like in Beijing.

notatoad3• 7 years ago

I actually hope this project goes through, just because if it's google doing it everybody will be watching closely and there might actually be some privacy regulations that come out of it. The data they'll want to collect is valuable, and sooner or later somebody is going to try to collect it.

Kicking google out of the city doesn't change that, it just means somebody you're less likely to suspect and more likely to sell raw data to the highest bidder will come in in their place.

overkill28• 7 years ago

Putting aside privacy for a moment, does anyone know what they're actually building? As far as I know they've sold the city on a bunch of vague "smart tech" promises without any concrete details.

I have no idea what Sidewalk Labs business plan is, but it seems like a traditional business executive (Dan Doctoroff) is trying to use Google's brand to get access to cities so he can build large developments without actually knowing anything about technology.

sunir5• 7 years ago

Because it has been a smokescreen and a chaotic mess, there is no trustworthy source of information of what the plan is or the agenda. For that reason alone it should be axed.

Fricken6• 7 years ago

People are very superstitious, and quite hysterical. Google isn't building a city, they're building a neighbourhood in one small section of Toronto that most Torontonians never went to anyhow, and are under no obligation to go to after it has been rebuilt.

Postwar Urban development is fucking monotonous and largely the same everywhere. We should experiment and try different things. If you don't like it, fine. Get together with a few thousand like-minded people and build your own neighbourhood, the way you like it.

dade_4• 7 years ago

It's the public waterfront and one of the busiest recreation trails in the city pass through it, so actually it really does matter. Google, rather Sidewalk labs, screwed up royally, but what they learned is invaluable. No idea if this particular project can be salvaged, but anyone wanting to build a smart city should study the lessons.

Fricken6• 7 years ago

Will you no longer be able to pass through it recreationally after Google builds there?

I was out this morning in Edmonton riding my bike through the urban blight and stopping to climb at my favorite buildering spots, on retaining walls and bridge abutments, sound barricades and shuttered buildings where no one will bother me, but I would much prefer it if that whole section of my city was actually a functional, aestheticly appealing and economically productive neighbourhood.

mthoms• 7 years ago

Torontonians never went there because it was an industrial wasteland. But it's being re-zoned, and Toronto waterfront is quite possibly the most desired real-estate in the entire country outside Vancouver.

If you don't like it, fine. Get together with a few thousand like-minded people and build your own neighbourhood, the way you like it.

Ridiculous. In what modern world is this actually possible? Certainly not Canada (nor the U.S. to the best of my knowledge).

Fricken6• 7 years ago

Yes, it's ridiculous and it shouldn't be. I'd love to live in a place where there are people and services, but no cars. Such a place does not (to my knowledge) exist in North America. We can't even have one place like that. It's gotta be the same shit everywhere.

sunir5• 7 years ago

This is an extremely bad argument. All neighbourhoods, houses, even cottage docks are controlled through planning in Ontario.

Sensible people recognize that the city will continue to exist hundreds of years into the future. We do not let any crazy person build whatever comes into their minds because failures end up being a problem for neighbours and the government ultimately to fix, which means other taxpayers.

If we don’t like it, we follow the law and complain to the planning committee. Like normal people. I don’t really get your position.

Fricken6• 7 years ago

Google's plan really isn't that crazy. If all the weird things they want to do didn't work out, you'd be left with a fairly conventional neighbourhood in keeping with progressive low-car urban design principles.

It's not like Google has carte blanche to do whatever they want, they've been in ongoing consultation with city planners from the start.

wmil3• 7 years ago

That's not actually true. Docks are controlled because they may interfere with navigable waterways.

But you can build any house you want on unincorporated land (no municipality).

wendyshu2• 7 years ago

Needless to say, Sidewalk Labs has not angered "Toronto", it has angered activists who don't live in the neighborhood and never will but apparently have veto power over what goes on there.

dade_4• 7 years ago

I do live here, not an activist, and Sidewalk lab can take a long walk off my short pier. They have a lot of work to do to repair/rebuild their reputation.

wendyshu2• 7 years ago

You live on Sidewalk Labs' property?

AzzieElbab3• 7 years ago

Yeah. Toronto waterfront project dates back to city's bid for 2008 olimpics. As far as I can tell, all that city managed to build is a small university campus

v7p1Qbt1im• 7 years ago

Could it be possible that Sidewalk could make money off this project and still advance city building significantly for the first time in forever? Would you rather see the the project go to another boring developer without vision? Another darb apartment park.

There is not even an actual complete proposal yet. And still, there is FUD coming in from all sides. I for one would like to see cities made for pedestrians with smart waste disposal and more interesting architecture than glass blocks.

alexashka• 7 years ago

I really wish there was a middle-way between 'let them do whatever they want' and 'let's protest and raise hysteria'.

Let's look at Downtown Toronto development over the past 10 years - condominiums built on every square inch of land that could be bought? In large part owned by people who don't plan to stay there long or even owned by a third party and rented out?

Ok, so that's what's been happening. What can Google possibly do, that is worse?

They're planning to try new things - go ahead and discuss the details you are not happy with. Just be aware of the alternative - cheap 30-40 story condominiums with 500 sq foot units, built to make a quick buck.

wolco2• 7 years ago

Collect privacy related data.

netwanderer3• 7 years ago

More and more people will just move away from city once these tech are deployed on a bigger scale. Life is too short to be subjected to this type of bullshit.

martincmartin2• 7 years ago

It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out nor more doubtful of success nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things; for the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order; this lukewarmness arising partly from the incredulity of mankind who does not truly believe in anything new until they actually have experience of it.

-- Nicolo Machiavelli (1469 - 1527)

Apocryphon• 7 years ago

There is really very little of Machiavelli's one can accept or use in the contemporary world. - Henry Kissinger

martincmartin2• 7 years ago

Well, that quote is really very little of Machiavelli. ;)

Element_• 7 years ago

Aside from the privacy concerns, condos in this area are currently selling for $1000+/sqft. All renderings I have viewed from Google's proposal show some assortment of low rise buildings. You will need to be a multimillionaire to live in a low rise style building if the units are sold at market rates. That type of development doesn't represent the interest of the majority of the citizens (the avg salary in the city is ~45k USD). The city should only be approving 100+ story structures in the downtown core until there is enough supply to meet demand and bring RE prices down to reflect local salaries.

breitling• 7 years ago

Absolutely. One of the reasons the real estate prices are so detached from local salaries is that there is a lot of suspected money laundering and Chinese speculators buying up properties and leaving them empty.

AzzieElbab3• 7 years ago

How is this Alphabet's fault?

Redoubts2• 7 years ago

Honestly, if outside speculators can wreck your housing prices, then your local government ducked up zoning and development laws really badly.

droithomme• 7 years ago

Interesting they were hoping to collect property taxes and other fees.

If Google wants to have a private company run utopian town to run experiments in, they should do like Disney did in Florida. Buy some swamp land, develop it, incorporate it privately, and have absolute control. This plan in Toronto seems to be corporate colonization of a public city, through stealth.

MDWolinski• 7 years ago

Except, of course, Google doesn't want that because much like 95% of their projects, they'll abandon it within 5 years anyways. Google wants the rewards, but not the risks, which with this project, they'll give the city to deal with after they lose interest in the project.

collective-intl• 7 years ago

I'm truly saddened to see the reaction people are having to Sidewalk Labs' project. The current feeling in the air is to distrust and hate any project touched by a large tech company and be suspicious of any amount of data collected.

The environment today is such that both journalists and readers just want to pile on and make their points speaking out against privacy intrusions and the greed of big companies.

No one's bothered to understand the actual proposals of Sidewalk Labs and give them a fair chance.

For example, in contrast to what this article says, Sidewalk Labs would not own and profit from resident's data -- instead they are trying to be as careful as possible and leaving it to an independent organization (https://www.sidewalklabs.com/blog/an-update-on-data-governan...).

Many cool ideas comprise Sidewalk Labs' vision, from the layout of a walkable community to convenient autonomous transport to pushing the leading edge of power conservation, waste management, and other eco-friendly tech.

In the age of dysfunctional cities like San Francisco, I had hope that a project bringing together a broad array of talented experts with real technical competence and letting them envision a model for cities of the future was a winning combination with huge potential for humanity.

Tragically, it has been doomed by the caprice of political fashion.

TAForObvReasons• 7 years ago

Google Fiber in Louisville is a great case study. Google thought there was a business wherein they could cheaply provide connectivity to users. Then there were problems, like exposed lines, and it became clear that fixing those problems would cost money. In that moment, they abruptly decided to bail, essentially leaving the city with the burden of fixing the mess Google created and leaving the early customers who committed to multi-year contracts only a few months to switch providers.

Politicians have to think longer term than what the current players in tech have demonstrated. This is 100% a self-created problem

Opposition to Sidewalk Labs in Toronto

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