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Google's Toronto City Built 'From the Internet Up' (bbc.com)
On Toronto's Eastern waterfront, a new digital city is being built by Sidewalk Labs -- a firm owned by Google's parent Alphabet. It hopes the project will become a model for 21st-Century urbanism. From a report: But the deal has been controversial, representing one of biggest ever tie-ups between a city and a large corporation. And that, coupled with the fact that the corporation in question is one of the largest tech firms in the world, is causing some unease. Sidewalk Labs promises to transform the disused waterfront area into a bustling mini metropolis, one built "from the internet up," although there is no timetable for when the city will actually be built. Dan Doctoroff, the company's head and former deputy mayor of New York, told the BBC the project was "about creating healthier, safer, more convenient and more fun lives. We want this to be a model for what urban life can be in the 21st Century," he said. The area will have plenty of sensors collecting data -- from traffic, noise and air quality -- and monitoring the performance of the electric grid and waste collection.
Unlike US, Canada has some privacy laws. People object to this development because it will be 24/7 monitored area of the city that would spy on everyone in the vicinity, not just the people that signed up to live there.
Being on landfill, I'm guessing that foundations for highrise buildings would be difficult/expensive.
Everything south of Front street is landfill. When Front Street was laid down in 1796 (!), it was right along the shoreline of Lake Ontario.
As such, the CN Tower, Skydome (yeah, I still refuse to call it the "Rogers Centre"), the Air Canada Centre, Lakeshore Blvd, the Gardiner Expressway, The Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Union Station, and all those condos on Queens Quay are built on landfill.
(Interesting note -- the Harbour Commission building used to be right on the lakeshore. It's now about half a kilometre inland).
Yaz