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.

Comments

Re:You say Google, eh?

[Mashiki]

That's premier. I'm far more amused at the people labeling my comment as "troll" instead of figuring out that ~15 years of the same policies over and over and over and over again, haven't increased the wealth of well anyone. Not the poor, not the middle class, not the wealthy either. The problem in Ontario, is that there's such a high density of people in the GTA that it's effectively a voting block all on it's own. The liberals for the last 15 years have promised that area everything under the sun for votes, and given them well...nothing. Wages are flat, income is flat, taxes have gone up, energy prices have gone through the roof. 60k people have been disconnected from electricity. 650k are 6mo or more in arrears for electricity. The largest utility in the province only has 1.3M customers and they control nearly the entire electrical grid.

The goverments plan to boost the minimum wage to $15/hr has cost 60k jobs in the first fiscal quarter, on track for another 70k jobs lost this fiscal quarter. Brilliant right? Now the people who were working 2 $12-13/hr jobs only have one. And despite the claims that "canada is booming" well it is, but only if you want a minimum wage job and work two or three of them to make ends meet.

The people who've felt it the worst is everyone outside of the GTA. To put in perspective just how lopsided the voting is for Americans, look at California in a state election, now think of San Francisco. Imagine that in order to control the state, you only had to run your campaign in that city. That's what Ontario is like.