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

You say Google, eh?

[olsmeister]

I'm guessing the real goal here is Panopticon:Toronto, where all activities are monitored and monetized.

Re:You say Google, eh?

[Mashiki]

The real goal is to rebuild the waterfront, where this is taking place because no developer wanted to deal with the absolute bureaucratic nightmare known as Toronto to do it. Then didn't want anything to do with the bureaucratic nightmare from the province of Ontario and the insane environmental regulations and impact studies. This has been going on since the mid-90's, and the previous Toronto governments drove away investment, and the current Liberal Party policies ensured that nobody wanted to do anything with it. It actually got worse under the leadership of the Liberal Party(under Dalton McGuinty), several groups were looking at pooling together and rebuilding it back in 2000. The 2003 election changed that, especially with the anti-industry and anti-development platforms pushed by the party.

Now see the finances of Ontario and Toronto. Toronto has a massive budget shortfall and is hoping that this will stop the lending market from downgrading the city by showing "future revenue" from it. Toronto itself isn't much different in terms of mismanagement then Detroit or Chicago. And the Liberal Party of Ontario is hoping the same, because they've caused the province to be downgraded repeatedly due to the massive debt load. As a comparison, when Greece's debt imploded it was at $300B. Ontario is at $315B with roughly the same population(11m) or 1/3 of the population of Canada. And the debt level under the current government went fro 113B to 315B in 20 years, but in general the province has nothing to show for it outside of Toronto itself.

Re:You say Google, eh?

[HanzoSpam]

At least they picked the right city to build it in. Toronto is half way there already.

Re:You say Google, eh?

[93 Escort Wagon]

It actually got worse under the leadership of the Liberal Party(under Dalton McGuinty), several groups were looking at pooling together and rebuilding it back in 2000. The 2003 election changed that, especially with the anti-industry and anti-development platforms pushed by the party.

Well of COURSE things went south under Mayor McGinty - anyone who’s read Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Valley of Fear would’ve seen that coming.

Re:You say Google, eh?

[b0s0z0ku]

Pond scum are actually useful -- they make O2 from CO2. These employees, less so..

Re:You say Google, eh?

[Mashiki]

Is that it? You want all of the wealth and productivity to benefit you, as your royal majesty demands?

In 1992, three counties made up 30% of Ontario's GDP via manufacturing. None of them were in Toronto, today those three counties make less then 2% of Ontario's GDP. Where's the businesses you ask? They fled to the US and Mexico where taxes were cheaper.

Now ask yourself, where is all that wealth when the average middle class home in Toronto/GTA is over $1.7M and you're only making $83k/year.

Re:You say Google, eh?

[erp_consultant]

I read with some amusement, and some sadness, about something called the Debt Retirement Charge. There is a government run utility called Ontario Hydro that supplies the vast majority of electricity for the province of Ontario. It has Niagara Falls, one of the largest free energy sources on the planet, to supply the juice to power their generators. Yet somehow Ontario Hydro managed to run up a debt of 38.1 billion dollars. All of it via corruption, mismanagement and stupidity. The taxpayers of Ontario then became responsible for this debt - known as the Debt Retirement Charge. A surcharge that gets tacked on to your monthly electric bill.

For many homeowners saddled with huge mortgage payments for a house that is vastly overvalued (think San Francisco prices), electricity has become affordable.

I left Toronto in 1996 and it was the best move I ever made. The people I left behind constantly complain to me about unaffordable housing, nightmarish traffic, high taxes, inefficient and corrupt government, and wages that don't come close to keeping up with the spiraling cost of living there. Everything south of Front St. is built on a landfill.

Toronto is despised by nearly every Canadian that does not live in Toronto. It has a reputation of being smug, arrogant, and "too American". Toronto has a long history of these kinds of grandiose projects - CN Tower, Domed Stadium, Canada's Wonderland - and the Google City will be yet another vain attempt to cement itself as a "world class city". I weep for the taxpayers of this once beautiful and proud city.

Re:You say Google, eh?

[Mashiki]

Well Toronto isn't "too american" and really hasn't even been the case. What it was back years ago was a very arrogant version of elite canpol(think ottawa on steroids), wrapped around the arrogance of multiculturalism. It's only gotten worse without a doubt. But it's sure got the smug, arrogant, and fuck you attitude going for it.

The electricity rates are multiple fuckups on top of multiple fuckups. Another good one is that Ontario is paid by the US $0.03kWh when there is demand for electricity, and when there is no demand, Ontario pays the US 0.07kWh to buy it. I like living in the SWON, but if push comes to shove I'll just move to Alberta. Plenty of open land, cheap bush, and you can take your pick of big city or small town life.

Internet up

[fluffernutter]

Was it built "from the internet up with open-standard technologies"? Otherwise, no freaking thanks!

Re: Internet up

[Bing Tsher E]

'You can't use open standards here! This is the google room!'

So the Internet will move the bums out?

[Anonymous Coward]

Last work conference we had at the Harbourfront Hotel in TO I stepped out for a smoke and nearly stepped in human feces on the sidewalk. Not in India or SE Asia, but Toronto.

Yeah the Internet will magically get rid of all the meth and crack and whores and bums! FOR SURE!

Re:So the Internet will move the bums out?

[Anonymous Coward]

The homeless bums shitting on your sidewalk used to be coders before you fucking outsourced their jobs to india. You deserve to step in shit, asshole.

Google Fiber, anyone?

[DogDude]

Google couldn't even handle creating a basic ISP. There's no way they're going to follow through on this.

You cannot centrally plan large-scale success

[Anonymous Coward]

As the complexity of a system increases, so does the need for its design to be driven by the process of evolution via variation and selection.

This implies that the area should be open to the activities of a free market, where competition among producers will yield variations, and choice among consumers will yield selective forces.

It is a well known area in Toronto

[Anonymous Coward]

It is an old industrial area made on reclaimed land (landfill), right on the waterfront. Due to little/no restrictions on what that landfill was in the early days, and its old industrial heritage, it is land that is pretty badly polluted. Being on landfill, I'm guessing that foundations for highrise buildings would be difficult/expensive.

Personally, I'd like to see it becoming industrial again. A big reason I left Toronto was that I liked working with my hands, but there is not really any industry left in Toronto. In the 80s/90s property taxes on industry were hugely increased, and they all moved to the suburbs. This was the intent. Politicians didn't want any dirty industrial stuff left in the city. Now if you want to live/work in Toronto, it will have to be in an office or doing construction.

Re:It is a well known area in Toronto

[Yaztromo]

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

What’s with Slashdot’s headline writer

[93 Escort Wagon]

Why do they not understand the difference between the past and the future? Here is yet another story whose headline declares something has happened, yet the summary makes clear that the thing in question has not yet occurred. This project hasn’t even started yet.

Were people not paying attention in fourth grade English?

I wonder what the people of Toronto will think...

[QuietLagoon]

... when google's current tech is viewed as the 1984 Big Brother that it really is. Will they continue to be happy to be a part of this experiment?

Re:What’s with Slashdot’s headline wri

[Desler]

Except in this case built is an adjective:

built
adjective
Definition of built for English Language Learners
—used to say that someone or something has the right qualities for or to do something
: made, formed, or shaped in a specified way

https://www.merriam-webster.co...

Grammar nazi fail.

Canada has privacy laws

[sinij]

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.

Re:What’s with Slashdot’s headline wri

[93 Escort Wagon]

No, when used in that manner the word is generally paired with “for” or “to do” - e.g. “built for speed”.

Not to mention that the headline in question doesn’t actually work in the context you provide - what is the supposed “for” or “to do” word or phrase being modified?

Re:This smells like Ford in the early 1900s

[b0s0z0ku]

It ended very well -- authoritarian experiments tend to fail, and that's a GOOD thing!

Panopticon city

[XSportSeeker]

nothankyou.jpg