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Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs abandons its Toronto smart neighborhood project
Waterfront Toronto’s vote on the draft MIDP has been delayed several times.
Key vote on Alphabet's smart neighborhood delayed over coronavirus
Sidewalk Labs, the part of Alphabet focused on smart cities, will have to wait a while longer to find out whether its Quayside project can go ahead. Waterfront Toronto, a tri-government organization spearheading the city's lakeside overhaul, has pushed the deadline for a decisive vote to June 25th. "In view of the COVID-19 pandemic, today the Waterfront Toronto Board of Directors passed a motion to extend the date for a decision on moving forward with the Quayside project with Sidewalk Labs," it said in a tweet.
Toronto rejects some of Sidewalk Labs’ smart neighborhood ideas
Sidewalk Labs will have to cede a little more ground on its vision for Quayside, a planned smart neighborhood in Toronto. The company, which is owned by Google-parent Alphabet, published a draft version of its Master Innovation and Development Plan (MIDP) last June. The technical document, which spans four volumes and almost 1,000 pages, is packed with proposals for how the district should be designed, funded and governed. Waterfront Toronto, a tri-government organization spearheading the city's lakeside overhaul, has now completed a technical evaluation of the draft MIDP, which will help its board decide whether to approve the project or sever ties with Sidewalk Labs entirely.
Toronto is reining in Sidewalk Labs’ smart city dream
Sidewalk Labs, the part of Google-parent Alphabet that's focused on futuristic cities and urban development, has agreed to compromise on a proposed smart neighborhood in Toronto. Back in June, the company submitted a draft MIDP (Master Innovation and Development Plan) for Quayside, an ambitious redevelopment project overseen by Waterfront Toronto. The publicly-funded organization immediately found issues with some of Sidewalk's suggestions, though, that needed to be fixed before it could formally consult and evaluate the plan.
Sidewalk Labs finally publishes its smart city master plan
Better late than never. Sidewalk Labs, the part of Alphabet focused on cities and urban development, has unveiled its Master Innovation and Development Plan (MIDP) for a proposed smart neighborhood on Toronto's Eastern Waterfront. The MIDP is called a "draft," but it's the first official pitch document that sets out the company's vision for the area. It will be scrutinized by Waterfront Toronto, a publicly-funded organization, and ultimately, voted on by its board and the Toronto city council in late 2019 and early 2020. If it goes through, Sidewalk hopes to begin construction on the first part -- a site called Quayside -- before 2021. The company has shared morsels of its smart city vision before. These include the 200-page document that helped it secure the project -- that is, the right to develop the MIDP -- back in October 2017. Since then, Sidewalk Labs has been stuck in a research phase, consulting with experts and gathering public feedback. The team has shared some, but not all of its evolving ideas through a mixture of live events, blog posts, PDF presentations and podcasts. These snippets, it always emphasized, were exploratory and subject-to-change ahead of its all-important MIDP. The document, even in draft form, solidifies the company's thinking. It also gives Toronto residents their clearest picture yet of what a smart neighborhood spearheaded by Sidewalk Labs -- and by extension, Google -- might look like. Below, we've summarized the main features that will likely spark debate in the coming months.
Alphabet's smart neighborhood could have shape-shifting 'superblocks'
Too many cities are built around cars rather than people. Sidewalk Labs, an offshoot of Google's parent company Alphabet, wants its smart neighborhood in Toronto to be different. It's considering a so-called superblock concept, modeled after Barcelona's, that bundles smaller streets together and limits vehicles to the perimeter. The smaller lanes inside each superblock would then become safer, quieter spaces for pedestrians and cyclists. Sidewalk Labs wants to go a step further, though, with real-time traffic monitoring and movable street furniture. These would allow the company to create smart, dynamic superblocks that subtly change with the time of day and needs of its residents.
Canada is being sued over Sidewalk Labs' smart city project
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) is suing three levels of government and Waterfront Toronto, a publicly-funded organization, over a planned smart neighborhood in Quayside. The suit claims that two legal agreements drawn up between Waterfront Toronto and Sidewalk Labs, an offshoot of Google's parent company Alphabet, violate the personal and collective privacy rights of Canadian citizens. "The Google-Waterfront Toronto deal is invalid and needs to be reset," Michael Bryant, Executive Director and General Counsel for the CCLA said during a press conference yesterday. "These agreements are contrary to administrative and constitutional law, and set a terrible precedent for the rest of this country."
Sidewalk Labs is under pressure to explain its smart city dream
Sidewalk Labs, the part of Alphabet focused on smart cities, is behind schedule. The company had planned to publish its grand vision for Quayside, a 12-acre site on Toronto's industrial waterfront, in the fall of 2018. Last June, however, the first version of its crucial Master Innovation and Development Plan (MIDP) was pushed back to early 2019. "It will be a comprehensive document, but still a work-in-progress," a press release clarified at the time. A complete MIDP would then be published in "spring 2019," the company said, following a public roundtable.
Sidewalk Labs reveals site plan for smart neighborhood in Toronto
Sidewalk Labs' smart neighborhood in Toronto is edging closer to becoming a reality after it revealed the initial draft plan for the site. It's proposing that Quayside should be focused around 12 mass-timber buildings, with a maximum height of 30 stories and a mix of residential, retail and commercial spaces in each.
Google’s smart city dream is turning into a privacy nightmare
Sidewalk Labs, an Alphabet division focused on smart cities, is caught in a battle over information privacy. The team has lost its lead expert and consultant, Ann Cavoukian, over a proposed data trust that would approve and manage the collection of information inside Quayside, a conceptual smart neighborhood in Toronto. Cavoukian, the former information and privacy commissioner for Ontario, disagrees with the current plan because it would give the trust power to approve data collection that isn't anonymized or "de-identified" at the source. "I had a really hard time with that," she told Engadget. "I just couldn't... I couldn't live with that."
