Google’s Founders Wanted to Shape a City – Toronto Is Their Chance | Hacker News Reader

Google’s Founders Wanted to Shape a City – Toronto Is Their Chance

nytimes.com

93 pointswallflower98 comments

It’s hard to “move fast and break things” in government because in modern city development, neighbourhood consultation is the basis of how decisions are made, and for good reason.

Neighbourhood consultation is a reaction to past urban planning regrets and failures, where heavy handed government “urban renewal” initiatives razed entire neighbourhoods, most often marginalized and ethnic minority ones.

In the worst case community consultation can be distorted into blind NIMBYism that serves only to slow down all development, but nonetheless we know that from our previous mistakes that consultation is required.

I would count myself among those a bit concerned about Silicon Valley being so eager to “fix” problems with cities. Will Sidewalk Labs employ and listen to urban planning experts that have studied cities for their entire careers or is Toronto going to be a sandbox for clueless software engineers' pet theories?

Will Google be so eager to test out self driving cars that they’ll discount and ignore decades of knowledge about how cars impact neighbourhoods?

> clueless software engineers

I think it's a bit unfair to assume out of hand that they'll be clueless.

The other side of the coin is that new ideas often come from outside of a field. Sometimes expertise can mean expertise in the established, unquestioned dogma of a field. (I'm saying that as a matter of principle. I don't know specifically what it's like in this case).

I definitely think we need more experimentation in society - small experiments to test out ideas, where successes can be copied elsewhere in the country and world.

One look at how badly google has managed their online communities, support, etc. suggests that this should be assumed until proven otherwise. There’s just such a track record of trying to conflate problems which can be automated with the problems the real world actually has.

They've handled a number of things poorly. But they're not a monolithic entity, and I don't think we can make assumptions about exactly who will be involved with this and how they'll handle it.

Why do we need to assume anything now, anyway? I think it's appropriate to be agnostic about it. We can't know until if and when it happens.

because by the time problems become blindingly apparent in parts of the city that have already been redeveloped, they are effectively unfixable.

This isn't an app, we're talking about here. These are people's lives.

Because this matters more than A/B testing the right way to get people to click on an ad. Some of these things could be easy to ignore but once you’re talking about building or traffic design, mistakes can take decades to fix and have a negative impact on people’s lives throughout that period.

As a reply to all the sibling comments: it's right to have concerns, and that is completely compatible with being agnostic about it. Being agnostic means not forming judgements if you don't have adequate information to do so. You can have concerns but that's different from acting like you know they actually will be problems.

When it comes to serious issues, with serious consequences, it's even more important to withhold any definitive judgement until you have adequate information! So many problems in the world seem to come down to people too hastily jumping to conclusions.

It could go full Fahrenheit 451 or 1984 with googles power of surveillance and monitoring. No doubt they may have the ability to implement helpful new technologies, but googles revenue model is still advertisement.

Or Black Mirror style with "freemium-subsidized condominiums". Imagine cheaper condos that you have to watch commercials every couple minutes, and of course they know if you're closing your eyes or not looking (think iPhone X).

Of course you can pay a higher rent to disable them and go "ad free". ;)

That doesn't actually sound too bad.

I wonder what prevents these at SF?

I think at that point advertisement ROI would be essentially 0 - though maybe not for things like market research. People would essentially find ways to block out the background noise either physically or mentally.

I'm doubtful that even the most invasive advertising would be capable of generating enough revenue. $1500/mo is still $50 a day. Say you're typically only home for a few waking hours in the evening— how do you consume enough advertising to pay for $50?

Buying home appliances a few times an year and watching recommended shows and movies could generate that amount (for young people with disposable income, at least).

Home appliances, cars, medicines seem likely candidates. I think it would be used to assess demand for new products as well.

A point worth making is that this is not Google, it is Sidewalk Labs. I believe (ot maybe would like to believe) that part of the reason Alphabet was created was to remove these conflicts of interest.

> I believe (ot maybe would like to believe) that part of the reason Alphabet was created was to remove these conflicts of interest.

I think the more logical thing to believe is that it was created to remove the appearance of conflicts of interest for PR purposes and give them plausible deniability.

They already are.

https://security.stackexchange.com/q/169374/122495 ( How is Google's Sidewalk Labs Tracking me?)

> clueless software engineers

Will it really software engineers who get to decide what is built and get to try out their theories? I would think that it's some sort of product manager who makes these decisions (who I would actually expect to consult the customers and other stakeholders). Don't know if Google has a different hierarchy in terms of decision making than I expect though.

Or, you know, civic engineers. Google could hire some of those.

This is a pretty ridiculous statement. Implying that software engineers make all the decisions at all the Alphabet companies is misguided. Of course each org hires area experts so that they can build products that actually solve the problems of the respective areas.

> "It’s staffed by both technologists and government alums. Its leader, the former New York City deputy mayor Dan Doctoroff, openly acknowledges the gulf between technologists and city government types. And Sidewalk Labs says it wants to bridge the two."

Unrelated, on the bay area: If the community was open to development in anyway, perhaps there could be some creative solutions to traffic, housing, ect. NIMBYism unfortunately rules all decisions.

It's interesting that on one hand you stress the importance of neighbourhood consultation, yet on the other emphasize urban planning experts. These two can often be diametrically opposed in their views.

One of the biggest problems with neighbourhood consultation is NIMBYism - sometimes one neighbourhood will suffer (because of increased noise, construction, traffic, etc.) at the expense of broader urban planning initiatives. If every neighbourhood controls their own development you just can't get things done that might otherwise be good for the city.

Actually I could say the problem stems from giving outright control to neighbourhoods in terms of development committees - consultation is a good idea, but it can be taken too far.

Neighbourhood consultation and input is required, but this does not mean that neighbourhoods have a veto over any and all development.

Without neighborhood consultation, what will happen is that only the wealthy neighborhoods will have a voice, since the standard way to displace poor people is to say that it is "cheaper" and "better" for the city.

China is doing a pretty good job of building giant cities without much local consultation.

In SF, literally everyone has a voice and its terrible! A single citizen can seemingly delay any project indefinitely for a few hundred dollars. I have heard stories of land owners being denied permits to build on their property (including vacant lots) for up to a decade when their proposal meets all zoning restrictions and codes. Perhaps, apocryphal, but surely not far from the truth because SF has no right to build.

Japantown and the Western Addition at large were total disasters of course, but of late, urban planning has resurrected Hayes Valley and the Embarcadero against the wishes of the locals and only with the help of an earthquake!

I would argue that SV is in desperate need of disruption.

"A single individual [delayed] San Francisco’s plan to expand its network of bicycle lanes [...] Five years, several million taxpayer dollars and 2,200 pages of environmental review later, the plan finally was approved."

http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Califor...

There's so much hate for "NIMBYism" on here, why? Looking at the wikipedia article, it just means putting things undesirable to have in a residential area farther away from residential areas. Do you really want to live next to an airport? Is it so bad for people to want their neighborhood to be nice?

"it just means putting thinga undesirable to have in a residential area farther away from residential areas"

Infamously, at least in the Bay Area, the "undesirable things" in question are typically new neighbors.

I can easily see increased population density being a problem for an already crowded city, among the other arguments the residents have against building up more.

> an already crowded city

Ha!

If a city isn't already crowded then it makes sense for the residents to strongly oppose letting it become so.

To those saying "a big company shaping cities is bad" - take a hard look at how American cities are shaped now and the big companies who influenced the relevant policies. You're going to find oil, car, tire, etc companies at the forefront.

Also take a hard look at what happened to cities in the aftermath of corporate dependency. The midwest is littered with cities and towns that were left polluted and bankrupt after their corporate sponsor moved on.

How about the Northeast? NYC and Boston seem fine.

It's not really an issue of company, but industry. Cities that are single-industry are fragile.

And if a company (or set of companies) of a given industry is operating in a single industry city, they hold all the cards in that city. That is advantageous for these companies. It was in the past and it is now, even considering the push of big companies back into cities.

A lot of corporations moved out of cities and into small municipalities / smaller states in the second half of the 20th century. They were given the gold-star treatment with tax breaks, infrastructure projects to support their corporate campuses, etc. I know a town in New Jersey where Lokheed Martin employs probably more than half of the home owners in the town. Who do you think runs that town?

Lockheed Martin is actually incredible in the scope that it influences government. The reason the F-35 continued to have such strong support even after numerous reports of design flaws and massive cost overruns: Lockheed spread the development of the F-35 over 46 states, so almost any Congressman who acts against the F-35 program acts against jobs in his or her own state.

http://www.businessinsider.com/this-map-explains-the-f-35-fi...

I always had a suspicion the 787 was just a thinly veiled union-busting activity but your description of LM's shenanigans makes me wonder if Boeing was trying to learn some new tricks from Lockheed...

> Lockheed Martin is actually incredible in the scope that it influences government. The reason the F-35 continued to have such strong support even after numerous reports of design flaws and massive cost overruns: Lockheed spread the development of the F-35 over 46 states, so almost any Congressman who acts against the F-35 program acts against jobs in his or her own state.

That's not something special about the F-35, except maybe in execution details; the strategy has been well-known and frequently practiced by many defense contractors (and commented on by critics of defense procurement) for many years before the F-35 project.

So yes, big companies shaping cities is bad.

Probably. Probably unavoidable. I think I'd rather have Google doing it than Exxon. I'm excited to see how this pans out!

American cities were generally not shaped directly by the companies, rather, by the economy made from those companies.

Lots of cars = big stores = possibility for suburbs.

Exxon did not say to the President: 'build suburbs because it's good for cars'.

I believe Google has considerably more goodwill - at the same time...

We've known for 100's of years how to build good cities

Cities are about people, culture and architecture - not 'wifi' and 'hyper-loops'.

Many North American cities are trying to get people to bicycle - yeah - that's retrograde ! and good. We don't need tech for that.

Utopian thinking usually ends up in dystopia because of the arrogance of the 'visionaries' - they over emphasize some things, and fail to recognize the underlying, important things.

I can't think of a single 'modern' city, truly designed in the modern era that is a glowing example of 'how it should be'.

All the great places to live are old - built before cars, interesting architecture, and some kind of local culture with nice people, low crime, fresh air. That's mostly what you need.

Want a hyperloop? Sure. Put it underground where nobody can see it, and it serves it's function: getting people from A->B.

> Many North American cities are trying to get people to bicycle - yeah - that's retrograde ! and good. We don't need tech for that.

When there are no bike lanes it's a problem.

> Exxon did not say to the President: 'build suburbs because it's good for cars'.

Yes he did. A few examples of what oil/car folks did: dismantle public transit, make sure negative externalities of cars are not directly paid, lobby congress to pay for 90% of highways and make transit funding less/harder to get, get into wars for oil, take over planning departments at highly regarded colleges and change curriculum to churn out car focused planners.

Don't forget that Eisenhower created the Interstate System [1] which was car based and heavily advertised for traveling for Americans, while also being a national security need for military transport.

Creating the interstate systems did kill trains but also greatly influenced where cities and economies sprang up. It also made the US a car culture and locked it in, which worked great for big areas of undeveloped land at the time, and allowed people to move around more freely.

I'd love a president or government in the US to do the same and make an electric car interstate system, basically just giving it to companies like Tesla or others with conditions. Basically start adding electric car charging stations and add an iteration to the interstates, make them self-driving capable and more.

Or a president or government policy to get gigabit broadband across the nation as a new baseline of digital transportation of data that will open up unforseen new products and markets.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System

Tokyo is what I would consider modern and is miles ahead of most of the big cities I have lived in or visited. Just having public transport that respects their customers (unlike the TTC in Toronto) is already a big improvement.

Tokyo is so dense that they have a need for that.

TTC is killed by the unions.

The Toronto Subway has changed collectors - 7 of whom, in 2016 earned more than $100K.

I'm not making a political statement - just indicating that public transit in Toronto can't move without the unions - and unless you want to pay through the teeth - and keep jobs around where they don't need to be ... no future.

In Frankfurt, most stations have no staff, it's mostly the 'honour system'.

There are some 'token machines' in Toronto but it's archaic in 2017 to be paying people to 'make change'.

I'm fine with 'employing them' but surely there is something more productive they could do.

The one competitive advantage I see them having (and they don't usually even do that well) is giving directions. If the city has to shut down for a few days to kill the unions I am all for it. Multiple delays getting from point a to point b and dead aircon for an entire summer is inexcusable after you've seen how well a city transit system can be run.

If it takes Google scanning my Google ID and filling out a CAPTCHA to get on the subway to achieve this then so be it, the current system embarrasses me when I have foreign friends visit.

This is it.

Some systems are so backwards they will never be fixed, they will be disrupted. But don't discount the power of unions.

You could have, in Google Village Toronto - literally the coolest and most advanced transit system in the world - and the TTC Change Collectors could still be there.

It takes a mayor or Premier who is basically willing to burn a ton of political capital to take them on - and it never happens.

Current Premier Wynne is bribing the unions for votes.

It's a problem with populism - and one of the ugly/secret reasons that public transit is not expanded in more places: bureaucracy, complexity, unions, cabals, systems-in-place.

I don't like Google, but yes, let's hope they can disrupt public transit.

> I believe Google has considerably more goodwill

I wish this idea would die. They are an ad company. They want to stuff themselves into every facet of your life and milk you for information.

If someone told me 20 years ago that people would become "fans" of massive advertising companies that engage in mass surveillance at levels that would make the Stasi blush, and delude themselves into believing those ad companies "care about them and just want to help", I'd have called them crazy.

Now, watching it all actually unfold, I'm starting to wonder if I'm crazy.

You're not crazy. Ad companies are great at marketing themselves and getting better and better. Many people buy into it although and it's concerning how aggresive Google, Facebook and Amazon are with bringing their eco-systems into every facet of our lives.

I think the difference here is a company building a community rather than a community building around a company.

A modern example of the latter is visible in the municipalities clamouring to accommodate Amazon. Time will tell if that one ends in another broken city.

Yeah, and that is exactly why they are saying it.

The urban rail systems of 100 years ago were ripped out of the streets and replaced with bus-lines and consumer automobiles after considerable lobbying effort from auto-manufacturers. Public rail infrastructure has never really bounced back.

When the interstate highway system was designed and built, it bulldozed through dozens, if not hundreds, of lower income / minority neighborhoods. The public housing projects constructed as a replacement became problematic straight away. Guess which large companies at the forefront of the push for an interstate highway system?

Point is American cities have been shaped by these corporate forces for along time. In many of those cases, perhaps most, their influence and actions have hurt the community, disbanded or destroyed neighborhoods, made transportation more expensive and nightmarish (traffic), and benefited the bottom lines of 3rd party interest groups / corporations.

That is why we are skeptical of Google, or any other for profit large institution, influencing urban planning. Far better to set standards of urban design and have multiple smaller institutions, some for profit, some not for profit, some collectivized to represent of organized neighborhoods, all develop and participate in a dynamic urban planning system.

Those urban rail systems were built by huge, monopolistic corporations, and were generally ripped out by local governments— e.g. Fiorella LaGuardia used WPA employees to tear out NYC's trolleys: http://www.nytimes.com/1975/07/09/archives/last-trolleys-rol... And much of the mid-20th century suburbanization that gutted American cities for decades was driven by high-minded federal policy, prototyped by that of Rexford Tugwell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rexford_Tugwell

To me, the lessons of 20th century American urban policy are more about the dangers in embracing the wrong technology (automobiles as the solution to all transportation problems) and rebuilding cities to serve that, as opposed to a simplistic story about private interests destroying down public goods.

Toronto is already one of the best walkable cities in North America (Jane Jacobs even moved there)

Why not fix a place that has more problems, like this suggestion, Let's Build A Village From A Parking Lot http://andrewalexanderprice.com/blog20151203.php#.WejmJ4hOk2...

AFAIK, Sidewalk Labs in NYC has just put up fast-speed Internet WiFi stations that also function as advertising billboards and phone stations (and phone charging stations) at the same time. This Wired story has some photos: https://www.wired.com/2016/02/googles-city-fixing-sidewalk-l...

It looks like they're looking to do a lot more than that in Toronto?

In short, they're going to build a neighbourhood from the bottom up.

When SF made a deal like that with JCDEcaux, they got pay toilets.

They already are.

https://security.stackexchange.com/q/169374/122495 ( How is Google's Sidewalk Labs Tracking me?)

I just hope they make the area dense in population, and design it for the pedestrian and not the car.

I have no real bearing on it yet, but if their former projects are any tell, it's likely they will want a mix. They do a lot of traffic optimization research. Maybe this is their chance to implement some of it. It will be interesting should this go forward.

There's a town hall on November 1. If I can make it work I'm going to go.

I've only visited a few times, and someone local could probably give a better idea of how the area is, but my impression of downtown Toronto was that while it is car-accessible it is also very pedestrian friendly. Lots of sidewalk and mass transit options and a downtown that has locals walking around at night (versus emptying out when everybody goes home at the end of the office day).

You mean like all cities were built 100 years ago?

We already know how to build great cities.

No tech or vision is needed.

Just some basic insight.

The 'urban planners' of the 1950s-1970s really created the monster of the suburbs, now they're going to mess with the city?

No thanks. Vienna is a great, clean, walkable, functional city.

Want a hyperloop? Put it underground.

Want wifi? Make it so it's not physically obtuse.

There. Modern city.

See?

Yup, I pretty much mean like good old european cities.

I want cities of the future to be an evolution over cities of the past instead of an evolution over cities of the present.

That's why many European cities are trying to go back where they came from. London changed many roads in the 60s-80s, introducing one-way roads to improve traffic flow. This is now reversed to slow down traffic and improve life for pedestrians & cyclists. In other areas (bank junction, oxford street), cars are banned completely.

Big cities with good public transport have no real need for any private traffic at daytime. Deliveries are mostly done overnight anyway and taxis are only tolerated because they create a lot of jobs.

They set goals of 20% car ownership rate, 15% of trips made by private vehicles, and less than half the parking spaces of comparable areas.

Is density really a good thing in any capacity beyond the single point of enabling more specialized jobs to exist there?

In my perspective density creates community and culture. Its much easier for people to walk around, explore and meet each other when things are designed for human scale.

Do people just strike up random conversations on the street like that? I've heard that's not appreciated in NYC in particular.

Not randomly on the street. But in the bars, and with neighbors, at shows, in the parcs, yes. Also roommates is probably one of the best ways to meet people as an adult.

Eh, I'm really glad I ended up getting a job with a salary that didn't necessitate a roommate. Had those in college, didn't like it.

In dense areas you usually don't need a car. All shops are close enough to walk as there are enough customers around. Dense mixed areas can also lead to short commute times.

And walkability is not just about traffic jams, it's about health. Walking to work is likely to improve health vs. driving.

Some downsides for me are long waits/required reservations at establishments, general crowdedness (in itself and how it enables pickpocketing etc), higher background noise, and more. Having experience with some different density levels throughout my life I'll probably always prefer some approximation to the "small town" style I grew up with.

I've lived in two cities in the UK in my life, Nottingham and London. I have never once felt the desire to learn how to drive. I can get public transport anywhere I want, and most of the time I can walk.

It's crazy to me how spread out some US cities are, I don't see any benefit to it.

This area of Toronto is difficult to get to. It's cut off from the rest of the city by a large elevated highway (Gardiner) and a huge river (Don River). It's neglected for a reason. I really think this would be detrimental to Sidewalk Labs' mission, all of the work would get ignored.

No way.

The harborfront has undergone a massive transformation the last couple of years and is one of the most dense residential areas in the city now. Also, it is projected to add 280,000 residents and 190,000 jobs in the coming years.

The city has reiterated time and time again that Toronto is a waterfront city, and they will continue to invest and prioritize heavily in this area.

Is Toronto among the class of cities that are relatively new enough to be shaped by a large corporation moving in? From what I've heard, a lot of the development in that town has happened in the postwar, and is still in rapid development mode.

It's a tad complicated. Toronto isn't that new. However a good portion of the city burned down in 1904 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_Toronto_(1904)

I didn't mean that the city itself was founded recently, more like compared to other east coast cities such as New York, Boston, or Montréal, a lot of parts of the city was built recently.

That's true. In part because of the great fire. In other cases, there was rolling development. There has been an influx of new tower construction over the past decade or so -- largely condos, mind you. As well as the Daniel Lee Chin crystal addition to the ROM and the new Varisty Blues stadium at U of T.

BlogTO has a large number of "then and now" photo series you can have a look at for comparison if you're interested.

http://www.blogto.com/city/2012/05/what_queen_west_used_to_l...

A city can be in 'perpetual rapid development' if they are constantly tearing down the old and building the new.

Toronto was reasonably spread out.

The Canadian economy is addicted to 'new construction' as a form of growth + plus mass-scale immigration. Without it, the GDP numbers would not be good. Granted - the GDP/capita numbers would be just fine, so the choice is ideological.

Toronto opened up it's downtown to residential construction and that has been most of the change: massive residential towers (or even smaller ones) closer to downtown.

Of course - the endless construction of identical looking homes for 100Km in all direction continues unabated.

Driving North out of Toronto now - it goes on forever: identical homes, a Timmies, a Starbucks, a Home Depot, a TD Bank, another batch of the same homes, a Timmies, a Starbucks, a TD Bank - reapeat ad nauseum.

I think the expansion has largely been a disaster and we'll look back on it mostly as an economic trick to fill as many homes as possible in a short period of time.

Well, at least it sounds like the opposite problem that the Bay Area has! And yet the real estate in Toronto is just as expensive?

Real Estate in TO is expensive, but nowhere near SF.

SF has:

A) Earthquakes B) The Bay is a hodgepodge of cities. TO is mostly one big city under the same management. C) SF has quirky and specific views of 'how they ought to be'. Oddly conflicting at times.

There's plenty of geography around the Bay - there's no reason that SF 'has to go vertical' while the other areas don't.

Too much blame on SF.

If it's safe to put 25 story residences in SF surely it is also in Palo Alto and Freemont etc..

Or maybe tech could find another hub?

Or better yet, forgo a hub at all :)

Toronto added 400k people in last 5-year census period, for a total of ~9% growth. The 5 years before that were similar. It is both the largest and the fastest-growing city in Canada.

Have you been to Melbourne, Australia?

What about Melbourne?

The reason why tech companies can not easily make their cities better is because of local law & policy and not by choice of the company.

I bet google would just love to induce high rise development in palo alto with a monorail loop that serviced the FB, Google & Stanford campuses and a few stops around caltrain stations.

But they can't because prop 13 makes new housing a net negative on the city budget and local NIMBYs love their prop 13 shielded price gains, creating a strong force to disallow new housing and only allow new office space.

While I think high population density is great, I wouldn't want Google to redesign silicon valley. Cities formed by a single company (or even single industry) suffer when the industry leaves or collapses. Today's tech companies won't be around forever.

The hubris! We have a set of democratic institutions to do that called "government"

There has been talk on the radio locally about the amazon hq2 and the chances that Toronto might be in the running as well if they were in the market to do the same thing.

They can name the area "Panopticon Village".

I wonder if people see the word Google and just freak out. If you read closely you'll see it's a bid. They are preparing a plan but City officials still would need to approve the plan. Y'all acting like Google bought the land, which isn't true.

Not because it's google. But because companies shaping cities hasn't worked out well in the past. E.g. optimising a city for autonomous vehicles might not be a good idea compared to optimising it for walking.

Something is going to happen in the North!

this message will probably get downvotes but my first feeling that came out was how about this American company shapes American cities first. I live in Miami, and we need more dev jobs. In South Florida, the dev community is super small.. This is unacceptable, we need help down here.

PS: go ahead and downvote me, my opinion doesn't need your approval.

PS#2: i did not read the article, i just read the title. So what?! i can't comment? Yes i can, tyvm...

Please don't break the site guidelines by going on about downvotes. It's tedious and does no good.

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