Cracks in Sidewalk Labs' Toronto waterfront plan | Hacker News Reader

Cracks in Sidewalk Labs' Toronto waterfront plan

theglobeandmail.com

25 pointsatomic7712 comments

A good comparison of what Google's probably looking for here is what Disney managed with Disney World: A special zone that exempts them from a lot of regulations, or allows them to set their own. Similarly, of course, Disney was hoping to build a "city of the future" there. The difference is, Disney got permission to do this in the middle of nowhere (literally swampland), and Google's hoping to get this authority inside a major metropolitan area.

I watched a video recently on it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeWOc-cjfY0 ("Disney World's Private Government", 8 minutes, decently informative)

That was fascinating, thanks for sharing. I had no idea Disney World was about the size of San Francisco (!). It seems to operate like a sovereign city-state in the middle of Florida.

What strikes me about this is that Toronto notably gave relatively little in terms of incentives during the Amazon HQ2 hoopla [1], yet here we have a case where it seems that the city has ceded a bit too much in order to land a headline-grabbing deal. It's tough to tell which side is being unreasonable.

[1] http://business.financialpost.com/technology/ontario-to-offe...

It sounds like a group responsible specifically for the waterfront agreed to the Google arrangement without really getting approval from the city, and the city kinda went with it for the good press, but now looking into the details is having doubts.

"Mr. Tory, who has praised the Sidewalk initiative but has not seen the text of the deal, says no commercial agreement could strip the city of its authority"

Seems to fit with your explanation. I'd like to think the mayor would have some familiarity with the details of an initiative like this.

I wouldn't entirely underestimate Tory's play in this either. His background is in business, even at one time chairing on at least one corporate board including Rogers Communications.

> "Mr. Tory, who has praised the Sidewalk initiative but has not seen the text of the deal, says no commercial agreement could strip the city of its authority"

This is a quite disingenuous argument.

The general rule in common law countries is that legislatures can't bind their future selves. So in theory no contract can constrain a government with legislative power.

What constrains them is that voiding contracts by exercising that legislative power has ruinous side-effects. It makes it harder to find bidders for contracts, harder to find suppliers, hard to borrow money, all because you just demonstrated a willingness to use your get-out-of-anything-free card without a truly compelling public interest at stake. The reason people are comfortable undertaking large contracts is that the law will keep folks more or less on the level. If you break that guarantee, people will simply not contract with you.

Governments around the world frequently wear the consequences of horrible contracts with terrible terms, because the consequences of undermining confidence in their contractual safety are much worse.

So, in fact, if they sign a contract, they are going to be more or less stuck with it. Even if it's terrible. So it matters what's being signed.

Of course, I am not a lawyer. Hell, in Toronto I can't even call myself an "engineer".

I am not a lawyer either, but contracts can be breached and damages paid when it is a more favourable outcome [1]. I doubt he was suggesting anything that would undermine the rule of law, though.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/efficient_breach_theory

The point is that reputation is important if you wish to form contracts in future. Doubly so if you already have the aces of hearts, diamonds, spades and especially clubs up your sleeve.

What did I just read? It's long and devoid of any substance.

Considering its a public agreement between GTA and Google, it is insane the public works be kept in this much dark.

it's interesting that sidewalk labs doesn't seem to care but toronto does.

I just want to take a moment to acknowledge and appreciate that headline.

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