Opposition to Sidewalk Labs in Toronto
bbc.com
bbc.com
There are some good quotes in this older Reuters story (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-cities-privacy-fea...):
> The proposal amounts to “permanent surveillance” and “massive data scraping” under the guise of fighting climate change, he said. “They are conducting an experiment in real time, in the real world: the privatization of our cities on a large scale. They will have intellectual property rights over all of this (data).”
> “We live in a system that values property rights,” Orasch told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “In that system, data is a valuable asset for an individual to have.”
And the developer asking for investment money and a cut of property taxes, on top of gathering all this private data and owning it forever without oversight, is just icing on the cake. :)
>The proposal amounts to “permanent surveillance” and “massive data scraping” under the guise of fighting climate change, he said.
>“They are conducting an experiment in real time, in the real world: the privatization of our cities on a large scale. They will have intellectual property rights over all of this (data).”
In October 2018 Sidewalk proposed a third party "Civic Data Trust" that would own and maintain the data. Its blog post on the subject reiterates repeatedly that the data cannot and should not be owned by Sidewalk:
>No one has a right to own information collected from Quayside’s physical environment — including Sidewalk Labs. Instead, this “urban data” should be under the control of an independent Civic Data Trust.
>No one should own urban data — it should be made freely and publicly available.
>We believe all data needs protection, but the extent to which urban data specifically may be collected in Quayside is what’s new and different here. Existing laws on urban data do not address ownership. And urban data is only regulated when it contains personally identifiable information. Even then, these rules are often not followed in the public realm. We seek to build on them.
https://www.sidewalklabs.com/blog/an-update-on-data-governan...
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/14/google-be...
In other words, do we have any assurances that these third parties can't be restructured with a sleight-of-hand?
If there is some system that is supposed to benefit the public then its designs should be public and subject to public approval.
What would be reasonable would be something like open source designs and protocols and maybe an electronic bidding system for projects.
But it sounds like its one company embedding whatever spy-tech they want and controlling everything over a large area behind closed doors.
I actually am really looking forward to smart cities. But smart as in high tech and advanced, not smart as in monopolistic surveillance dystopia.
> Last year, the firm's own privacy adviser Dr Ann Cavoukian resigned. "I imagined us creating a smart city of privacy, as opposed to a smart city of surveillance", she said bluntly in her resignation letter.
> Former Blackberry co-CEO Jim Balsillie called the project “a colonizing experiment in surveillance capitalism.”
https://globalnews.ca/news/4579265/ann-cavoukian-resigns-sid...
I don't see anything on their website that does this, rather it talks about how developers can enjoy access to ubiquitous connectivity [0]. This is in stark contrast to other successful initiatives like Vision Zero that started with trying to define the fundamental problems.
[0] https://sidewalktoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Sidewa... [1] https://www.monash.edu/muarc/archive/our-publications/papers...
Which problems?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_issues_in_smart_c...
Here is an example that can drastically lower waste collection costs, and eventually track weekly trends in refuse generation (by putting a scale in the garbage truck), etc:
https://litumrfid.com/waste-management-rfid-system/
Providing such technologies to existing firms that periodically re-bid for government contracts with makes much, much more sense than handling a permanent monopoly over management of the entire city to a for-profit company that will design things to ensure they can never be replaced.
But it’s important for people outside of Toronto to understand that this isn’t what most people would call “downtown” either. It’s in one of the least accessible parts of the city, that for that reason has historically only been used by industry. Transit is improving there, but it’s not somewhere I’d want to live. So maybe low rise is all that can be sold there? I don’t know but there are other high rises going up now in that area. How are their sales?
Also it's been primarily used by industry because it was zoned as industry, because industry needed access to the docs for shipping.
Look, It's a 15 minute bike ride to union station. You can walk to the financial district. People will buy whatever units they build there.
"Disused land" is a bit disingenuous. Toronto real estate prices are very high right now and this is waterfront property. It's former industrial land we're hoping to revitalize.
As far as I can tell, Google isn't doing us a favor here. They're just another developer trying to make a bunch of money off of our huge need for additional housing. They choose to make this money via surveillance and advertising, and increasing demand by promising some neat tech benefits.
But if they weren't here, that land would still be developed. Probably sooner. (And probably by a developer making money by cutting every corner in the build).
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/09/what-if-nimbys-hate-d...
> But the study wasn’t entirely conclusive, Monkkonen says. By making the development frame about the process as a whole—the question posed to respondents suggests that the city gave the developer a special permit to build at a higher density than usual—they’ve partly conflated a distrust in government with a distrust in development.
It is not surprising if you tell people the local government is letting one developer ignore the rules, and that the developer will make a pile of cash because of it, that people get suspicious.
The reason is that real estate developers routinely openly bribe government officials, ruin existing communities, break community development promises, make tons of money, and are never punished.
The president and his immediate family are high profile examples of this, but this has happened multiple times in every area I’ve ever lived in (in multiple states).
I'm not bothered by developers making money. They're a very important part of the housing system. But what does bother me is when you have buildings poorly constructed, made to be cheap to build but expensive to maintain. Most of the condos along the waterfront meet that criteria.
Even my own building, which on the whole is pretty well built, has to undergo a huge renovation to each unit because the developer used plastic piping instead of copper and it's failing. The developer saved a few bucks, and I'm paying for it years later.
I'm a YIMBY- so long as the developer isn't cutting corners.
I'm generally for development, but the way it's carried out in many cases tends to screw over existing residents while benefitting mostly just people-who-dont-live-there.
Well at least Concord didn’t get it. You can remove surveillance but it’s hard to undo a bunch of ugly condo towers.
Though I don't like the prospects of Google doing this, there are two issues with the comment:
- Google is probably 'doing the city a favour'. Google has a gadgillion dollars we've handed to them, and their de-facto cost of capital (internally at least) is very cheap. The project probably won't make them a dime, it's borderline one of those 'moonshot' things, a speculative project that they can maybe learn from, get some PR, a giant branding exercise. They could easily lose a lot of money. They are definitely not doing this is a regular 'real estate play'.
- Toronto 'desperately needs housing'? Then why is Toronto very aggressively bringing in 100K people per year into the city? That seems like a dumb thing to do with a 'lack of housing'? Housing prices are a function of market demand, interest rates, and distorted somewhat by small amounts of inelastic demand from elsewhere.
But your original comment i.e. disusland is apt: the land is very valuable. The city should ideally zone it for whatever purpose we think is best, and then sell it. Then it will very actively 'used' for the purposes in which we have zoned it, and we don't need to worry at all about managing it.
Surely there are some strategic things we could to, but again that has a lot to do with zoning: maybe we want a big park, maybe a huge shopping mall, maybe 10000 identical homes, maybe 10000 entirely unique homes, maybe giant factories, maybe tiny factories - we can mostly zone and regulate for what we want.
... and ironically your comment "Sidewalk labs partnered with them to integrate smart city ideas," is effectively not true, it's far beyond that.
"There is substantial infrastructure, and decontamination projects ongoing for many years" comment I think is possibly misrepresentative as well, it implies 'the work has started' - when really it hasn't - moreover, I did not indicate that 'nothing has been done'.
Again:
1) To the OP's point: this is a strategic, highly speculative project for Google, possibly not money making in the direct sense, and it's likely Toronto could come out ahead in some way (though I doubt it). Google is a massively cash flush entity, looking for ways to spend money.
2) Toronto doesn't have a desperate housing problem - it has a housing pricing problem. The Google project is not really relevant anyhow (it's small and will have less housing than zoning permits)
3) The city should zone and regulate the land for 'whatever purposes are suitable' and then that's mostly it, which is an opinion, but not exactly controversial as this is what most cities, including Toronto, do all of the time.
To your points:
A) Google is not gong to 'integrate smart city ideas' - they want to be considerably more than that, they want to effectively be a municipal of entity: they'll plan, subcontract, 'micro zone' etc.. Their plans go far beyond just tech, or just communications, just consultation - even into the realm of construction materials, architecture, sub-planning, even taxation! See the leaked data [1].
I actually would agree if Google were involved only to 'help with some IT/tech issues' or even 'advising' on developing some aspects of information etc. but this goes way beyond that.
B) The 'Sidewalks Labs' relevant work has not been planned or started, of course some municipal infrastructural activities that have been going on for some time, but that's a general activity. 'Decontamination' is obviously something that would have to be done irrespective of whatever they built (i.e. shops, factories, parks etc.)
Sidewalks Labs hasn't yet even proposed a detailed curriculum of what's going to happen, it's not fair to indicate that 'work has been ongoing for some time' even though some basic municipal activity has been.
[1] https://www.engadget.com/2019/02/15/alphabet-sidewalk-labs-t...
Toronto doesn't choose who comes here. It's not stealing people from around the world and forcing them to come, nor does it try to stop anyone from migrating. Toronto is just a great city and the world wants to live here. We're the most multicultural city on the planet for that reason. We're something special, and I live here in part because I celebrate that special quality.
Second, and more importantly, as you said the price of housing is a function of supply and demand. With rising demand, supply side must keep up to prevent housing prices from looking like Vancouver or San Francisco.
Where we do agree is in what should be done: zone for tall buildings and dense land use, auction the land, build as much as we can as quickly as we can.
"Most multicultural city" a city slogan, not some sort of factual statement.
Pick any specific measurable metric for what "multicultural" means and Toronto usually comes out on top, or in the top 3. There have been some studies done on the subject. Even just googling "Most multicultural city" will usually give you back Toronto or a top 5 list that includes it.
It's not just marketing bullshit.
Toronto knows how many people come there as a function of overall migration and is a very active participant in migration policy.
Moving 100K people / year into Toronto is part of the plan.
On a national level, we plan for this, knowing very well how many are going to Toronto.
2) Toronto does not grow 'because it's a great city'. It's only 'great' relative to the options of most of it's poor migrants from Philippines, China, India etc.. Having a 'decent government with basic laws' is not 'great', it's just 'normal'.
(Edit: I grew up in Toronto hence my strong opinion, and wasn't able to put it in perspective until I lived abroad in many places)
Ironically, for all of it's 'multiculturalism', Toronto is actually a very bland, uninspiring, nondescript place where nothing really happens. It's mostly American big box retail, foreign cars, nondescript architecture. Toronto has tons of Starbucks', Tim Horton's.
It actually 'has everything' (i.e. the Opera House, decent public transport, major sports teams) - all the checkmarks, but nothing stands out on a world class scale. Toronto is a grand exercise is 'basic civic function' but almost nothing more than that.
To given an example - Toronto doesn't even have a single Michelin starred restaurant. Not one. Ever. Chicago has about 20. Seoul has about 20. Not that Chicago and Seoul are 'better overall' - but they have enough identity, character, soul, character, productivity (i.e. money) to do notable things.
Can you name a single product or service designed in Toronto that anyone, anywhere else is the world can name? Or uses? Can you name a really important international company HQ'd in Toronto?
Admittedly, being able to incorporate a lot of people very fairly from around the world and get them education, jobs, integrate them fairly well - is in fact something 'notable' for which Canada/Toronto doesn't get enough credit. We should be proud of that. But beyond secular civic issues - Toronto is a 'non place'. This is why people that have established roots in more aspirational places are not flocking to Toronto.
People 'flee' to Toronto to escape crappy conditions.
People from Kyoto, Stockholm and Zurich are not thinking 'oh, we really need to move to Toronto, they have so many Starbucks'. They're not coming.
3) "Where we do agree is in what should be done: zone for tall buildings and dense land use"
I don't really agree at all. I say cut the number of people coming to the city substantially (i.e. normalize the rate of immigration) which would entail obviously a national strategy, and also put some special conditions on foreign speculation.
After the last 20 years of re-construction, Toronto already has enough density.
I don't see any point at all in growing into a massive, vertical city with tons of traffic and density is positive in any way, for anyone frankly.
Then we can talk to Google about some things for which they have great expertise: information management and connectivity (i.e. not building neighbourhoods), and hopefully do it in a way that respects people's privacy.
For anyone curious, this is because Michelin doesn't publish a restaurant guide for Canada. No restaurant in Canada has a Michelin star.
You need a certain density of people to support a unique local arts & culture. The more people you have supporting amenities, the more you can support.
Any city that depends heavily on cars for transportation has a natural limit on the number of people that can support an amenity, because transportation costs (like traffic) rise non-linearly with population.
So IMO "world-class" and car-centric transportation infrastructure are incompatible.
-- Nicolo Machiavelli (1469 - 1527)
There is not even an actual complete proposal yet. And still, there is FUD coming in from all sides. I for one would like to see cities made for pedestrians with smart waste disposal and more interesting architecture than glass blocks.
You could accomplish an interesting experiment plus deal with the problem of giving new hires a place to live.
Kicking google out of the city doesn't change that, it just means somebody you're less likely to suspect and more likely to sell raw data to the highest bidder will come in in their place.
[-1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_street [0] https://translate.google.com/translate?langpair=en&sl=sv&tl=... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_vacuum_collection [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sopbil_skelleftea.jp...
Let's look at Downtown Toronto development over the past 10 years - condominiums built on every square inch of land that could be bought? In large part owned by people who don't plan to stay there long or even owned by a third party and rented out?
Ok, so that's what's been happening. What can Google possibly do, that is worse?
They're planning to try new things - go ahead and discuss the details you are not happy with. Just be aware of the alternative - cheap 30-40 story condominiums with 500 sq foot units, built to make a quick buck.
I have no idea what Sidewalk Labs business plan is, but it seems like a traditional business executive (Dan Doctoroff) is trying to use Google's brand to get access to cities so he can build large developments without actually knowing anything about technology.
If Google wants to have a private company run utopian town to run experiments in, they should do like Disney did in Florida. Buy some swamp land, develop it, incorporate it privately, and have absolute control. This plan in Toronto seems to be corporate colonization of a public city, through stealth.
I guess put simply, the little brother is worried he'll get exploited. It's partly why the fight for NAFTA and tariffs got so bitter.
The environment today is such that both journalists and readers just want to pile on and make their points speaking out against privacy intrusions and the greed of big companies.
No one's bothered to understand the actual proposals of Sidewalk Labs and give them a fair chance.
For example, in contrast to what this article says, Sidewalk Labs would not own and profit from resident's data -- instead they are trying to be as careful as possible and leaving it to an independent organization (https://www.sidewalklabs.com/blog/an-update-on-data-governan...).
Many cool ideas comprise Sidewalk Labs' vision, from the layout of a walkable community to convenient autonomous transport to pushing the leading edge of power conservation, waste management, and other eco-friendly tech.
In the age of dysfunctional cities like San Francisco, I had hope that a project bringing together a broad array of talented experts with real technical competence and letting them envision a model for cities of the future was a winning combination with huge potential for humanity.
Tragically, it has been doomed by the caprice of political fashion.
Politicians have to think longer term than what the current players in tech have demonstrated. This is 100% a self-created problem
I really don't understand the appeal of statement.
* Rubbish bins full? The city knows and sends help.
* Demand pricing parking in a region
I can think of a dozen ideas in seconds.
The basic economics deny all 3 of your suggestions. The TTC doesn’t have smart buses. Garbage collection is regulated through citywide contracts to private collectors who are not going to waste their own margin on off schedule collection. Same with parking, which is run through a city agency Green P that would have to adapt its systems for one neighbourhood?
While all are theoretically possible it would require a lot more economic infrastructure than one corporate neighbourhood.
So set your expectations to more mundane levels. Public wifi and surveillance cameras like in Beijing.
the data collection/aggregation/analysis sound like the fast part of getting a bus to a route, even if it's bus drivers calling in to report a busy route. the slow part would be getting the bus to the route
The basic economics will change in time and there's no reason to wait for the planets to align to do some things. That's how you win. When the time is ripe, you've already solved the other problems.
This is the Newton. The iPad will come.
Honestly, I've had fewer greater compliments than "hype-filled futurist". Our fevered dreams will one day be reality.
Postwar Urban development is fucking monotonous and largely the same everywhere. We should experiment and try different things. If you don't like it, fine. Get together with a few thousand like-minded people and build your own neighbourhood, the way you like it.
Sensible people recognize that the city will continue to exist hundreds of years into the future. We do not let any crazy person build whatever comes into their minds because failures end up being a problem for neighbours and the government ultimately to fix, which means other taxpayers.
If we don’t like it, we follow the law and complain to the planning committee. Like normal people. I don’t really get your position.
But you can build any house you want on unincorporated land (no municipality).
This is Canada. There are no municipalities in the Constitution. There is no land that is not controlled by the government.
Docks are also regulated because of their ecological impact and safety.
I was kind of shocked by your comment so I googled to make sure. Here is an article saying the same things.
https://cottagelife.com/realestate/inspections-in-unincorpor...
It's not like Google has carte blanche to do whatever they want, they've been in ongoing consultation with city planners from the start.
>If you don't like it, fine. Get together with a few thousand like-minded people and build your own neighbourhood, the way you like it.
Ridiculous. In what modern world is this actually possible? Certainly not Canada (nor the U.S. to the best of my knowledge).
I was out this morning in Edmonton riding my bike through the urban blight and stopping to climb at my favorite buildering spots, on retaining walls and bridge abutments, sound barricades and shuttered buildings where no one will bother me, but I would much prefer it if that whole section of my city was actually a functional, aestheticly appealing and economically productive neighbourhood.