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Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

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Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#91

Post by nickff »

3pt14159 wrote: post #82
frereubu wrote: post #41

Enjoy the HN cynicism from July 2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17487838

For those of us that live in Toronto and have experienced Palmerston and City Place; Kensington Market and Metro groceries it's so obvious that another set of condos built by a giant corporation are not what we need. You can call me cynical all you like, I'd rather have my city move in the direction of Europe (Vilnius or Paris) than Manhattan or Tokyo. Count me as one of the many happy people that this fell through,…

What is the difference between the four cities you mention? At least three of them have been restricting density, resulting in steadily increasing prices.

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#92

Post by AIME15 »

eddyionescu wrote: post #32
AIME15 wrote: post #26

The scope-limiting to 12 acres announced on October 31 was perceived as a win for the regulators, giving them more control over the project over time. At that point the project timeline became untenable for SWL's plans but couldn't back out due to PR concerns for Alphabet. The pandemic is a convenient excuse for the company to abandon the Quayside project. For the last three years SWL has bent over backwards to be tr…

The 12-acres (just Quayside) was what Toronto's RFP asked for in the first place and Sidewalk Labs won out for ( https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2017/10/17/google-fir... ), which now turns out to have not been financially viable for them given the high cost of their R&D (including those mass-timber buildings which aren't even in Ontario's building code yet). Sidewalk Lab's wider plans were really an unsolicite…

Agreed that the responsibility was 100% on SWL to build consensus among the community and decision makers in Waterfront Toronto and Toronto's government entities. I'm just saying that this became a lot tougher due to the change in public opinion on big tech.

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#94

Post by EdTsft »

lostgame wrote: post #3

‘I’ve met thousands of Torontonians from all over the city, excited by the possibility of making urban life better for everyone.’ This is simply not true, in my experience as a Torontonian. The overall opinion of this project was incredibly low, from at least dozens of people it’s come up with - at work, at events, with friends - if anything, there’ll be a lot of people happy to hear this. There were even questions a…

I'm a Torontonian and I was looking forward to the project. I'm sad to see it cancelled. (It's a big city with many opinions, I don't think you can fairly claim that quote about "thousands of Torontonians" is "simply not true" from a sample size of dozens, the author is not even claiming all those people supported the Quayside project specifically).

Sure, some parts of the project looked like tech for tech's sake but I was excited about the urban design plans and architecture. And who knows, maybe some of the tech-y things would turn out to be good too. That's what experiments are for, and this wasn't a very large scale or risky one when compared to the size of the city so it's worth it to me to try new things even if many of the ideas don't work out. As for data issues, it seemed like the city and Waterfront Toronto were not afraid to exercise a lot of control on that front so Sidewalk Labs wasn't going to be able to do whatever they wanted, a lot of effort was going into ensuring it was in the public interest. This latest news supports the idea that the city was uncompromising in supporting what they see as the public interest - even to the extent that Sidewalk labs gives up entirely.

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#95

Post by vkou »

aljg wrote: post #89
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who buy luxury condos are probably not vacating affordable housing to do so. Why would you think that to be the case? The Strong Towns link you provided gives two examples of apartments build approximately a century ago. Trickle-down economics at its best. Build luxury apartments, fine. Probably not exclusively though, as in many cities the need is more pressing than that.

No, that would be patently absurd. Of course they're vacating (the upper end of) mid-priced housing. It's almost as if an equivalent amount of mid-priced housing would suddenly become available. I wonder who you think would move into that? Build up .

> I wonder who you think would move into that?

Typically, migrant tech workers who came from somewhere else.

In the rest of the world that is not San Francisco, there is, in fact, an unprecedented rate of construction of new properties. Seattle has more active cranes building than anywhere else in North America. The Vancouver skyline changes year-over-year as 30-story condos spring up like mushrooms around SkyTrain stations. Toronto is building and densifying at breakneck speed.

And yet, rent in each of these locations is sky-high, squeezing the lower classes.

Could construction be faster? Sure. Would the problem be worse if there was no construction? Probably. Is construction fixing the issue? Hell, no, it's not. Not even close.

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#96

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

aljg wrote: post #89
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who buy luxury condos are probably not vacating affordable housing to do so. Why would you think that to be the case? The Strong Towns link you provided gives two examples of apartments build approximately a century ago. Trickle-down economics at its best. Build luxury apartments, fine. Probably not exclusively though, as in many cities the need is more pressing than that.

No, that would be patently absurd. Of course they're vacating (the upper end of) mid-priced housing. It's almost as if an equivalent amount of mid-priced housing would suddenly become available. I wonder who you think would move into that? Build up .

You don’t reckon landlords of those upper-end mid-priced dwellings are asking more for rent every time a lease ends and a new one starts?

Because that does seem to be what’s happened in many cities.

One issue here is ideological: is housing a universal right, or is housing a capital good to be accumulated and regulated to be artificially scarce?

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#97

Post by AIME15 »

helen___keller wrote: post #9

Sidewalk labs has a LOT of good ideas but, even putting aside privacy concerns related to Google ownership, the simple fact is that these good ideas are nearly intractable even when planned by trusted organizations with the best of intentions. Western cities just don't move very fast nowadays, for better and for worse. Maybe this would work better in a country where cities develop faster and with less protest from ci…

Works best if you can just steamroll through with the project from the start. PoC small scale (though much larger than 12 acres, which is about 2 Manhattan city blocks), then large scale.

Requires feds to be totally on board, have the power to green light everything quickly, and have tons of capital to deploy. Unfortunately for SWL, it's not possible for an Alphabet company to build in Saudi Arabia or China.

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#98

Post by asdff »

jimmaswell wrote: post #77
nick_ wrote: post #39

Good. Toronto doesn't need condo neighbourhoods with gimmicky smart-phone integrations. It needs re-zoning of low density neighbourhoods to allow medium density to be built, thus more uniformly distributing the large and growing population.

What do you consider low density? I really don't like the idea of stamping out all single family homes and nice green areas in proximity to cities. Mixing high density in with commercial areas seems fine though.

Personally, I'd leave the truly suburban areas where you can't even walk to the gas station without it taking 30 minutes alone. However, there are plenty of neighborhoods in the US and Canada that were designed around walking to the streetcar. I think those neighborhoods are already laid out well for medium density apartments and improved transit.

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#99

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

neom wrote: post #88

4 years ago I co-founded a smart cities business. Basically a wysiwyg schema/api generator for non-technical municipal users. Idea being if you're procuring data generative "stuff" - municipal workers can define an integration point. In the first few months of starting the company, I met with sidewalk labs at their request. We talked about working together and I said that wouldn't be possible because we wanted to giv…

Do you still exist?!

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#100

Post by tempestn »

sandworm101 wrote: post #66
cactus2093 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But... condo neighborhoods are exactly that medium density housing. Every city does need more condos in their existing neighborhoods if populations are able to grow. (Unless Covid-19 will reshape the trajectory of urbanization, and major cities will mostly shrink for the next several decades. That actually seems somewhat plausible). But writing off all the sidewalk labs ideas as gimmicky smartphone integrations is pr…

>> Every city does need more condos in their existing neighborhoods if populations are able to grow. Except that is in cities like Toronto/Vancouver more condos doesn't mean more people living in those condos. These are investment vehicles. Many of these new condo biuldings in trendy neighbourhoods sit empty, having been purchased as an investment rather than as a living space. What is needed is more rental units, no…

If you keep building them, they will become more available. You're increasing supply, without affecting demand (from potential investors or residents).
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