Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto • Hacker News Board

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#161

Post by throwaway0a5e » Thu, May 07, 2020, 6:43 PM UTC

supernova87a wrote: post #57

Google doesn't need to invest in the gadgets and electronics in the walls that appear to make cities smarter. That money would be better spent on enabling city governments, elected policymakers, and especially their constituents to be smarter and able to make better choices and designs about city planning, building permits, incentives, taxation, traffic, etc better. The rest will follow. What we need is for people to…

>That money would be better spent on enabling city governments, elected policymakers, and especially their constituents to be smarter and able to make better choices and designs about city planning, building permits, incentives, taxation, traffic, etc better.

You're not wrong but this is kind of a naive way of looking at the problem. Making city employees more efficient means less jobs politicians can write the deadbeat nephew of a local construction mogul a recommendation for, a direct reduction in their power and influence. Even if you discount politicians government itself is often a bunch of competing fiefdoms where anyone who becomes more efficient can expect less resources thrown their way as a result. While there are many bureaucrats who do want to make things better and more efficient the incentives that the politicians and appointed department heads who ultimately call the shots have to work under cannot be discounted.

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#162

Post by save_ferris » Thu, May 07, 2020, 6:43 PM UTC

drusepth wrote: post #118

I know there's gonna be a lot of people here that are happy about this for various reasons (anti-Google, anti-"smart cities", etc), but this is really disappointing for me. It's true that the concept of "cities" (or even just "gatherings of people") predates the Internet by thousands of years, and that cities themselves haven't adapted much to the Internet and what it enables in the 40ish years it's been around. This…

How much have you read on the exploitative history of company towns[0]? There are some really good reasons why people are skeptical of a private company coming in and trying to reshape the foundation of a community, particularly when that company happens to be Google.

Sure, there's something idyllic about the vision of a community driven by technology as a first-class citizen, but let's be real here: Google doesn't exist to make the world a better place, it exists to make money. Full stop. Some of what Google does may happen to improve quality of life for some, but they're also happy to do things like permanently lock people out of their accounts for TOS violations with no recourse, causing major disruptions some of for their users.

And then when they've decided that a project is no longer worth pursuing, they just kill it. How would you resolve the scenario where Google builds this smart city and then decides to bail on it? What happens to the people living there? Does the city of Toronto pick up the tab to keep it going? Google's mentality is fundamentally inconsistent with projects that require long-term stability, because not everything makes the kind of money that search ads do.

You really want that company dictating how the community should operate? I'll pass.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town#History

edit: a word

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#163

Post by koheripbal » Thu, May 07, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

supernova87a wrote: post #57

Google doesn't need to invest in the gadgets and electronics in the walls that appear to make cities smarter. That money would be better spent on enabling city governments, elected policymakers, and especially their constituents to be smarter and able to make better choices and designs about city planning, building permits, incentives, taxation, traffic, etc better. The rest will follow. What we need is for people to…

Have you ever tried to convince a politician to do something?

It's disappointing. It is easier to get a contract and just do it you way.

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#164

Post by saeranv » Thu, May 07, 2020, 6:45 PM UTC

I'll add another perspective to this, beyond the privacy/data ownership debate.

The global building stock currently supplies roughly 40% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions; and we are in the midst of the largest growth of urbanism in human history concentrated in neighborhoods least equipped to deal with it. I've worked in the architecture/urban design sector for 6+ years (half as an architect, half as a researcher), and one of the most critical problems we have to address is the way we are attempting to optimize the building energy/embodied carbon use of buildings. It's a messy multivariable optimization problem, tied to time-consuming, complex simulation engines, that the industry is forced to try and solve as single-variable optimization with various hacks and rule of thumbs.

I am very biased on this topic since I work in this area, but I feel this is fundamentally a ML/AI problem and I had/have some hope that Sidewalk labs could add the resources and brainpower to move the needle further, faster with the existing SOTA. Personally, I felt this provided the project with a very straightforward, explicit ethical utility, so as a Torontonian I've never been against it. I also was excited about the prospect of building up a community of building science-focused ML/AI researchers tackling a currently underserved existential threat. I know this isn't the end of Sidewalk Labs, but I feel like this is a huge loss for us.

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#165

Post by triceratops » Thu, May 07, 2020, 6:46 PM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #83

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> construction of new condos is focused on the luxury kind Supply is supply. Harlem is largely former luxury units. Anecdotally, the luxury building opening down the street let me negotiate down my rent. It sucked the highest earners out of my building (and renter pool), which reduced my landlord's leverage. And it let me compare perks ( e.g. included gym offsetting a membership), which increased mine. End result was…

Sure, and in most cities incredible amounts of condos have been built and prices of rent for low-income individuals have increased massively. It does not work in the real world. Supply is not supply. For one, these condos being built can essentially not be rented, and that means that they are not supply for low and middle income individuals.

> For one, these condos being built can essentially not be rented,

Non-occupancy tax. Vancouver has one.[1]

1. https://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/empty-homes-t...

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#166

Post by TheSpiceIsLife » Thu, May 07, 2020, 6:46 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #155

vkou wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 s…

All that means is demand is increasing faster than supply.

That’s a super simplistic perspective.

Property developers are probably going to preferentially build high-margin housing, right?

And they’re going to preferentially build those at a rate that doesn’t meet demand, in order to keep prices high.

So what’s missing?

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#167

Post by claudeganon » Thu, May 07, 2020, 6:47 PM UTC

verelo wrote: post #152

na85 wrote: post #140

My issue with Sidewalk Labs was the incredibly obvious facade they put up: pretending to care about making cities better when it really was just a thin veneer over finding new ways to expand surveillance capitalism. In fact their "Head of Urban Systems" was quoted[0] as saying that public discussions over data ownership and privacy were "irresponsible". The true agenda is plainly obvious to anyone who cares to look.…

So this comment is being downvoted a lot, but i've got to say there was a lot of concern from local residents. The largest concern everyone raised with me was that "Google will ditch this as soon as it suits them, leaving us with a mess of 'smart tech' to deal with for decades to come". Well, i hate to say it, maybe they were right? Turns out they ditched it before it even got moving, this might be a blessing in disg…

Unfortunately, a lot of people in tech ascribe to a kind of utopian imperialism. It doesn’t matter what people themselves want, it’s about what engineered fantasies can be imposed upon them.

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#168

Post by nostromo » Thu, May 07, 2020, 6:47 PM UTC

drusepth wrote: post #118

I know there's gonna be a lot of people here that are happy about this for various reasons (anti-Google, anti-"smart cities", etc), but this is really disappointing for me. It's true that the concept of "cities" (or even just "gatherings of people") predates the Internet by thousands of years, and that cities themselves haven't adapted much to the Internet and what it enables in the 40ish years it's been around. This…

> got shut down by the locals

That's not what happened though. Google was free to continue the project but decided not too, using Covid-19 as a fig leaf.

I agree with the thrust of your comment (we need more experimentation with cities, not less) but this is Google doing what Google does: changing it's mind and abandoning projects.

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#169

Post by _ofdw » Thu, May 07, 2020, 6:51 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #160

na85 wrote: post #140

My issue with Sidewalk Labs was the incredibly obvious facade they put up: pretending to care about making cities better when it really was just a thin veneer over finding new ways to expand surveillance capitalism. In fact their "Head of Urban Systems" was quoted[0] as saying that public discussions over data ownership and privacy were "irresponsible". The true agenda is plainly obvious to anyone who cares to look.…

"surveillance capitalism". Sounds like the latest meaningless activism buzzword that tries to engender anti-surveillance support from anti-capitalists. What's next, Communist Vegans?

Surveillance Capitalism is a well established term that means exactly what it sounds like - capitalism based upon surveillance. This is exactly the business model that Facebook and Google operate upon, and exactly what Sidewalk Labs was attempting. They claim to be benevolent saviours but really they're just there to watch everyone and sell the data to advertisers, governments, and Palantir-alikes.

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#170

Post by jungletime » Thu, May 07, 2020, 6:51 PM UTC

Thats a shame. I always thought Google would do a double plus good job of it. Who wouldn't want a listening device in their toilet. Just skip the town, and make a better smarter toilet Google. Control the world, starting with the throne. Thats where many are already watching youtube from anyway now. Take my temperature and test me for corona, update my social score and unlock the e-lock to leave my apartment. The Future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcUAG6t5aN8