'Smart' is a marketing term that means 'useless BS'.
No, it means "collecting data, showing ads".
Its a euphemism for spying then.
Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto
341–350 of 383 posts
Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto
#342Could have tried in India...
Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto
#343Good. 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.
More productive (i.e. higher density) use of developed areas actually better protects undeveloped green space in and around cities. Low-density sprawl is anathema to "nice green areas" near cities.
Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto
#344Earlier quoted context omitted.
The entire idea of a "smart city" is pure anathema to how vibrant cities function. It's a technocratic wet dream, the digital version of Robert Moses and Corbusier making a comeback. The people preoccupied with this should read some Alain Bertaud and learn how markets work and then go do more productive things with their time than trying to micromanage cities.
I don't see how, I would say most of the decisions that were made in the US are. Cities in the US are not "vibrant" compared to Europe. I think cars are mostly to blame, roads are so large, no pedestrian-only streets, parkings take so much space, etc.
That's all Robert Moses' doing. He was the great champion of bulldozing neighborhoods and downtowns to replace them with highways, and eliminating trains, busses, streetcars, and bike lanes to fill the sides of every road with free street parking. He had governments of all parties convinced of his utopian vision of soaring highways and personal rapid transit as depicted on automobile ads and sci fi comics.
Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto
#345Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not angry about Google Fiber, I'm disappointed . This project reminds me of Google Fiber in that it had a kind of optimism backed by a tremendous amount of capital, both in cash and in goodwill. For fiber, of course I knew about the incumbents. The 1990s were an enormous giveaway to the telecommunications industry in terms of tax breaks in exchange for a nebulous set of promises and, as far as I can tell, no tee…
Your comment resonates well with me but I'm still confused. Google Fiber wants to provide you service. They can't for reasons outside of their control (some of which you very accurately described). It is not Google Fiber you should be disappointed with. Fighting against the telecommunications industry that is actively hostile towards consumers is really tough. They took the cash and used it to better defend themselve…
I guess I will say it again in a different way: they promised big, they promised they knew how to do it in spite of the challenges (which they laid out beforehand), they made a lot of noise, and then they just ... wandered off when it wasn't an instant success.
Another rephrasing: it's the big shot in the bar running his mouth, someone says "What about X, Y, Z?" and he goes "Yeah yeah, got it covered." Waves his wallet around. Makes some boasts and some promises. Then it turns out that X, Y, and Z were not so easy as boasted.
And it's a pattern with them.
Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto
#346I 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…
That land was up for grabs since Toronto's bid for 2008 Olympics. The only serious project that materialized was Sidewalks one. Kind of sad.
Sad for who? It’s not as if Toronto needed this development by any stretch of the imagination.
Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto
#347I know the average Torontonian wasn't into this, but I live nearby and was really excited about what it could have been, even though it was fraught with missteps. This area is a concrete wasteland–just car-parks and abandoned lots–that's now going to be portioned off to more giant, glass condo buildings, and while Sidewalk's proposal had problems, it was focused on building something very different, community-oriente…
> Sidewalk really pushed the technology angle way too hard, and it was a clear overstep– most of it wasn't necessary for any sort of quality of life improvements, but many of the ideas like wooden 'skyscrapers' and de-prioritizing roads were exciting, now lost.
These ideas are not lost.
The City of Toronto has already approved several wooden “skyscrapers”. This idea wasn’t unique to Google by any stretch of the imagination.
De-prioritizing roads also was not unique to this Google development. In fact, just walking distance from Google’s smart-city proposal are two significantly larger developments (Portland’s and Unilever) that lean heavily on the shared streets/woonerf concept.
Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto
#348"Smart city" sound like a Orwellian dystopia
Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why don't you like stamping out single family homes? What is the benefit/cost ratio of 2-3 story houses vs 10 story housing vs 20 vs 30 vs 40? Houses are for families with kids right? What do kids want? Kids want other kids to play with. Kids want to attend classes and learn stuff. The more options a kid has, the better. Which area has more kids and therefore classes: low, medium or high density areas? I understand t…
some benefits off the top of my head: -More natural settings shown to improve mental health -"neighborliness" scales inversely with density to a point - less neighbors means you're more likely to get to know them, while with more people there are too many so the crowd of people gets depersonalized to a degree, because 50 neighbors are too many to keep track of. -you don't have to go to some crowded city park full of…
Imagine: if half the single family homes were replaced by duplexes half the neighborhood could be green space ("natural settings")!
From an environmental perspective there is no contest between single family suburban development (aka sprawl) and dense urban living with plenty of parks.
Also, you won't find bigger bike/transit activists than the people advocating for the abolishment of single family zoning.
Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
You’re disregarding the site guidelines here. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Are you interested in address the core of my argument, or only those two words in isolation?
Seems off to call someone’s reply unsubstantial when their very argument is that a simple model is sufficient. Of course developers are going to build high-margin housing. But why is it high margin? Because there is high demand and low supply. “Luxury” housing is only marginally more expensive to build than “affordable” housing. The expensive parts of development are the land, labor, and construction materials, not t…
Developers normally borrow money to finance the development. That means they have major incentives to sell as fast as possible. Savvy buyers know this and can work that to get a better price.