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What killed Quayside, Sidewalk Labs’ ambitious smart city in Toronto?

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Re: What killed Quayside, Sidewalk Labs’ ambitious smart city in Toronto?

#61

Post by marcinzm »

an_opabinia wrote: post #13

> transforming what had previously been an area east of downtown Toronto characterized by desolate parking lots and the graffiti-strewn foundations of demolished buildings Guess Toronto got its crap back. > Affordable housing was a top concern among Toronto residents before the pandemic, and in the economic fallout it will only grow as a priority, she said, as an example. It’s ironic. At least in technology, the way…

Ads don't lower prices, they shift when you pay the price and potentially who pays the price. If they didn't then no one would pay for them as they wouldn't give a return on investment. You don't pay $1 for the app but instead you pay $100 for a brand name blender.

Re: What killed Quayside, Sidewalk Labs’ ambitious smart city in Toronto?

#62

Post by dirtyid »

Honestly a shame.

Genuinely descent ideas in terms of building science and urban design. 11/10 chance the technology elements would have gone the way of the Google Grave yard after 10years, but at least it will leave a set of interesting buildings to draw lessons from. Now nothing. Lots will stay empty or be filled with generic condo developments with questionable longevity. The Google branding and Silicon Valley outreach style didn't help. Simultaneously, the inability for western societies to at least entertain rapid urban experiments is going to backfire. I'm not a big fan of Google, but they have fuck you resources and at least tried to direct it in prosocial designs with the expected cost of privacy. If they can't succeed in Toronto then it doesn't bode well for anyone else.

It also reveals a greater cultural problem...

On Cultures That Build https://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2020/06/on-cultures-that...

IT’S TIME TO BUILD https://a16z.com/2020/04/18/its-time-to-build/

Re: What killed Quayside, Sidewalk Labs’ ambitious smart city in Toronto?

#63

Post by 52-6F-62 »

wendyshu wrote: post #35
rchaud wrote: post #27

The project was killed for the right reasons; the residents, people that have to deal with its consequences and for whom the benefits were vaguely defined, opposed it. If smart cities are inevitable, then a mega-corporation like Google with all the resources in the world should be jumping at the opportunity to build a new settlement where none currently exists. Shouldering the cost of such a project should not be a h…

I thought this was the proof of concept? No one lives there now, no one would be forced to move there.

But people do have to travel through there. Commissioners Ave is the only real east-west fare through the entire region.

I used to have to bus through that region every single day (I don't miss the 72 Cherry one bit).

Managing privacy permissions of anyone just commuting through would be a logistical nightmare—and not just for Sidewalk.

Re: What killed Quayside, Sidewalk Labs’ ambitious smart city in Toronto?

#64

Post by 52-6F-62 »

an_opabinia wrote: post #13

> transforming what had previously been an area east of downtown Toronto characterized by desolate parking lots and the graffiti-strewn foundations of demolished buildings Guess Toronto got its crap back. > Affordable housing was a top concern among Toronto residents before the pandemic, and in the economic fallout it will only grow as a priority, she said, as an example. It’s ironic. At least in technology, the way…

> transforming what had previously been an area east of downtown Toronto characterized by desolate parking lots and the graffiti-strewn foundations of demolished buildings

That statement wasn't totally accurate. Waterfront Toronto already had a parklands plan drawn up to beautify the area, add usable space, and provide flooding relief waterways.

The rest of the area actually has a large number of businesses operating—many in the music and film industries. It's not a total wasteland. It's just cut off—one of the reasons the film industry has access to large lands down there.

I worked there for about 5 years so I'm not sure which foundations of demolished buildings they're talking about except for maybe The Hearn (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearn_Generating_Station) which has been preserved as derelict so far for film and other shoots. Similarly with the "desolate parking lots". They were filled with trailers for shoots or Cirque du Soleil more often than not.

Just adding some context.

Re: What killed Quayside, Sidewalk Labs’ ambitious smart city in Toronto?

#65

Post by wendyshu »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #63
wendyshu wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought this was the proof of concept? No one lives there now, no one would be forced to move there.

But people do have to travel through there. Commissioners Ave is the only real east-west fare through the entire region. I used to have to bus through that region every single day (I don't miss the 72 Cherry one bit). Managing privacy permissions of anyone just commuting through would be a logistical nightmare—and not just for Sidewalk.

Sidewalk would collect more personal, identifiable data on pass-through commuters than governments and companies already do? Maybe, and if so it's a valid point. But I'd bet (money) not. No facial recognition would be used. Doubt they'd track you in a bus. They were well aware of privacy concerns and their data collection would be under intense scrutiny. Data wouldn't be used outside Sidewalk without consent, de-identified by default, etc. (And many of the technologies they were developing had nothing to do with data collection.)

Sounds like an instance of what this comment describes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24123463

Re: What killed Quayside, Sidewalk Labs’ ambitious smart city in Toronto?

#66

Post by Google234 »

Invictus0 wrote: post #26

Big tech has pretty consistently failed to deliver on the rosy vision for the future they've been promising for decades. I can't imagine trusting Google to commit to building part of a city when they can't even stick to a mobile phone for a few years. If it went tits up I'm sure they'd just leave Toronto to foot the bill.

What? Google updates old pixel phones. They are way better than the other manufacturers that give up supporting their phones after a few months. I don’t your point, who would buy a new phone thst was made multiple years ago? This project wasn’t even killed by Google, it was killed by everyone else.

Re: What killed Quayside, Sidewalk Labs’ ambitious smart city in Toronto?

#67

Post by dsl »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #48
dsl wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only difference here is that is has Google's name on it instead of AvalonBay, Greystar, Hines, Simon, Westfield, ProLogis, etc. People have an opinion about Google, but they have never heard of any of the other companies that would have done the exact same thing, just with shittier neighborhood wifi. They all get discounted land from the city, modify the original RFP scope to fit their vision, push the city to cr…

I am acutely aware of active REITs/development firms in Toronto, and I have a lot more respect for their process than for what Sidewalk did. We don't need neighborhood WiFi -- Fiber is widely available within the city and it's a lot cheaper than what I saw in the US. Due to COVID-19, there has been far more innovation in the city, mostly top-down from the government, than what we saw with Sidewalk. Who cares if they…

This is like complaining that the city sold a chunk of land to a theme park and you didn't like any of the rides they put in.

For the most part the experiment was confined to the land they legally purchased. At no point did they represent the project as anything other than an experiment. If the land was sold below market, you should have spoken up at the time about that.

Re: What killed Quayside, Sidewalk Labs’ ambitious smart city in Toronto?

#68

Post by sp332 »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #37
tptacek wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine you lived there and your google account gets banned by some overzealous ML model. Do you just get locked out of your house? No.

Since Google hates passwords, I can't imagine that they would support plain old metal keys for doors. Neither can I imagine how unlocking a Google door wouldn't involve an arbitrarily closable Google account. Other incidents have shown that once your Google account is closed, Google won't talk to you.

For existing Google-branded locks, typing a passcode into the device still works https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9233966?co=GENI... It looks like you can change your passcode by doing a factory reset of the lock.

Re: What killed Quayside, Sidewalk Labs’ ambitious smart city in Toronto?

#70

Post by oh_sigh »

marcinzm wrote: post #60
oh_sigh wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Google must operate based on the stereotype I have of them in my head"

As the relationship advice goes "when someone shows you who they are believe them." Plenty documented examples of Googling acting in the stated way across various products. No reason to assume they won't act the same in this case sooner or latter.

What evidence is there that "google hates passwords"? That's literally the only way to log into a google account.
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