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Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision

theguardian.com

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Re: Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision

#111

Post by andi999 »

Terretta wrote: post #107
kitcar wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're saving using after-tax dollars, savings 10% of 170K top line is therefore not $17K. For interest, according to https://turbotax.intuit.ca/tax-resources/canada-income-tax-c... net on $170K is $111,547, meaning closer to $11K / year

So, 23 years instead of 24? Or 3.5 years instead of 3? Your correction without conclusion doesn’t seem helpful in deciding which calculation is least wrong.

Actually if you really want to save 60k with a net annual salary of 111k, you could do it in prob 2 years (cancel you Amazon account). Ard 6,500 CAD per month should be enough to live by, shouldn't it.

Re: Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision

#112

Post by throwaway8581 »

otoburb wrote: post #56
rubyist5eva wrote: post #14

As someone that lives in Toronto and is moving out in the middle of the month to go back home near family. The idea that Toronto is going to focus on "affordability" is laughable. It's one of the most expensive cities to live in in the world, and the incompetent city council, mayor and all the way up to the provincial government are doing absolutely everything they can to keep it that way - mostly without even realiz…

>> It's one of the most expensive cities to live in in the world, [...] Toronto was ranked as the 98th most expensive city in the world; not even in the top 50, even though it's the 4th largest city in North America. Perhaps it's more accurate to say that Toronto and Vancouver are unaffordable and expensive cities for domestic Canadians to live in. >> Our debt to GDP is out of control. Our federal government keeps bo…

The US situation is bad but also unique because of guaranteed demand for the dollar for at least the short to medium term. So you can’t really compare the numbers. Other countries don’t control the printing press for the world reserve currency.

Re: Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision

#113

Post by patcon »

iandanforth wrote: post #11

Pet peeve, articles that use "untested" as a critism when testing something is the point.

Nothing wrong with "testing" imho. But like in any grand real-world experiment -- except tech, which has split from science in terms of ethics norms, perhaps in its own meta-experiment of sorts -- in experiments, the public should have ability to consent or withhold consent to be tested on. The Sidewalk Toronto public consultations did not have a way to say "no" and withhold consent.

The consultation was of the format of "getting to yes", which is all-too-common but the low bar for public consultations. It's the sort that property developers run hand-in-hand with cities who really want to just build something. Initiatives running meaningful and fair public consultations don't do that.

tl;dr - The fact that there was no lever to decline to participate was a major criticism of the whole effort.

Re: Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision

#114

Post by PoignardAzur »

routerl wrote: post #96
umeshunni wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol, did you just make that up?

He did not make that up. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/15/alphabets-sidewalk-labs-want...

This is arguing in bad faith.

The article talks about

> proposed taking a portion of Toronto property taxes, development fees and increased land value to build a smart city on the eastern waterfront [...] which would amount to an estimated $6 billion over 30 years

6 billion dollars isn't astronomical for a major urban development project.

And Google being paid based on increases in property taxes gives them an incentive to increase the value of the land, which is the exact incentive the city would want them to have.

There's a huge gap between the article you link and OP's claim that Google was "interested in being able to levy their own taxes and exempt themselves from existing laws".

Re: Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision

#115

Post by didibus »

DC1350 wrote: post #89
didibus wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think lowering the number of immigrants coming in would lower the prices of housing? Any thesis around it?

Econ 101?

I don't think it's as simple as that. I tried to look it up a little, found this: https://financialpost.com/real-estate/immigrations-impact-on...

Which concludes:

> Research in Canada has shown that the overall impact of immigration on housing markets is modest at best in most cases. The effect could be substantial in the case of wealthier immigrants destined to select neighbourhoods. The more important realization is that an absence of immigration would result in a declining population and ageing of the workforce, which could have a much larger negative impact on Canadian housing markets.

I'm not saying that this conclusion is the right one, but I just feel it's actually a much more difficult ECON problem, and cause/effect and figuring out what is best overall is non trivial, and I don't know if wealthy immigrants and high-paid worker immigrants are the simple straightforward explanation we'd all want it to be.

Re: Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision

#116

Post by alexashka »

DC1350 wrote: post #98
alexashka wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forgive my naivete but yes, that's how change happens? If we look at social movements of the past century, they weren't easy on the members but many of them were successful in bringing about change. I don't know when it became fashionable to only do things that guarantee success within your lifetime and openly dismiss any other way of life but that's not how people who actually make a difference live.

It's a million times easier to just move away than it is to change anything about a global problem in a city with millions of people. Making a difference doesn't solve personal problems.

Right. I have to wonder where people who don't work in IT will move away to and what they're going to do there.

For IT folks, sure, pack your bags, go to a tropical community built for people with money and live in paradise. What about everyone else?

Re: Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision

#117

Post by patcon »

routerl wrote: post #57
iandanforth wrote: post #11

Pet peeve, articles that use "untested" as a critism when testing something is the point.

The point is to improve our city and its residents' quality of life, actually. Edit for clarity: This was a project _of the city of Toronto_. It is _only incidentally_ an Alphabet project _as well_. The City of Toronto has no fiduciary obligation to Alphabet's shareholders.

This was a big point of its critics: the City was ostensibly a partner, but had very poor literacy and so Sidewalk Labs was essentially taking lead. When the City did seek their own third-party supports, they naively sought only supportive tech partners. There were whole classes of consultants they never engaged with, as they were naively focussed on sealing the deal.

I read it as maybe something like Bay of Pigs groupthink (for which the term was invented to explain): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glUUmsBb_58

They lacked certain diversity of views that would have allowed them to better see where this plan was flawed. They got caught up in their good intentions.

Re: Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision

#118

Post by clairity »

rch wrote: post #67
rubyist5eva wrote: post #14

As someone that lives in Toronto and is moving out in the middle of the month to go back home near family. The idea that Toronto is going to focus on "affordability" is laughable. It's one of the most expensive cities to live in in the world, and the incompetent city council, mayor and all the way up to the provincial government are doing absolutely everything they can to keep it that way - mostly without even realiz…

As far as I can tell, the affordable housing movement has been broadly co-opted by developers who leverage grants and incentives to expand their portfolios of rent generating assets. Regulations which include language like "X% of units must be for renters making There is a genuine affordable (and equitable) housing movement, largely built on urban equity-cooperatives and community land trusts, but those promising eff…

> "Regulations which include language like 'X% of units must be for renters making yes, regulatory capture at work. any time a stipulation is prescriptive rather than (largely) descriptive, it's quite likely a mistargeted regulation. being numerical makes it seem objective, but despite that, it doesn't lead to the implied/explicit intent, which is more equitable housing. it's a token gesture meant to veil the true intent of benefiting, and concentrating power among, cronies. oftentimes, the rationale behind writing regulations this way is to create a clear delineation of what's acceptable and not, but the line is nearly always drawn in the wrong place and is hopelessly incomplete in scope relative to objective.

it's the same class of deception as citing selective (i.e., incomplete) statistics.

what we need is to explicitly encourage human-scale ownership and development everywhere, through every means available, including zoning reform and tax policy.

Re: Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision

#119

Post by chubot »

thepasswordis wrote: post #72
rubyist5eva wrote: post #14

As someone that lives in Toronto and is moving out in the middle of the month to go back home near family. The idea that Toronto is going to focus on "affordability" is laughable. It's one of the most expensive cities to live in in the world, and the incompetent city council, mayor and all the way up to the provincial government are doing absolutely everything they can to keep it that way - mostly without even realiz…

Are there any cities where the citizens don’t think the city council, government, etc is all “incompetent”? Like what is a city which is well functioning, where the citizens like the government?

That was my reaction on reading the parent comment too. However then I remembered that the mayor of Toronto was Rob Ford a few years ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Ford

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Rob_Ford_video_sca...

Boundaries have moved in recent years, but I think this behavior is still outside of normal for politicians.

Re: Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision

#120

Post by waterlooman »

didibus wrote: post #82
waterlooman wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If a new grad wants a starter property in the city then perhaps start with the purchase of a studio/1-bed. This lacks the history on what people used to be able to purchase, not just in Toronto but in all of Southern Ontario, and now even as far away as the Maritimes. The purchasing power for the average Canadian to afford things that actually mater (like housing), is dropping like crazy. Allow me to give you my own…

What makes you think lowering the number of immigrants coming in would lower the prices of housing? Any thesis around it?

We airdrop a population the size of Waterloo region (500-600k) of people into the country every year. They need somewhere to live. I don't think I need to say much more. I am aware that there can be other factors, but this is the (as I said) elephant no one wants to discuss publicly.
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