It's no longer financially viable, says the urban design business.
The Alphabet-owned urban design business Sidewalk Labs on Friday revealed that it would no longer be pursuing its smart city plans to transform Toronto's eastern waterfront into what it had dubbed as a "global model for combining cutting-edge technology and great urban design to dramatically improve quality of life".....MORE
Sidewalks CEO Daniel Doctoroff explained in a post that the decision to back out of the Quayside project was due to "unprecedented economic uncertainty".
"It has become too difficult to make the 12-acre project financially viable without sacrificing core parts of the plan we had developed together with Waterfront Toronto to build a truly inclusive, sustainable community," he wrote.
"And so, after a great deal of deliberation, we concluded that it no longer made sense to proceed with the Quayside project, and let Waterfront Toronto know yesterday."
The company had forecast the development would have cost an initial $3.9 billion, where the company had plans to invest $900 million.
Plans for the development had been in the works since 2017, and had previously faced pushback from Toronto leaders who were concerned about a variety of issues, including privacy and surveillance....
Previously:
February 19
"Did the ‘techlash’ kill Alphabet’s city of the future?" (GOOG)
Was there a tech backlash?December 2019
There has been a lot of blather and spiel—"Here at the firm of Blather & Spiel we believe..."— with opinion pieces in the Financial Times, NYT, The Week, The Economist and dozens of other outlets (including ours) arguing against one or another aspect of tech but that has resulted more in elegant posing (including ours) than in any action against "tech".
Smart speaker sales are still soaring, people are still sending Google as much personal information as they can via Chrome and search and gmail and will send more with Waymo and other aspects of the info-extraction biz that it seems techlash is not all it's cracked up to be....
*****.... And that I think gets closer to the real reason things seem to have stalled out.
Google is having trouble figuring out how to make money off the idea.
"Stepping Stones: Google’s smart city project links its quality-of-life improvements to the elimination of human workers" (GOOG)
November 2019
"The “smart city” makes infrastructure and surveillance indistinguishable"
November 2019
Knowledge@Wharton: "What’s Fueling the Smart City Backlash?"
I know, I know!!!November 2019
The oppressive boot of corporate tyranny smashing into the face of humanity. Forever?
[apologies to the Orwell literary estate]
No?
"It’s time to get rid of the ideological misnomer 'smart cities.'”
Following up on yesterday's "Sidewalk Labs' Smart-Cities Will Create A For-Profit Social Credit System" (GOOG)", a tweet from LSE sociologist David Madden back in July:
The smart city appellation really is some first rate branding. That we can choose to accept or reject.
And some others:
Google Spinoff Sidewalk Labs Now Has a Spinoff of Its Own
It's like a family, generation on generation.
Or a cancer metastasizing....
Mayor deBlasio Wants To Track New Yorkers, Whether They Know It or Not
"Google city sparks fresh controversy" (GOOG; Sidewalk Toronto)
"The Google city that has angered Toronto" (GOOG)
Yes, yes Alphabet.
Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs. Stupid name, Alphabet....
December 2016
Here's Google's Sidewalk Labs' Pitch To Insert Itself Into America’s Urban Transportation Infrastructure (GOOG)
Following up on yesterday's "No, Google's Sidewalk Labs Doesn't Want To Take Over Urban Transit. Yet."
And many many more,
