
Google’s Founders Wanted to Shape a City – Toronto Is Their Chance - wallflower
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/18/upshot/taxibots-sensors-and-self-driving-shuttles-a-glimpse-at-an-internet-city-in-toronto.html
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Tiktaalik
It’s hard to “move fast and break things” in government because in modern city
development, neighbourhood consultation is the basis of how decisions are
made, and for good reason.

Neighbourhood consultation is a reaction to past urban planning regrets and
failures, where heavy handed government “urban renewal” initiatives razed
entire neighbourhoods, most often marginalized and ethnic minority ones.

In the worst case community consultation can be distorted into blind NIMBYism
that serves only to slow down all development, but nonetheless we know that
from our previous mistakes that consultation is required.

I would count myself among those a bit concerned about Silicon Valley being so
eager to “fix” problems with cities. Will Sidewalk Labs employ and listen to
urban planning experts that have studied cities for their entire careers or is
Toronto going to be a sandbox for clueless software engineers' pet theories?

Will Google be so eager to test out self driving cars that they’ll discount
and ignore decades of knowledge about how cars impact neighbourhoods?

~~~
ianai
It could go full Fahrenheit 451 or 1984 with googles power of surveillance and
monitoring. No doubt they may have the ability to implement helpful new
technologies, but googles revenue model is still advertisement.

~~~
mfoy_
Or Black Mirror style with "freemium-subsidized condominiums". Imagine cheaper
condos that you have to watch commercials every couple minutes, and of course
they know if you're closing your eyes or not looking (think iPhone X).

Of course you can pay a higher rent to disable them and go "ad free". ;)

~~~
fooker
That doesn't actually sound too bad.

I wonder what prevents these at SF?

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mikepurvis
I'm doubtful that even the most invasive advertising would be capable of
generating enough revenue. $1500/mo is still $50 a day. Say you're typically
only home for a few waking hours in the evening— how do you consume enough
advertising to pay for $50?

~~~
fooker
Buying home appliances a few times an year and watching recommended shows and
movies could generate that amount (for young people with disposable income, at
least).

~~~
ianai
Home appliances, cars, medicines seem likely candidates. I think it would be
used to assess demand for new products as well.

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andys627
To those saying "a big company shaping cities is bad" \- take a hard look at
how American cities are shaped now and the big companies who influenced the
relevant policies. You're going to find oil, car, tire, etc companies at the
forefront.

~~~
alexasmyths
American cities were generally not shaped directly by the companies, rather,
by the economy made from those companies.

Lots of cars = big stores = possibility for suburbs.

Exxon did not say to the President: 'build suburbs because it's good for
cars'.

I believe Google has considerably more goodwill - at the same time...

 _We 've known for 100's of years how to build good cities_

Cities are about people, culture and architecture - not 'wifi' and 'hyper-
loops'.

Many North American cities are trying to get people to bicycle - yeah - that's
retrograde ! and good. We don't need tech for that.

Utopian thinking usually ends up in dystopia because of the arrogance of the
'visionaries' \- they over emphasize some things, and fail to recognize the
underlying, important things.

I can't think of a single 'modern' city, truly designed in the modern era that
is a glowing example of 'how it should be'.

All the great places to live are old - built before cars, interesting
architecture, and some kind of local culture with nice people, low crime,
fresh air. That's mostly what you need.

Want a hyperloop? Sure. Put it underground where nobody can see it, and it
serves it's function: getting people from A->B.

~~~
andys627
> Exxon did not say to the President: 'build suburbs because it's good for
> cars'.

Yes he did. A few examples of what oil/car folks did: dismantle public
transit, make sure negative externalities of cars are not directly paid, lobby
congress to pay for 90% of highways and make transit funding less/harder to
get, get into wars for oil, take over planning departments at highly regarded
colleges and change curriculum to churn out car focused planners.

~~~
drawkbox
Don't forget that Eisenhower created the Interstate System [1] which was car
based and heavily advertised for traveling for Americans, while also being a
national security need for military transport.

Creating the interstate systems did kill trains but also greatly influenced
where cities and economies sprang up. It also made the US a car culture and
locked it in, which worked great for big areas of undeveloped land at the
time, and allowed people to move around more freely.

I'd love a president or government in the US to do the same and make an
electric car interstate system, basically just giving it to companies like
Tesla or others with conditions. Basically start adding electric car charging
stations and add an iteration to the interstates, make them self-driving
capable and more.

Or a president or government policy to get gigabit broadband across the nation
as a new baseline of digital transportation of data that will open up
unforseen new products and markets.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System)

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0x4f3759df
Toronto is already one of the best walkable cities in North America (Jane
Jacobs even moved there)

Why not fix a place that has more problems, like this suggestion, Let's Build
A Village From A Parking Lot
[http://andrewalexanderprice.com/blog20151203.php#.WejmJ4hOk2...](http://andrewalexanderprice.com/blog20151203.php#.WejmJ4hOk2w)

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samspenc
AFAIK, Sidewalk Labs in NYC has just put up fast-speed Internet WiFi stations
that also function as advertising billboards and phone stations (and phone
charging stations) at the same time. This Wired story has some photos:
[https://www.wired.com/2016/02/googles-city-fixing-
sidewalk-l...](https://www.wired.com/2016/02/googles-city-fixing-sidewalk-
labs-is-finally-getting-to-work/)

It looks like they're looking to do a lot more than that in Toronto?

~~~
bob_theslob646
They already are.

[https://security.stackexchange.com/q/169374/122495](https://security.stackexchange.com/q/169374/122495)
( How is Google's Sidewalk Labs Tracking me?)

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didibus
I just hope they make the area dense in population, and design it for the
pedestrian and not the car.

~~~
jimmaswell
Is density really a good thing in any capacity beyond the single point of
enabling more specialized jobs to exist there?

~~~
dx034
In dense areas you usually don't need a car. All shops are close enough to
walk as there are enough customers around. Dense mixed areas can also lead to
short commute times.

And walkability is not just about traffic jams, it's about health. Walking to
work is likely to improve health vs. driving.

~~~
jimmaswell
Some downsides for me are long waits/required reservations at establishments,
general crowdedness (in itself and how it enables pickpocketing etc), higher
background noise, and more. Having experience with some different density
levels throughout my life I'll probably always prefer some approximation to
the "small town" style I grew up with.

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jbob2000
This area of Toronto is difficult to get to. It's cut off from the rest of the
city by a large elevated highway (Gardiner) and a huge river (Don River). It's
neglected for a reason. I really think this would be detrimental to Sidewalk
Labs' mission, all of the work would get ignored.

~~~
asdfasdfasd333
No way.

The harborfront has undergone a massive transformation the last couple of
years and is one of the most dense residential areas in the city now. Also, it
is projected to add 280,000 residents and 190,000 jobs in the coming years.

The city has reiterated time and time again that Toronto is a waterfront city,
and they will continue to invest and prioritize heavily in this area.

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Apocryphon
Is Toronto among the class of cities that are relatively new enough to be
shaped by a large corporation moving in? From what I've heard, a lot of the
development in that town has happened in the postwar, and is still in rapid
development mode.

~~~
alexasmyths
A city can be in 'perpetual rapid development' if they are constantly tearing
down the old and building the new.

Toronto was reasonably spread out.

The Canadian economy is addicted to 'new construction' as a form of growth +
plus mass-scale immigration. Without it, the GDP numbers would not be good.
Granted - the GDP/capita numbers would be just fine, so the choice is
ideological.

Toronto opened up it's downtown to residential construction and that has been
most of the change: massive residential towers (or even smaller ones) closer
to downtown.

Of course - the endless construction of identical looking homes for 100Km in
all direction continues unabated.

Driving North out of Toronto now - it goes on forever: identical homes, a
Timmies, a Starbucks, a Home Depot, a TD Bank, another batch of the same
homes, a Timmies, a Starbucks, a TD Bank - reapeat ad nauseum.

I think the expansion has largely been a disaster and we'll look back on it
mostly as an economic trick to fill as many homes as possible in a short
period of time.

~~~
Apocryphon
Well, at least it sounds like the opposite problem that the Bay Area has! And
yet the real estate in Toronto is just as expensive?

~~~
alexasmyths
Real Estate in TO is expensive, but nowhere near SF.

SF has:

A) Earthquakes B) The Bay is a hodgepodge of cities. TO is mostly one big city
under the same management. C) SF has quirky and specific views of 'how they
ought to be'. Oddly conflicting at times.

There's plenty of geography around the Bay - there's no reason that SF 'has to
go vertical' while the other areas don't.

Too much blame on SF.

If it's safe to put 25 story residences in SF surely it is also in Palo Alto
and Freemont etc..

Or maybe tech could find another hub?

~~~
iandioch
Or better yet, forgo a hub at all :)

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woolvalley
The reason why tech companies can not easily make their cities better is
because of local law & policy and not by choice of the company.

I bet google would just love to induce high rise development in palo alto with
a monorail loop that serviced the FB, Google & Stanford campuses and a few
stops around caltrain stations.

But they can't because prop 13 makes new housing a net negative on the city
budget and local NIMBYs love their prop 13 shielded price gains, creating a
strong force to disallow new housing and only allow new office space.

~~~
dx034
While I think high population density is great, I wouldn't want Google to
redesign silicon valley. Cities formed by a single company (or even single
industry) suffer when the industry leaves or collapses. Today's tech companies
won't be around forever.

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satya71
The hubris! We have a set of democratic institutions to do that called
"government"

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okreallywtf
There has been talk on the radio locally about the amazon hq2 and the chances
that Toronto might be in the running as well if they were in the market to do
the same thing.

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659087
They can name the area "Panopticon Village".

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ggggtez
I wonder if people see the word Google and just freak out. If you read closely
you'll see it's a bid. They are preparing a plan but City officials still
would need to approve the plan. Y'all acting like Google bought the land,
which isn't true.

~~~
dx034
Not because it's google. But because companies shaping cities hasn't worked
out well in the past. E.g. optimising a city for autonomous vehicles might not
be a good idea compared to optimising it for walking.

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jaux
Something is going to happen in the North!

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yohann305
this message will probably get downvotes but my first feeling that came out
was how about this American company shapes American cities first. I live in
Miami, and we need more dev jobs. In South Florida, the dev community is super
small.. This is unacceptable, we need help down here.

PS: go ahead and downvote me, my opinion doesn't need your approval.

PS#2: i did not read the article, i just read the title. So what?! i can't
comment? Yes i can, tyvm...

~~~
dang
Please don't break the site guidelines by going on about downvotes. It's
tedious and does no good.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

