{"id":91177,"date":"2026-10-15T03:12:50","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T03:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/condoy.com\/?p=91177"},"modified":"2026-10-15T03:12:50","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T03:12:50","slug":"the-risks-of-becoming-a-google-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/homeleaderrealty.com\/the-risks-of-becoming-a-google-city\/","title":{"rendered":"The risks of becoming a Google city"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The rush to become a tech hub raises questions about Toronto\u2019s independence and just who will control the city\u2019s valuable Port Lands.<\/p>\n

Sidewalk Toronto is a joint effort by Waterfront Toronto and Alphabet\u2019s Sidewalk Labs to create a new kind of mixed-use, complete community on Toronto\u2019s Eastern Waterfront, beginning with the creation of Quayside, a 12-acre former industrial site at Queens Quay E. and Parliament St.\u00a0\u00a0(PHOTO PROVIDED BY SIDEWALK TORONTO<\/span>)<\/span><\/p>\n

Waterfront Toronto\u2019s eagerness to sign a deal with a Google sister company has alarmed experts who warn cities are easy prey for Big Tech and its unquenchable thirst for data.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoogle isn\u2019t going to be creating these urban innovations for the public good or the common welfare,\u201d says Jathan Sadowski, a postdoctoral research fellow in Smart Cities at the University of Sydney in Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll be doing things \u2014 as we should expect them to \u2014 that will benefit their own interests as a private company, as one of the most profitable, most wealthy companies in the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Google-Toronto partnership is a really high-profile thing and it\u2019s likely to set the terms and conditions for how these partnerships happen in other places around the world. Companies are carving out portions of cities as their own kind of sovereign territories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toronto\u2019s emergence as a global tech hub was cemented last fall with news that\u00a0Sidewalk Labs, the urban innovation firm of Google parent Alphabet Inc., won a competitive bid to be Waterfront Toronto\u2019s \u201cinnovation and funding partner\u201d for Quayside, a 12-acre former industrial site at Queens Quay E. and Parliament St.<\/p>\n

Not mentioned at the\u00a0glitzy launch\u00a0was the fact that board members of Waterfront Toronto, a city, Ontario and federal partnership, had only four days to review the \u201cframework agreement\u201d \u2014 a deal to work with Sidewalk Labs for a year on development plans \u2014 before signing.<\/p>\n

Julie Di Lorenzo, chair of the agency\u2019s investment and real estate committee \u2014 responsible for reviewing and evaluating \u201cmajor development projects\u201d \u2014 voted against the framework agreement, expressing alarm at the process\u2019 \u201caccelerated manner,\u201d minutes of that meeting show.<\/p>\n

Waterfront Toronto did not share agreement details with the governments that fund it before the Sidewalk Labs announcement, according to a city report that says future deals must be shared in advance for a \u201cthorough review.\u201d No city councillor except for Denzil Minnan-Wong, the city\u2019s representative on the Waterfront Toronto board, has seen more than a\u00a0summary\u00a0\u2014 released\u00a0under pressure\u00a0\u2014 and he says Torontonians need to see the full agreement public.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s happening very, very quickly, this deal,\u201d Minnan-Wong, noting Sidewalk Labs makes no secret of the fact that some of its urban experiments would spill beyond Quayside into the 800-acre\u00a0Port Lands\u00a0owned mostly by the City of Toronto.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can Waterfront Toronto enter into any negotiation on something they have no claim to, no property rights for?\u201d The land is in the city\u2019s ownership, and we haven\u2019t given away claim to 800 acres that are the crown jewels of the city, arguably the most valued land in North America.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to be very careful not only how we plan that community, what we use the land for, but how we can maximize the financial benefits associated with that for the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sidewalk Labs\u2019 role in developing waterfront land, unlocked by the promise of $1.25-billion in government-funded\u00a0flood protection, remains unclear as work continues on an agreement expected later this year that, if signed by both parties, would formalize the Quayside project dubbed \u201cSidewalk Toronto.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manhattan-based Sidewalk Labs says it wants to build \u201cthe first truly 21st-century city,\u201d developing and piloting revolutionary technologies for urban living.<\/p>\n

In a January\u00a0question-and-answer\u00a0session on Reddit, Sidewalk chief executive Dan Doctoroff envisioned his company as \u201cthe co-master developer with Waterfront Toronto. That role includes developing a plan and a vision that the community and its elected officials can rally around and be excited about, working to get the plan approved, and overseeing the eventual development of infrastructure\u201d with many other companies involved.<\/p>\n

While the land is undeniably valuable, observers say it is the promise of\u00a0endless streams of datafrom custom-connected communities, with sensors monitoring and recording almost all manner of life that has Google, Microsoft and other tech giants salivating.<\/p>\n

Sidewalk\u2019s assurances that it envisions making money from licensing new technologies created in the high-tech district, rather than selling data, are not allaying fears.<\/p>\n

\u201cData is now essentially a form of capital \u2014 it\u2019s necessary not to just run advertising and marketing, it\u2019s essential capital to build artificial intelligence,\u201d says Sadowski. \u201cData itself is so valuable to these companies that it\u2019s not surprising they\u2019re going to collect as much of it as possible, and it doesn\u2019t need to be pegged to a certain person for it to be valuable and for them to use it in a myriad of different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cities, many of them cash-strapped and open to outsourcing powers such as traffic and zoning controls in the name of innovation, will be no match, say observers including Rana Foroohar, author of\u00a0Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business<\/em>. Amazon has cities including\u00a0Toronto\u00a0fighting for that tech giant\u2019s second headquarters in an unprecedented Olympic bid-style competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese firms sell themselves as innovators and job creators but they create far fewer jobs than even the previous generation of tech firms such as Microsoft or IBM,\u201d says Foroohar, who also writes for the Financial Times. \u201cI would argue the balance of power is very much in their favour. Public officials need to think about that when they are negotiating these deals and that\u2019s why ownership of data, monetization of data, needs to be at the forefront.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sidewalk Labs hired Ann Cavoukian, the former Ontario information and privacy commissioner, as a privacy consultant. In an interview she said both the Google company and Waterfront Toronto are taking very seriously her advice to build into all their plans the need to anonymize all collected data to protect personal privacy. But who actually owns that data? \u201cThat is not my concern \u2014 I am only looking at privacy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Doctoroff has said: \u201cWe\u2019re not going to use data for commercial purposes. Data will be used to improve quality of life. Processes used to develop policies will be open and collaborative.\u201d<\/p>\n

Micah Lasher, Sidewalk Labs\u2019 head of policy and communications, told the Star in an email \u201cthere is no data-sharing agreement between Google and Sidewalk Labs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Waterfront Toronto hired its own \u201cdigital governance\u201d consultant. It says \u201cthe rights and governance related to intellectual property for Sidewalk Toronto will be defined in subsequent agreements that occur throughout the year-long joint planning process between Waterfront Toronto and Sidewalk Labs\u2026 We are already thinking together about how to implement best practices that maximize open data and that could help citizens, civic groups,and innovators bring new ideas to the district.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such assurances are not enough for some experts, who note Sidewalk Labs is pitching the district as a \u201cplatform\u201d upon which many other private companies will build. If somebody visits a friend in Quayside, will they get the option of becoming invisible to all the sensors, and how would that work?<\/p>\n

Renee Sieber, a McGill University expert on governments\u2019 use of technology and data, says tech industry rhetoric casts cities as dumb, in need of \u201csmart\u201d gadgetry to make them efficient. She wants \u201cslow\u201d cities.<\/p>\n

\u201cCities are slow for a reason, they are inefficient for a reason. Being effective is not the same thing as being efficient. If you want to help poor people, if you want to help minorities \u2014 that\u2019s not efficient. That\u2019s very expensive, so governments have to be there to be fair and accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sidewalk Toronto is holding its first \u201cpublic roundtable\u201d March 20 at 6:30 p.m. at 351 King St. E., 17th floor<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The rush to become a tech hub raises questions about Toronto\u2019s independence and just who will control the city\u2019s valuable Port Lands. Sidewalk Toronto is a joint effort by Waterfront Toronto and Alphabet\u2019s Sidewalk Labs to create a new kind of mixed-use, complete community on Toronto\u2019s Eastern Waterfront, beginning with the creation of Quayside, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/homeleaderrealty.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/homeleaderrealty.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/homeleaderrealty.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeleaderrealty.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/homeleaderrealty.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92002,"href":"https:\/\/homeleaderrealty.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91177\/revisions\/92002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/homeleaderrealty.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeleaderrealty.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeleaderrealty.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}