Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs strikes deal to turn 800 acres of Toronto into an ‘internet city’
:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/57186951/1325291.0.jpg)
Sidewalk Labs, the smart city subsidiary of Alphabet with the stated goal of “reimagining cities from the Internet up,” now has a very big sandbox in which to conduct its high-tech experiments. The Google spinoff announced a deal with the city of Toronto to develop 800 acres of waterfront property into its own digital utopia.
Waterfront Toronto, a city agency tasked with overseeing the development along the shore of Lake Ontario, is teaming up with Sidewalk Labs to create a new venture called Sidewalk Toronto. On Tuesday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joined top executives from Alphabet, including executive chairman Eric Schmidt, to announce the deal, which includes a $50 million commitment from Sidewalk Labs for the installation and testing of the company’s smart city technology. The cost of the project, currently dubbed Quayside, is likely to run over $1 billion, according to an earlier report by The Wall Street Journal.
View image on Twitter
Follow
Sidewalk Labs
✔@sidewalklabs
BREAKING: Sidewalk + @WaterfrontTO announce @SidewalkToronto, a partnership to create a new district on Toronto’s Eastern Waterfront
2:47 PM - Oct 17, 2017
Twitter Ads info and privacy
The company said it would convene a town hall on November 1st to kick off a year-long community outreach process, in an effort to head off any NIMBY blowback that could result from a project like this. Or as Sidewalk Labs puts it, because “[k]nowing that great neighbourhoods aren’t planned from the top down...”
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/9481011/Sidewalk_Labs___Housing_Vision.png)
Sidewalk Labs
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/9481003/Sidewalk_Labs___Digital_Infrastructure_Vision.png)
Sidewalk Labs
The announcement is the culmination of months of teasing hints by Sidewalk Labs CEO Dan Doctoroff about a deal to build a city-within-a-city to trial self-driving cars, public Wi-Fi, new health care delivery solutions, and other city planning advances that modern technology makes possible. Indeed, the rumor mill has been churning about a mythical “Google Island”since even before the company spun off Sidewalk Labs as its smart city incubator.
Sidewalk Labs, the smart city subsidiary of Alphabet with the stated goal of “reimagining cities from the Internet up,” now has a very big sandbox in which to conduct its high-tech experiments. The Google spinoff announced a deal with the city of Toronto to develop 800 acres of waterfront property into its own digital utopia.
Waterfront Toronto, a city agency tasked with overseeing the development along the shore of Lake Ontario, is teaming up with Sidewalk Labs to create a new venture called Sidewalk Toronto. On Tuesday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joined top executives from Alphabet, including executive chairman Eric Schmidt, to announce the deal, which includes a $50 million commitment from Sidewalk Labs for the installation and testing of the company’s smart city technology. The cost of the project, currently dubbed Quayside, is likely to run over $1 billion, according to an earlier report by The Wall Street Journal.
View image on Twitter
Follow
Sidewalk Labs ✔@sidewalklabs
BREAKING: Sidewalk + @WaterfrontTO announce @SidewalkToronto, a partnership to create a new district on Toronto’s Eastern Waterfront
2:47 PM - Oct 17, 2017
Twitter Ads info and privacy
The company said it would convene a town hall on November 1st to kick off a year-long community outreach process, in an effort to head off any NIMBY blowback that could result from a project like this. Or as Sidewalk Labs puts it, because “[k]nowing that great neighbourhoods aren’t planned from the top down...”
The announcement is the culmination of months of teasing hints by Sidewalk Labs CEO Dan Doctoroff about a deal to build a city-within-a-city to trial self-driving cars, public Wi-Fi, new health care delivery solutions, and other city planning advances that modern technology makes possible. Indeed, the rumor mill has been churning about a mythical “Google Island”since even before the company spun off Sidewalk Labs as its smart city incubator.
