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?
It's interesting that on one hand you stress the importance of neighbourhood consultation, yet on the other emphasize urban planning experts. These two can often be diametrically opposed in their views.
One of the biggest problems with neighbourhood consultation is NIMBYism - sometimes one neighbourhood will suffer (because of increased noise, construction, traffic, etc.) at the expense of broader urban planning initiatives. If every neighbourhood controls their own development you just can't get things done that might otherwise be good for the city.
Actually I could say the problem stems from giving outright control to neighbourhoods in terms of development committees - consultation is a good idea, but it can be taken too far.
In SF, literally everyone has a voice and its terrible! A single citizen can seemingly delay any project indefinitely for a few hundred dollars. I have heard stories of land owners being denied permits to build on their property (including vacant lots) for up to a decade when their proposal meets all zoning restrictions and codes. Perhaps, apocryphal, but surely not far from the truth because SF has no right to build.
Japantown and the Western Addition at large were total disasters of course, but of late, urban planning has resurrected Hayes Valley and the Embarcadero against the wishes of the locals and only with the help of an earthquake!
I would argue that SV is in desperate need of disruption.
Will it really software engineers who get to decide what is built and get to try out their theories? I would think that it's some sort of product manager who makes these decisions (who I would actually expect to consult the customers and other stakeholders). Don't know if Google has a different hierarchy in terms of decision making than I expect though.
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.
I think it's a bit unfair to assume out of hand that they'll be clueless.
.
The other side of the coin is that new ideas often come from outside of a field. Sometimes expertise can mean expertise in the established, unquestioned dogma of a field. (I'm saying that as a matter of principle. I don't know specifically what it's like in this case).
I definitely think we need more experimentation in society - small experiments to test out ideas, where successes can be copied elsewhere in the country and world.
There's so much hate for "NIMBYism" on here, why? Looking at the wikipedia article, it just means putting things undesirable to have in a residential area farther away from residential areas. Do you really want to live next to an airport? Is it so bad for people to want their neighborhood to be nice?
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.
The urban rail systems of 100 years ago were ripped out of the streets and replaced with bus-lines and consumer automobiles after considerable lobbying effort from auto-manufacturers. Public rail infrastructure has never really bounced back.
When the interstate highway system was designed and built, it bulldozed through dozens, if not hundreds, of lower income / minority neighborhoods. The public housing projects constructed as a replacement became problematic straight away. Guess which large companies at the forefront of the push for an interstate highway system?
Point is American cities have been shaped by these corporate forces for along time. In many of those cases, perhaps most, their influence and actions have hurt the community, disbanded or destroyed neighborhoods, made transportation more expensive and nightmarish (traffic), and benefited the bottom lines of 3rd party interest groups / corporations.
That is why we are skeptical of Google, or any other for profit large institution, influencing urban planning. Far better to set standards of urban design and have multiple smaller institutions, some for profit, some not for profit, some collectivized to represent of organized neighborhoods, all develop and participate in a dynamic urban planning system.
Also take a hard look at what happened to cities in the aftermath of corporate dependency. The midwest is littered with cities and towns that were left polluted and bankrupt after their corporate sponsor moved on.
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.
I think the difference here is a company building a community rather than a community building around a company.
A modern example of the latter is visible in the municipalities clamouring to accommodate Amazon. Time will tell if that one ends in another broken city.
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...
It looks like they're looking to do a lot more than that in Toronto?
I've only visited a few times, and someone local could probably give a better idea of how the area is, but my impression of downtown Toronto was that while it is car-accessible it is also very pedestrian friendly. Lots of sidewalk and mass transit options and a downtown that has locals walking around at night (versus emptying out when everybody goes home at the end of the office day).
I have no real bearing on it yet, but if their former projects are any tell, it's likely they will want a mix. They do a lot of traffic optimization research. Maybe this is their chance to implement some of it. It will be interesting should this go forward.
There's a town hall on November 1. If I can make it work I'm going to go.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
[+] [-] Tiktaalik|8 years ago|reply
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?
[+] [-] cal5k|8 years ago|reply
One of the biggest problems with neighbourhood consultation is NIMBYism - sometimes one neighbourhood will suffer (because of increased noise, construction, traffic, etc.) at the expense of broader urban planning initiatives. If every neighbourhood controls their own development you just can't get things done that might otherwise be good for the city.
Actually I could say the problem stems from giving outright control to neighbourhoods in terms of development committees - consultation is a good idea, but it can be taken too far.
[+] [-] kansface|8 years ago|reply
Japantown and the Western Addition at large were total disasters of course, but of late, urban planning has resurrected Hayes Valley and the Embarcadero against the wishes of the locals and only with the help of an earthquake!
I would argue that SV is in desperate need of disruption.
[+] [-] neilparikh|8 years ago|reply
Will it really software engineers who get to decide what is built and get to try out their theories? I would think that it's some sort of product manager who makes these decisions (who I would actually expect to consult the customers and other stakeholders). Don't know if Google has a different hierarchy in terms of decision making than I expect though.
[+] [-] ianai|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] samlevine|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamesrcole|8 years ago|reply
I think it's a bit unfair to assume out of hand that they'll be clueless.
.
The other side of the coin is that new ideas often come from outside of a field. Sometimes expertise can mean expertise in the established, unquestioned dogma of a field. (I'm saying that as a matter of principle. I don't know specifically what it's like in this case).
I definitely think we need more experimentation in society - small experiments to test out ideas, where successes can be copied elsewhere in the country and world.
[+] [-] jimmaswell|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andys627|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deusofnull|8 years ago|reply
The urban rail systems of 100 years ago were ripped out of the streets and replaced with bus-lines and consumer automobiles after considerable lobbying effort from auto-manufacturers. Public rail infrastructure has never really bounced back.
When the interstate highway system was designed and built, it bulldozed through dozens, if not hundreds, of lower income / minority neighborhoods. The public housing projects constructed as a replacement became problematic straight away. Guess which large companies at the forefront of the push for an interstate highway system?
Point is American cities have been shaped by these corporate forces for along time. In many of those cases, perhaps most, their influence and actions have hurt the community, disbanded or destroyed neighborhoods, made transportation more expensive and nightmarish (traffic), and benefited the bottom lines of 3rd party interest groups / corporations.
That is why we are skeptical of Google, or any other for profit large institution, influencing urban planning. Far better to set standards of urban design and have multiple smaller institutions, some for profit, some not for profit, some collectivized to represent of organized neighborhoods, all develop and participate in a dynamic urban planning system.
[+] [-] rayiner|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexasmyths|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Tiktaalik|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nerdshoe|8 years ago|reply
A modern example of the latter is visible in the municipalities clamouring to accommodate Amazon. Time will tell if that one ends in another broken city.
[+] [-] 0x4f3759df|8 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] samspenc|8 years ago|reply
It looks like they're looking to do a lot more than that in Toronto?
[+] [-] bob_theslob646|8 years ago|reply
https://security.stackexchange.com/q/169374/122495 ( How is Google's Sidewalk Labs Tracking me?)
[+] [-] 52-6F-62|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Animats|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] didibus|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Splines|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexasmyths|8 years ago|reply
We already know how to build great cities.
No tech or vision is needed.
Just some basic insight.
The 'urban planners' of the 1950s-1970s really created the monster of the suburbs, now they're going to mess with the city?
No thanks. Vienna is a great, clean, walkable, functional city.
Want a hyperloop? Put it underground.
Want wifi? Make it so it's not physically obtuse.
There. Modern city.
See?
[+] [-] 52-6F-62|8 years ago|reply
There's a town hall on November 1. If I can make it work I'm going to go.
[+] [-] raldi|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jimmaswell|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jbob2000|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asdfasdfasd333|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Apocryphon|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 52-6F-62|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexasmyths|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] woolvalley|8 years ago|reply
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|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] satya71|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] okreallywtf|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 659087|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ggggtez|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dx034|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jaux|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] rainythunder|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] yohann305|8 years ago|reply
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|8 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
[+] [-] asdfasdfasd333|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] shkkmo|8 years ago|reply
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