Yes. It’s a power grab cloaked in fear

Sidewalk Labs tells us it wants to reimagine cities. It has undertaken a 16month public relations spectacle, designed to convince us that we want what it’s selling for Quayside and the Port Lands district of Toronto. But cities aren’t products, they’re political constructs built in the public interest.

Now — in the face of global threats such as climate change and ever-growing numbers of displaced people — it is vital that we bolster the power of local government to address these challenges, not diminish it, disrespect it or cede it.

The Port Lands are enormous; the last major parcel of undeveloped land in the city’s core. There has long been global interest in the area, but it requires environmental remediation and lacks basic infrastructure; the governments’ priorities have slowed the development process down.

In the wake of the recent Toronto Star exposé about Sidewalk Labs’ plans and its ideas for financing infrastructure — plans that may include the company collecting a share of municipal tax revenue in the future — some residents are saying: Well, why not? If government isn’t building transit or funding infrastructure fast enough, why shouldn’t this company be given the chance to do so?

While frustration with government may be legitimately acute, the answer is not to sign off on corporate capture of government and the people it is designed to serve. Though we live in an era of political cynicism, city governments enjoy the highest level of public trust. The Sidewalk Toronto project reflects contempt for civic engagement, urban planning and democratic rights when we need exactly the opposite.

Sidewalk Labs isn’t just relying on uto- pian architectural renderings of new construction to entice us: they are selling us fear. Fear that our government will fail us yet again. Fear that if this company doesn’t do it, nobody will.

But this is smoke and mirrors. Canadians just committed $1.2 billion to rehabilitate the mouth of the Don River and protect the Port Lands from flooding — a big hurdle to building new neighbourhoods there. And there are hundreds of firms, both locally and globally, that would bid on a range of the projects that are being considered in the Port Lands if they were given the chance.

Why were discussions about Quayside, which should only happen between government and residents, up for sale to Sidewalk Labs? And why was it decided that Quayside could be used as a keystone to indirectly access much larger legacy lands?

Yes, there are reasons that certain technologies and infrastructure must be considered at scale, but this process weaponized ambiguity to the detriment of a clear and accessible public narrative about what this project was about, including the business model and the actors involved. Corporations shouldn’t run public consultations.

There are rules around lobbying to protect influence in government. Where are the rules to prevent this confusion of democratic process? It’s the same approach that Google uses in technology markets: identify areas where there aren’t strong regulatory regimes and exploit them. This is called regulatory capture, a specialty of big tech.

Torontonians never asked to become part of a high-tech test bed, to house an experiment where corporations have a blanket capacity to collect significant amounts of data as a matter of course.

Due to a poorly structured RFP, a proposal for one was accepted, adding a whole new kind of risk. Toronto lacks policies to ensure democratic fairness where digital and physical spaces converge. We’re vulnerable.

Sidewalk’s CEO, Daniel Doctoroff, is fond of saying that the company will be a “catalyst” for developing the Port Lands. But it is residents and government that are the catalysts.

If we want tall timber buildings and other low-carbon features for the precinct, include them in the next procurement. Sidewalk Labs isn’t presenting us with a bold vision; it’s making a bold power grab.

We don’t need Sidewalk Labs. We need to believe in local government and in its role in democratic society. Once it’s gone we won’t get it back. Normalizing this project is setting a dangerous precedent for democracy, one that should end and end now.