The Many Sides of Sidewalk Toronto

Canada’s largest city could soon become home to the world’s most ambitious smart community, but at what cost? Elizabeth Pagliacolo, John Lorinc, Bianca Wylie and Stefan Novakovic weigh in on the promise and potential pitfalls of the lofty plan.

The Alphabet subsidiary tasked with developing a significant chunk of Canada’s biggest city from scratch has released its design and planning details. While the utopian vision of what a 21st-century neighbourhood can be is compelling, will it come at the expense of democratic oversight? ELIZABETH PAGLIACOLO, JOHN LORINC, BIANCA WYLIE and STEFAN NOVAKOVIC weigh in on the promise – and potential pitfalls – of the world’s most ambitious smart-city venture

In June, Sidewalk Toronto finally unleashed its Master Innovation and Development Plan (MIDP), a 1,524-page tome divided into four volumes impeccably designed by Pentagram. It has been two years since Waterfront Toronto chose Sidewalk Labs – the Alphabet-owned, Google-affiliated firm that responded to an international request for proposals for an “Innovation and Funding Partner” – to develop Quayside, a five-hectare elbow of land in a much larger parcel of the public-owned Port Lands. The RFP required respondents to describe their “ability and readiness to take the concepts and solutions deployed on Quayside to scale in future phases of waterfront revitalization.” After months of controversy surrounding the proposed development’s scope as well as its privacy and governance implications, Sidewalk has laid out its ambitions – and, yes, its lens captures a vision that includes future development phases beyond Quayside. Together, they comprise what Sidewalk has termed the Innovative Development and Economic Acceleration

(or IDEA) District: 77 hectares that would also include an innovation hub on Villiers Island, complete with a Google headquarters. Waterfront Toronto has until October 31 to reject or approve the proposal. Whatever the final decision, the MIDP and the entire process that led up to it should influence how citizens, communities, urbanists, architects and innovators deliberate future high-stakes, tabula-rasa developments in Toronto – or any other major city planning similar public-private partnership master plans. With that in mind, Azure asked a quartet of informed observers to offer their perspectives on the MIDP, each of whom explores a distinct (and sometimes overlooked) aspect of the project.