Do you agree with Sidewalk Labs’ bold vision?
Does the divisive response to Sidewalk Labs tap into something bigger in Toronto’s psyche: caution, a fear of change, saying no before saying yes?
Torontonians have to the end of July to take a first pass at Sidewalk Lab’s Master Innovation and Development Plan (MIDP) — a real beach read at1,500-plus pages. The first round of public consultations has already ended, unfortunately timed during these dog days of summer, but you can still send feedback online.
The question hanging above us: Can we trust Sidewalk to develop a portion of Toronto’s waterfront in our best interest? We need more time to grasp something this big, to make our minds up.
Visionary plans conceived but never implemented are part of Toronto’s story. Look no further than Mark Osbaldeston’s Unbuilt Toronto series for a history of the city’s unfulfilled visions for grand public infrastructure projects.
One notable project was Harbour City, Eberhard Zeidler’s plan to fill in the western portion of Toronto’s harbour with mixed-used development housing 60,000 people. The island airport would have moved east, a canal would run through the area, and the Toronto Islands would connect to the mainland.
The proposal was even endorsed by Jane Jacobs herself, whom the signatories of “dear Toronto” letter merely invoke to legitimize their endorsement of Sidewalk’s plan.
While ambitious at the time, Harbour City looks like a walk in the park in comparison to the plan for Quayside — and here’s why. The MIDP, and Sidewalk’s ambitions, are more than a plan, they are a fundamental rethink of our municipal system: a new way our city would run, how our society could be organized, and how people are serviced.
It’s more than drawing lines on a map and telling people where to go.
There is the uncharted territory of data collection and privacy issues, but the minor details of the MIDP matter just as much: new regulatory authorities, operational models and management bodies.
Sidewalk labs proposes a complete facelift to how the city works through five “management entities,” which would overhaul a wide range of functions from service delivery, city operations, management of public space, traffic management and even garbage collections.
In other words, Sidewalk Labs has actually presented an omnibus plan under the guise of an urban planning proposal.
Which brings us back to the question of trust. It seems that one could more easily trust the integrity of a local architect, like Zeidler, who ostensibly had the public interest in mind when imagining Toronto’s future.
Reflecting on Harbour City and others, where does the historical churn of dashed hopes and good intentions leave us? Will Sidewalk’s plan fall in line with a handful of other visionary plans that never reached fruition, or will it see the light of day?
In the glossy images of the MIDP, there is imagination, and the future is bright. It’s captivating and dreamy. The changes described sound promising but they will be unworkable if not made on our own terms.
To make Sidewalk’s plan for Toronto’s waterfront a reality we can trust, the plan must adapt to our wants and needs — not the other way around.
A skepticism of future plans is woven into Torontonians’ ambivalence about what kind of future city they are prepared to accept. It’s in the air and the culture.
In her poem, “city planners,” Margaret Atwood writes: “City planners … scattered over unsurveyed territories, concealed from each other … guessing directions, they sketch transitory lines rigid as wooden borders.”
Sidewalk Labs has come with their best guess of what they think a small slice of Toronto could look and feel like. It’s time to prove them right or wrong. Read the plan, participate, be heard.
The question hanging above us: Can we trust Sidewalk to develop a portion of Toronto’s waterfront in our best interest?