Sidewalk’s plans for Toronto are emblematic of the ways Big Tech companies are taking over responsibilities traditionally provided by governments, and further encroaching into physical urban space. This approach applies the logic of platform capitalism — a model wherein a handful of companies have consolidated economic power by owning and controlling the majority of digital infrastructures — to urban planning, reflected in both the design and funding of Sidewalk’s plans for the Toronto waterfront in general, and its “proving ground” of Quayside in particular. Indeed, Sidewalk Labs have continually stated that they look at urban landscapes as they would a consumer digital product such as a phone. Rit Aggarwala, Head of Urban Systems at Sidewalk has said if “you think of the city as a platform, and design in the ability for people to change it as quickly as you and I can customize our iPhones, you make it authentic because it doesn’t just reflect a central plan.” [...]
This approach to urban design is underpinned by digital and physical infrastructures which are, of course, proprietary to Sidewalk Labs. In their proposal, an entirely separate subterranean city is created where automated robots “transport mail and garbage via underground tunnels,” while surface-level infrastructure to support driverless cars is merged with embedded sensors to continually monitor not just transportation patterns, but public activity as well. Data collected through these processes is intended to be used in a digital replica of Quayside — a real time representation of the area used by planners to quickly simulate urban changes “without bothering residents.” Sidewalk’s digital infrastructure is further claimed to provide “ubiquitous connectivity for all,” encouraging “creation and collaboration” to vaguely “address local challenges.” To do this, Sidewalk’s data can be trawled by other companies to “make their own products and services for Quayside” including social and community amenities intending to “improve” city services. Through this API-like model, platform capitalism is further morphing into an increasingly spatial form, referencing the language of programming with mundane (and inaccurate) analogies of ‘software’ and ‘hardware’. The standardization of both the infrastructure and modular construction for Quayside is seen by Sidewalk Toronto as a process that, once built, can be scaled up and applied to cities across the globe — not unlike a universal operating system. [...]
And while community participation is now routinely used by developers at the start of projects to whitewash top-down urban development processes, through Sidewalk’s clever approach to public relations, capitalist urban development appears to explicitly absorb the spatial critique of itself, incorporating user-input, flexibility, temporality and participation. This becomes particularly clear in the development of ‘307’, Sidewalk Labs “experimental” space in Toronto which opens its doors to the public once a week so that they can “contribute to the co-creation of Sidewalk Toronto.” Here, a “Plan Your Neighborhood” prototype has been developed via generative design methods — simulation algorithms developed to quickly test design options based on a series of parameters — with which the public can make design choices and see how they perform.
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