The Idea of the Simplified Sidewalk Labs

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Sidewalk labs was inspired by what disney had done previously in florida. They wanted to have a lot of control over the land that it governed and they very much wanted to put as much of that control as possible into the corporate power of sidewalk labs again this didn't happen with sidewalk labs but these were some of their ideas at the time. The organization has since taken a bit of a revisionist framing and saying that this was just a brainstorming exercisebut dozens and dozens of people spent thousands of hours putting this together. It was fundamentally a very good philosophical icebreaker for understanding how the organization really first saw itself and in its genesis yeah.

Paris Marx is joined by Josh O’Kane to discuss how Sidewalk Labs decided to build a city “from the internet up” in Toronto, the concerns that existed with the project, and why it ultimately fell apart.

Josh O’Kane is an award-winning technology reporter at the Globe and Mail and the author of Sideways: The City Google Couldn't Buy. Follow Josh on Twitter at @joshokane.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.

Also mentioned in this episode:

An excerpt of Josh’s book was published in the Globe and Mail.
Josh wrote about how Canada’s Liberal government under Justin Trudeau isn’t as friendly with tech companies as it was earlier in its time in power.
Around the time of Sidewalk Toronto, opponents were able to defeat Amazon’s HQ2 project in New York, Google’s Berlin startup hub, Apple’s planned central Stockholm store, and its planned store in Melbourne’s Fed Square.
Bianca Wylie was one of the prominent critics of the project, and was called the “Jane Jacobs of the smart city.”
In 2019, documents leaked showing Sidewalk Labs wanted a lot more power and access to more land than was agreed upon, and that further fueled opposition.
In May 2020, Wylie wrote about the cancelation of the project and the lessons that should be learned.