The project was killed for the right reasons; the residents, people that have to deal with its consequences and for whom the benefits were vaguely defined, opposed it.
If smart cities are inevitable, then a mega-corporation like Google with all the resources in the world should be jumping at the opportunity to build a new settlement where none currently exists. Shouldering the cost of such a project should not be a hindrance for them considering the potential economic benefits for themselves.
Let them create their own proof of concept and incentivize people to live and work there. The shift to remote work in the Covid age makes this much more feasible now than in the past.
No need to glom their surveillance technology on to an existing metropolis where people are already settled and don't have the option to opt out to any meaningful degree.
> the residents, people that have to deal with its consequences and for whom the benefits were vaguely defined, opposed it.
When I lived in San Francisco proper this was the same reason I didn't have high speed fiber. NIMBYs didn't want a little green can out front of their houses.
Sometimes progress has to be made despite the residents so they can ultimately reap the benefits.
All NIMBY power derives from the fact that authority is vested exclusively in the people who already live somewhere, and none is given over to people who could live there, or would like to, if policies could be changed.
The only thing that has eroded NIMBY power in California in my lifetime has been state laws, and only very recently, and only just barely.
NIMBY power is vested in those who vote. As long as its mostly older white homeowners voting in local elections, that will continue to be the only demographic local politicians cater to, without fail. If you want to fight NIMBYism, fight to make it easier for renters to be educated about local issues and vote in local elections. There really is no other way.
Interesting framing, because the history of anti-development is using government powers to take away private property rights. As an example I own an empty lot that is zoned for, say, up to four unit apartment building and then the voters all decide to reduce my zoning such that I can only build 1 house. This is a taking, right? That's NIMBYs taking what I have because they want something else.
Another example is a bunch of old ladies get together and have my house designated as a "historically significant" structure, thereby robbing me of my ability to build anything else, or even repaint the window sashes. You wouldn't believe that in Berkeley, California, this is perfectly legal without the agreement of the owner, right? In fact it's legal to do this without even _notifying_ the owner.
Finally, there's a pretty strong moral and ethical argument to be made that if I'm born and raised in a town and I live there my whole life but due to a housing crisis I am forced to move elsewhere, I should have had some input into the government of the original place. We shouldn't be saying that we divest our children in favor of their parents, just because they are the incumbents. That's just wrong.
Direct democracy yes. But direct democracy is a horrible way to govern (think: Prop 13) and something the US explicitly avoided at the national level
> Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.
> [...]
> [A] pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party. Hence it is, that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.
Democracy means you have to contend with the whole community. It's not just the rich who get to vote on tax policy, not just the manufacturers who get to vote on environmental regulation, etc.
Well, company towns are probably a bad idea too, if for different reasons.
But there's probably room for smart cities created by the public sector where no personal data is collected and the goal is livability rather than profit.
Sidewalk would collect more personal, identifiable data on pass-through commuters than governments and companies already do? Maybe, and if so it's a valid point. But I'd bet (money) not. No facial recognition would be used. Doubt they'd track you in a bus. They were well aware of privacy concerns and their data collection would be under intense scrutiny. Data wouldn't be used outside Sidewalk without consent, de-identified by default, etc. (And many of the technologies they were developing had nothing to do with data collection.)
Your first sentence is exactly what I was speaking to.
As for the rest, I'm not much of a gambler.
Alphabet's current policies on data collection are typically opt-out, so I didn't hold out much hope when I largely saw a lot of hand-waving surrounding data policies until the project was pressed by the public about it. That cost me a lot of confidence the project.
And I come from the place of following the project eagerly at the start. Even looked for jobs with them at one point.
If they wanted to do mass device fingerprinting (minimally, de-identified by default, not shared, etc.) they could do that already without a smart city so that's completely orthogonal.
There is no counter argument. It's just a fact. They don't currently operate a dragnet. Barrier for entry for setting up physical sensors in a currently functioning urban setting is high which is why they were looking to build their own neighbourhood from scratch.
Actually they were already collecting data and people easily set up outdoor sensors all the time. But maybe there'd be more incentive to collect within a smart city project.
I'm not sure if this is a serious question or a dig given the previous tones, but there are any number of ways being that the majority of Torontonians carry mobile devices. SWL was designed to be a data dragnet for the purposes of influencing urban civic design so outside of regulatory pressure one would assume they would gather every bit of data they can, including fingerprint and tracking unique devices and their movement patterns in their region.
If smart cities are inevitable, then a mega-corporation like Google with all the resources in the world should be jumping at the opportunity to build a new settlement where none currently exists. Shouldering the cost of such a project should not be a hindrance for them considering the potential economic benefits for themselves.
Let them create their own proof of concept and incentivize people to live and work there. The shift to remote work in the Covid age makes this much more feasible now than in the past.
No need to glom their surveillance technology on to an existing metropolis where people are already settled and don't have the option to opt out to any meaningful degree.