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Sidewalk labs has a LOT of good ideas but, even putting aside privacy concerns related to Google ownership, the simple fact is that these good ideas are nearly
by helen___keller 6y ago
Sidewalk labs has a LOT of good ideas but, even putting aside privacy concerns related to Google ownership, the simple fact is that these good ideas are nearly intractable even when planned by trusted organizations with the best of intentions. Western cities just don't move very fast nowadays, for better and for worse.
Maybe this would work better in a country where cities develop faster and with less protest from citizens, but a lot of sidewalk labs best ideas boil down to "more affordable housing and less cars" which are mainly Western problems that derive from a lack of good urban development in the first place.
- AIME15 6y agoWorks best if you can just steamroll through with the project from the start. PoC small scale (though much larger than 12 acres, which is about 2 Manhattan city blocks), then large scale. Requires feds to be totally on board, have the power to green light everything quickly, and have tons of capital to deploy. Unfortunately for SWL, it's not possible for an Alphabet company to build in Saudi Arabia or China.
- asdff 6y agoThey could try in Jakarta, or Singapore, or Japan, or Korea, or hundreds of other places around the world. There are plenty of places with a dearth of capital and labor coupled with a willingness to build modern cities that aren't Saudi Arabia or China.