16 ms·

Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision

220 points by mgbmtl 6y ago

blakesterz 6y ago
“To bet the farm on technology that redesigns our entire streets and relies on apps and sensors doesn’t really jive with how human beings actually use public spaces – and how they want to live in cities.”
- pseudolus 6y ago
  I'd take issue with "betting the farm". Toronto proper is, per Wikipedia 243.32 sq mi, and the land in question totals 12 acres. Granted, Google may not have been the best partner but foregoing the opportunity to build a technology centered city seems like a lost chance to determine whether or not that particular form of architecture is viable - not only for Toronto for other cities as well. A fear of failure and a fear to experiment will end up limiting future horizons.
  - 177tcca 6y ago
    > Google may not have been the best partner After how they acted in New York City, I can't believe any city would even pick up their calls.
    - Craighead 6y ago
      Go ahead, how did Google act in nyc
    - dantillberg 6y ago
      Could you describe what Google did in New York City for those of us not in the loop?
      - 177tcca 6y ago
        https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/nyclu-citys-public-wi-fi-raises-privacy-concerns https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/nyclu-citys-public-wi-fi... http://rethinklink.nyc/ http://rethinklink.nyc/
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Jemm 6y ago
All this talk about the area and no mention that the land in that area is full of toxic pollution from decades of industrial abuse.
- dade_ 6y ago
  Which is Waterfront Toronto’s actual mandate, clean up the land, build the infrastructure, sell it to developers aligned to the vision. Instead they got all whimsical and got the idea in their heads that they are going to change the world. Fooled by the FAANG. They need to get back to their knitting, not become social justice eco-warriors. Otherwise this whole project will fail and we will end up with a damned casino with a monorail.
  - konjin 6y ago
    Yes, but failing upwards is what social justice eco-warriors do best. Just look at every city they have managed for more than a decade.
    - JanisL 6y ago
      What do you mean by "failing upwards" exactly?
      - inglor_cz 6y ago
        Not the OP, but in Europe, Ursula von der Leyen is a great example. Even though she isn't a green eco warrior, but a colorless Merkel ally. She screws up and keeps getting higher and higher positions.
  - mymythisisthis 6y ago
    Ironically Toronto already had a floating restaurant called Captain Jacks. At the base of Yonge St. The Port Authority and the Owner could not come to an agreement on money owned for use of the slip. The owner packed in after a good run for a couple of decades. The vintage ship was towed away, and hacked up for scrap. Toronto was left without a good restaurant on the water.
dade_ 6y ago
“We’re often easily distracted by the idea of something new and flashy, but then we learn it’s quite hard to deliver on those promises” From one new and flashy fad to the next. In 10 years, when this plan fails, they will point out that they “learn it’s quite hard to deliver on those promises”: “Instead, the new plan centres on affordability, low-carbon design and an emphasis on local and minority-owned businesses.”
Elessar 6y ago
Toronto has a history of planning to do something with its waterfront (Port Lands / Quayside etc), and then never enacting those plans due to short-term politics vs actual vision. This is just more of the same. This article is reading far too much into Google. I suppose it is the trend to get eyeballs by hating on tech giants. Enjoy this article about a monorail - from 2011. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-mayor-unveils-port-lands-plan-1.1030847 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-mayor-unveils...
- throw0101a 6y ago
  > Toronto has a history of planning to do something with its waterfront (Port Lands / Quayside etc) Besides the fact that a brand new island is being built: * https://portlandsto.ca/construction/ https://portlandsto.ca/construction/ * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villiers_Island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villiers_Island > Enjoy this article about a monorail - from 2011. How many people took Doug Ford seriously about anything?
  - peeters 6y ago
    *Rob Ford
    - throw0101a 6y ago
      Ah yes, in the article. Though his brother Doug, the current premiere of Ontario, isn't that much better.
    - sebastien_bois 6y ago
      Frankly, either "Doug" or "Rob" applies equally. (For those not in the know - Rob Ford was a former mayor of Toronto, whom was not known for being a particularly smart or nice person; Rob Ford died a few years ago. Doug Ford is his brother, and is the current Premier of Ontario. Doug is definitively less of an embarrassment, but only "less".)
iandanforth 6y ago
Pet peeve, articles that use "untested" as a critism when testing something is the point.
- monktastic1 6y ago
  It may be the point for Google, but not for Toronto citizens, who surely want a better city more than they want to be a science experiment. I'd say the usage is purposeful and correct.
  - concordDance 6y ago
    Any new idea has to start somewhere. We'll eternally stay at local maxima without experimentation.
    - monktastic1 6y ago
      This is still missing the point. The sentence is about Toronto's current priorities. While the world surely benefits from guinea pigs, any individual guinea pig may not want to be one.
    - routerl 6y ago
      You're right. But you're missing an argument about why Toronto should be the one to take that hit.
- routerl 6y ago
  The point is to improve our city and its residents' quality of life, actually. Edit for clarity: This was a project _of the city of Toronto_. It is _only incidentally_ an Alphabet project _as well_. The City of Toronto has no fiduciary obligation to Alphabet's shareholders.
  - patcon 6y ago
    This was a big point of its critics: the City was ostensibly a partner, but had very poor literacy and so Sidewalk Labs was essentially taking lead. When the City did seek their own third-party supports, they naively sought only supportive tech partners. There were whole classes of consultants they never engaged with, as they were naively focussed on sealing the deal. I read it as maybe something like Bay of Pigs groupthink (for which the term was invented to explain): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glUUmsBb_58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glUUmsBb_58 They lacked certain diversity of views that would have allowed them to better see where this plan was flawed. They got caught up in their good intentions.
Wolfenstein98k 6y ago
Regarding that headline: False dichotomy.
alfl 6y ago
Never gonna happen, because gridlock politics, but I hope it does. Source: am local.
rubyist5eva 6y ago
As someone that lives in Toronto and is moving out in the middle of the month to go back home near family. The idea that Toronto is going to focus on "affordability" is laughable. It's one of the most expensive cities to live in in the world, and the incompetent city council, mayor and all the way up to the provincial government are doing absolutely everything they can to keep it that way - mostly without even realizing it. They have absolutely no clue what they are doing or the basics of market economics. The federal government is also considering to step in to try and "solve" the problem, and this only means the problem is going to get worse. I am not joking when I say that when the Canadian real estate markets crash - it is going to be absolutely disastrous for this country as it is basically the tent-pole keeping the entire thing propped up. Our debt to GDP is out of control. Our federal government keeps borrowing and spending on things that are completely inneffective (and bragging they spent the most than any other country). My gloom and doom prediction is our currency is going to be absolutely worthless in two years time.
- neom 6y ago
  Instead of moving out, couldn't you get involved with politics and try to change things?
  - rohannair 6y ago
    3 million people live in Toronto. This is like asking if you can get into politics in Chicago and change things.
    - neom 6y ago
      Somebody who is frustrated shouldn't bother to get into politics or try to change things in big cities because..a lot of people live in them?? huh??
      - david-gpu 6y ago
        Becoming actively involved in politics is a quixotic endeavour with a high personal cost and very low chances of success. Moving out has much lower cost and much higher chances of solving your problem. Thank goodness some people get into politics anyway, but it is not a rational choice for a utility-maximizing actor.
jimmaswell 6y ago
Politicians like these are why innovation is so slow. Google was primed and ready to try something new but it was just too different for these people to handle. I don't even like every aspect of the Google city plan but it would have been an invaluable experiment.
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  It's not that it was "too different", it's that it was "too evil". Google was trying to use public resources to build a Google-owned neighborhood where they controlled the lives of everyone within, and were interested in being able to levy their own taxes and exempt themselves from existing laws.
  - umeshunni 6y ago
    Lol, did you just make that up?
    - routerl 6y ago
      He did not make that up. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/15/alphabets-sidewalk-labs-wants-a-cut-of-toronto-taxes-for-smart-city.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/15/alphabets-sidewalk-labs-want...
      - PoignardAzur 6y ago
        This is arguing in bad faith. The article talks about > proposed taking a portion of Toronto property taxes, development fees and increased land value to build a smart city on the eastern waterfront [...] which would amount to an estimated $6 billion over 30 years 6 billion dollars isn't astronomical for a major urban development project. And Google being paid based on increases in property taxes gives them an incentive to increase the value of the land, which is the exact incentive the city would want them to have. There's a huge gap between the article you link and OP's claim that Google was "interested in being able to levy their own taxes and exempt themselves from existing laws".
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
KingOfCoders 6y ago
Those plans were smart, they made Google richer. Not sure why people can't see this, that what a company wants is getting richer. They don't care about you. Some people know this but want to out-cheat Google. The results are always the same. They are the pros, not you.
ArkanExplorer 6y ago
The biggest driver of poor housing affordability in Canada is immigration, with 300,000 people migrating to the country annually. Here are the top 10 migrant sources: Philippines India China Iran Pakistan United States Syria United Kingdom France South Korea Migrants from the poorer countries on this list are moving to Canada to undercut the wages and conditions of local workers, whilst driving up the cost of housing and increasing congestion for infrastructure and Government services. Meanwhile, the most common response for Canadians when asked about immigration is that they want it reduced. It seems like the entire Anglosphere - USA, UK, Canada, Australia, NZ - has lost control of its borders, and the populace is now being completely sold out - for the benefit of capitalists and landowners.
- SyzygistSix 6y ago
  I thought it was foreign investment in property that skewed the market toward high end, and often vacant, investment properties?
- jjmarinho 6y ago
  Too bad that from 2010 to 2020 Toronto experienced its lowest population growth ever. But go on and keep believing that it's somehow the immigrants fault... https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/20402/toronto/population https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/20402/toronto/population
cperciva 6y ago
When politicians say "people-centred vision", they really mean "lobbyist and special interest group centred vision". To them, "people" just means "whoever shouts the loudest".
- patcon 6y ago
  Most of the work of good public consultation facilitators is (1) stopping those loud/frustrated/opinionated/entrenched people from distorting process, and (2) allowing many people to feel heard. (This is in addition to, of course, the more obvious: actually integrating that feedback, repeating it back, and acting on it.) Perhaps surprisingly with (2), public consultations are sometimes almost like public therapy -- allowing people to feel heard so they can then take a step forward, even if it's not a step fully in the direction they prefer. People can make better compromises when they feel heard, they just need to be contained so they don't take speaking time/attention from everyone else. Disclosure: highly engaged in public consultation process, civic tech, and consensus-building technology through my interest in https://github.com/compdemocracy/polis https://github.com/compdemocracy/polis
  - cperciva 6y ago
    In Canada, "public consultations" tend to be far from good. They're almost always held -- or rather, were pre-COVID -- during regular business hours, with very predictable effects on demographics. The last one I attended had over 100 people; about 60% were retirees, and around 15% were college students. I was the only male between the ages of 25 and 60 -- because working-age males overwhelmingly spend their weekday afternoons at work.
    - patcon 6y ago
      To make a sweeping and definitely falsifiable statement: My understanding is that public consultations are almost always total garbage in individualist nations :) The bread and butter of those who run them are mostly done around civic land use, and property developers unintentionally capture most of the industry and distort it. Collectivist countries like Taiwan seem to have a much stronger consultation professional culture, probably because it's not just governments that hire them, but generally lots of businesses seem to find need for mediation/consultation The good consultations cover a lot of slots. The one you or I go to will always have a skew. It usually doesn't mean the consult is bad. Different "weirdos" show up for different times :) Public consultations always seem to have powerless people who gravitate toward them, and this is sometimes the only platform they're ever given. A good consultation professional knows how to manage them imho
u678u 6y ago
Vancouver and Toronto really suffer because they're the warmest parts of a huge cold country and everyone wants to live there. Maybe global warming will mean more people will want to live further North or inland. Ideally the government would try harder like not tax people who live in smaller cities.
- 29083011397778 6y ago
  Let me start with the reminder that global warming means wider, less predictable swings. Not just warmer weather. But more to the point, taxing people less doesn't always help. Alberta, with it's no provincial sales tax, is a place I'm leaving for the exact reason that there's no money for infrastructure or services. Without taxes there are no backstops for me to fall back on (like a robust transit system). To me, that's more financial insecurity, not more.
  - totony 6y ago
    Selective lowering of taxes doesn't imply less money for infrastructure for the affected areas. Gov could (should imo) tax big cities more to develop underdeveloped cities.
    - 29083011397778 6y ago
      The Federal government will assist with highway and road maintenance, but they are technically and legally the responsibility of the provinces and territories [0] As Alberta collects less tax revenue (in PST & GST) than several other provinces [1], they have less available to spend on infrastructure. My life is made worse (through rock chips and potholes) due to the government of Alberta not collecting more taxes. While you're right the feds could make up the difference, that seems extraordinarily unlikely - their argument, to my knowledge, has always been that provinces should help themselves (that is, collect tax revenue approximately equal to the other provinces) before demanding more from equalization payments. I would assume they'd take a similar stance regarding other spending. Please correct me if I've misunderstood or assumed incorrectly though :) [0] https://www.loc.gov/law/help/infrastructure-funding/canada.php https://www.loc.gov/law/help/infrastructure-funding/canada.p... [1] https://www.transfereaserelocation.com/canada-which-region-has-the-lowest-tax-rate/ https://www.transfereaserelocation.com/canada-which-region-h...
burlesona 6y ago
Cool, so after ten more years of planning and twenty to thirty years of phased development, this will all have made exactly zero difference to Toronto or anyone who lives there.
overton 6y ago
Toronto needs to build more housing, period. It doesn't need to be "smart", it doesn't need to be "iconic", there just needs to be a lot of it and it needs to be close to amenities and jobs. As far as I can tell, the reason this is so difficult is a combination of powerful people making boatloads of money off the restricted supply, and inertia in favour of the low-density zoning that covers most of the city.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  It is also unhelpful that transit in Toronto is packed to the gills, and so outer areas that are on a transit line that could also take development are basically full. I will believe that the hemming and hawing over whatever the Ontario Line/Downtown Relief Line is going to be is over when there are shovels in the ground, but until then, Line 1 is packed to the gills, and the future extensions north are not helping.
motohagiography 6y ago
Planners think the problem is a lack of planning, but the things that make the city great are the unplanned ones. Most desirable places in the city are the ones that were mostly left alone. It has become a city of busybodies and corrupt developers. The growth in Toronto is going to come from foreign capital flight, not endogenous growth, and it these days it might as well be an extended international airport where people and capital just pass through. We should rename it Greater Pearson. The planning we have today has been anti-restaurant, anti-patio, anti-car, anti-nightlife, and anti-street-life. Street level retail is dominated by money laundering operations run out of nail salons, massage parlours, and tattoo shops, and the rents are so expensive it's too much risk to start something unique, so we get a bunch of overcapitalized global franchises on every corner. The condos are just cells masquerading as display cases for shallow consumer lifestyles for people who won't have kids. The best possible solution to the waterfront would be to fence it off and leave a few thousand storage containers for people find and inhabit, and in 10 years you will have a real local culture based on an equilibrium of desire.
sneak 6y ago
There is a third option: a fully automated, smart sensor city that isn't built by an ad company that wants identity-linked behavioral profiles above all else. It's just as technically possible as the Google-shadow-profile one. Sadly I don't think those will be built in my lifetime.
- sexy_seedbox 6y ago
  You mean the Venus Project? If yes, then that will sadly never be built in our lifetime.
Semiapies 6y ago
I was weirdly amused that the article want into so much detail about the Google plan (when it's been dead for a year) and gave just meaningless buzzword puffery about what they're going to do instead.
josephwong 6y ago
As a Torontonian, I often wonder how real estate prices can be so high given the total number of condos downtown and in the GTA in general???

220 points by mgbmtl 6y ago

“To bet the farm on technology that redesigns our entire streets and relies on apps and sensors doesn’t really jive with how human beings actually use public spaces – and how they want to live in cities.”

pseudolus 6y ago
I'd take issue with "betting the farm". Toronto proper is, per Wikipedia 243.32 sq mi, and the land in question totals 12 acres. Granted, Google may not have been the best partner but foregoing the opportunity to build a technology centered city seems like a lost chance to determine whether or not that particular form of architecture is viable - not only for Toronto for other cities as well. A fear of failure and a fear to experiment will end up limiting future horizons.
- 177tcca 6y ago
  > Google may not have been the best partner After how they acted in New York City, I can't believe any city would even pick up their calls.
  - Craighead 6y ago
    Go ahead, how did Google act in nyc
  - dantillberg 6y ago
    Could you describe what Google did in New York City for those of us not in the loop?
    - 177tcca 6y ago
      https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/nyclu-citys-public-wi-fi-raises-privacy-concerns https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/nyclu-citys-public-wi-fi... http://rethinklink.nyc/ http://rethinklink.nyc/
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Jemm 6y ago

All this talk about the area and no mention that the land in that area is full of toxic pollution from decades of industrial abuse.

dade_ 6y ago
Which is Waterfront Toronto’s actual mandate, clean up the land, build the infrastructure, sell it to developers aligned to the vision. Instead they got all whimsical and got the idea in their heads that they are going to change the world. Fooled by the FAANG. They need to get back to their knitting, not become social justice eco-warriors. Otherwise this whole project will fail and we will end up with a damned casino with a monorail.
- konjin 6y ago
  Yes, but failing upwards is what social justice eco-warriors do best. Just look at every city they have managed for more than a decade.
  - JanisL 6y ago
    What do you mean by "failing upwards" exactly?
    - inglor_cz 6y ago
      Not the OP, but in Europe, Ursula von der Leyen is a great example. Even though she isn't a green eco warrior, but a colorless Merkel ally. She screws up and keeps getting higher and higher positions.
- mymythisisthis 6y ago
  Ironically Toronto already had a floating restaurant called Captain Jacks. At the base of Yonge St. The Port Authority and the Owner could not come to an agreement on money owned for use of the slip. The owner packed in after a good run for a couple of decades. The vintage ship was towed away, and hacked up for scrap. Toronto was left without a good restaurant on the water.

dade_ 6y ago

“We’re often easily distracted by the idea of something new and flashy, but then we learn it’s quite hard to deliver on those promises” From one new and flashy fad to the next. In 10 years, when this plan fails, they will point out that they “learn it’s quite hard to deliver on those promises”: “Instead, the new plan centres on affordability, low-carbon design and an emphasis on local and minority-owned businesses.”

Elessar 6y ago

Toronto has a history of planning to do something with its waterfront (Port Lands / Quayside etc), and then never enacting those plans due to short-term politics vs actual vision. This is just more of the same. This article is reading far too much into Google. I suppose it is the trend to get eyeballs by hating on tech giants. Enjoy this article about a monorail - from 2011. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-mayor-unveils-port-lands-plan-1.1030847 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-mayor-unveils...

throw0101a 6y ago
> Toronto has a history of planning to do something with its waterfront (Port Lands / Quayside etc) Besides the fact that a brand new island is being built: * https://portlandsto.ca/construction/ https://portlandsto.ca/construction/ * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villiers_Island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villiers_Island > Enjoy this article about a monorail - from 2011. How many people took Doug Ford seriously about anything?
- peeters 6y ago
  *Rob Ford
  - throw0101a 6y ago
    Ah yes, in the article. Though his brother Doug, the current premiere of Ontario, isn't that much better.
  - sebastien_bois 6y ago
    Frankly, either "Doug" or "Rob" applies equally. (For those not in the know - Rob Ford was a former mayor of Toronto, whom was not known for being a particularly smart or nice person; Rob Ford died a few years ago. Doug Ford is his brother, and is the current Premier of Ontario. Doug is definitively less of an embarrassment, but only "less".)

iandanforth 6y ago

Pet peeve, articles that use "untested" as a critism when testing something is the point.

monktastic1 6y ago
It may be the point for Google, but not for Toronto citizens, who surely want a better city more than they want to be a science experiment. I'd say the usage is purposeful and correct.
- concordDance 6y ago
  Any new idea has to start somewhere. We'll eternally stay at local maxima without experimentation.
  - monktastic1 6y ago
    This is still missing the point. The sentence is about Toronto's current priorities. While the world surely benefits from guinea pigs, any individual guinea pig may not want to be one.
  - routerl 6y ago
    You're right. But you're missing an argument about why Toronto should be the one to take that hit.
routerl 6y ago
The point is to improve our city and its residents' quality of life, actually. Edit for clarity: This was a project _of the city of Toronto_. It is _only incidentally_ an Alphabet project _as well_. The City of Toronto has no fiduciary obligation to Alphabet's shareholders.
- patcon 6y ago
  This was a big point of its critics: the City was ostensibly a partner, but had very poor literacy and so Sidewalk Labs was essentially taking lead. When the City did seek their own third-party supports, they naively sought only supportive tech partners. There were whole classes of consultants they never engaged with, as they were naively focussed on sealing the deal. I read it as maybe something like Bay of Pigs groupthink (for which the term was invented to explain): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glUUmsBb_58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glUUmsBb_58 They lacked certain diversity of views that would have allowed them to better see where this plan was flawed. They got caught up in their good intentions.

Wolfenstein98k 6y ago

Regarding that headline: False dichotomy.

alfl 6y ago

Never gonna happen, because gridlock politics, but I hope it does. Source: am local.

rubyist5eva 6y ago

As someone that lives in Toronto and is moving out in the middle of the month to go back home near family. The idea that Toronto is going to focus on "affordability" is laughable. It's one of the most expensive cities to live in in the world, and the incompetent city council, mayor and all the way up to the provincial government are doing absolutely everything they can to keep it that way - mostly without even realizing it. They have absolutely no clue what they are doing or the basics of market economics. The federal government is also considering to step in to try and "solve" the problem, and this only means the problem is going to get worse. I am not joking when I say that when the Canadian real estate markets crash - it is going to be absolutely disastrous for this country as it is basically the tent-pole keeping the entire thing propped up. Our debt to GDP is out of control. Our federal government keeps borrowing and spending on things that are completely inneffective (and bragging they spent the most than any other country). My gloom and doom prediction is our currency is going to be absolutely worthless in two years time.

neom 6y ago
Instead of moving out, couldn't you get involved with politics and try to change things?
- rohannair 6y ago
  3 million people live in Toronto. This is like asking if you can get into politics in Chicago and change things.
  - neom 6y ago
    Somebody who is frustrated shouldn't bother to get into politics or try to change things in big cities because..a lot of people live in them?? huh??
    - david-gpu 6y ago
      Becoming actively involved in politics is a quixotic endeavour with a high personal cost and very low chances of success. Moving out has much lower cost and much higher chances of solving your problem. Thank goodness some people get into politics anyway, but it is not a rational choice for a utility-maximizing actor.

jimmaswell 6y ago

Politicians like these are why innovation is so slow. Google was primed and ready to try something new but it was just too different for these people to handle. I don't even like every aspect of the Google city plan but it would have been an invaluable experiment.

ocdtrekkie 6y ago
It's not that it was "too different", it's that it was "too evil". Google was trying to use public resources to build a Google-owned neighborhood where they controlled the lives of everyone within, and were interested in being able to levy their own taxes and exempt themselves from existing laws.
- umeshunni 6y ago
  Lol, did you just make that up?
  - routerl 6y ago
    He did not make that up. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/15/alphabets-sidewalk-labs-wants-a-cut-of-toronto-taxes-for-smart-city.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/15/alphabets-sidewalk-labs-want...
    - PoignardAzur 6y ago
      This is arguing in bad faith. The article talks about > proposed taking a portion of Toronto property taxes, development fees and increased land value to build a smart city on the eastern waterfront [...] which would amount to an estimated $6 billion over 30 years 6 billion dollars isn't astronomical for a major urban development project. And Google being paid based on increases in property taxes gives them an incentive to increase the value of the land, which is the exact incentive the city would want them to have. There's a huge gap between the article you link and OP's claim that Google was "interested in being able to levy their own taxes and exempt themselves from existing laws".

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

KingOfCoders 6y ago

Those plans were smart, they made Google richer. Not sure why people can't see this, that what a company wants is getting richer. They don't care about you. Some people know this but want to out-cheat Google. The results are always the same. They are the pros, not you.

ArkanExplorer 6y ago

The biggest driver of poor housing affordability in Canada is immigration, with 300,000 people migrating to the country annually. Here are the top 10 migrant sources: Philippines India China Iran Pakistan United States Syria United Kingdom France South Korea Migrants from the poorer countries on this list are moving to Canada to undercut the wages and conditions of local workers, whilst driving up the cost of housing and increasing congestion for infrastructure and Government services. Meanwhile, the most common response for Canadians when asked about immigration is that they want it reduced. It seems like the entire Anglosphere - USA, UK, Canada, Australia, NZ - has lost control of its borders, and the populace is now being completely sold out - for the benefit of capitalists and landowners.

SyzygistSix 6y ago
I thought it was foreign investment in property that skewed the market toward high end, and often vacant, investment properties?
jjmarinho 6y ago
Too bad that from 2010 to 2020 Toronto experienced its lowest population growth ever. But go on and keep believing that it's somehow the immigrants fault... https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/20402/toronto/population https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/20402/toronto/population

cperciva 6y ago

When politicians say "people-centred vision", they really mean "lobbyist and special interest group centred vision". To them, "people" just means "whoever shouts the loudest".

patcon 6y ago
Most of the work of good public consultation facilitators is (1) stopping those loud/frustrated/opinionated/entrenched people from distorting process, and (2) allowing many people to feel heard. (This is in addition to, of course, the more obvious: actually integrating that feedback, repeating it back, and acting on it.) Perhaps surprisingly with (2), public consultations are sometimes almost like public therapy -- allowing people to feel heard so they can then take a step forward, even if it's not a step fully in the direction they prefer. People can make better compromises when they feel heard, they just need to be contained so they don't take speaking time/attention from everyone else. Disclosure: highly engaged in public consultation process, civic tech, and consensus-building technology through my interest in https://github.com/compdemocracy/polis https://github.com/compdemocracy/polis
- cperciva 6y ago
  In Canada, "public consultations" tend to be far from good. They're almost always held -- or rather, were pre-COVID -- during regular business hours, with very predictable effects on demographics. The last one I attended had over 100 people; about 60% were retirees, and around 15% were college students. I was the only male between the ages of 25 and 60 -- because working-age males overwhelmingly spend their weekday afternoons at work.
  - patcon 6y ago
    To make a sweeping and definitely falsifiable statement: My understanding is that public consultations are almost always total garbage in individualist nations :) The bread and butter of those who run them are mostly done around civic land use, and property developers unintentionally capture most of the industry and distort it. Collectivist countries like Taiwan seem to have a much stronger consultation professional culture, probably because it's not just governments that hire them, but generally lots of businesses seem to find need for mediation/consultation The good consultations cover a lot of slots. The one you or I go to will always have a skew. It usually doesn't mean the consult is bad. Different "weirdos" show up for different times :) Public consultations always seem to have powerless people who gravitate toward them, and this is sometimes the only platform they're ever given. A good consultation professional knows how to manage them imho

u678u 6y ago

Vancouver and Toronto really suffer because they're the warmest parts of a huge cold country and everyone wants to live there. Maybe global warming will mean more people will want to live further North or inland. Ideally the government would try harder like not tax people who live in smaller cities.

29083011397778 6y ago
Let me start with the reminder that global warming means wider, less predictable swings. Not just warmer weather. But more to the point, taxing people less doesn't always help. Alberta, with it's no provincial sales tax, is a place I'm leaving for the exact reason that there's no money for infrastructure or services. Without taxes there are no backstops for me to fall back on (like a robust transit system). To me, that's more financial insecurity, not more.
- totony 6y ago
  Selective lowering of taxes doesn't imply less money for infrastructure for the affected areas. Gov could (should imo) tax big cities more to develop underdeveloped cities.
  - 29083011397778 6y ago
    The Federal government will assist with highway and road maintenance, but they are technically and legally the responsibility of the provinces and territories [0] As Alberta collects less tax revenue (in PST & GST) than several other provinces [1], they have less available to spend on infrastructure. My life is made worse (through rock chips and potholes) due to the government of Alberta not collecting more taxes. While you're right the feds could make up the difference, that seems extraordinarily unlikely - their argument, to my knowledge, has always been that provinces should help themselves (that is, collect tax revenue approximately equal to the other provinces) before demanding more from equalization payments. I would assume they'd take a similar stance regarding other spending. Please correct me if I've misunderstood or assumed incorrectly though :) [0] https://www.loc.gov/law/help/infrastructure-funding/canada.php https://www.loc.gov/law/help/infrastructure-funding/canada.p... [1] https://www.transfereaserelocation.com/canada-which-region-has-the-lowest-tax-rate/ https://www.transfereaserelocation.com/canada-which-region-h...

burlesona 6y ago

Cool, so after ten more years of planning and twenty to thirty years of phased development, this will all have made exactly zero difference to Toronto or anyone who lives there.

overton 6y ago

Toronto needs to build more housing, period. It doesn't need to be "smart", it doesn't need to be "iconic", there just needs to be a lot of it and it needs to be close to amenities and jobs. As far as I can tell, the reason this is so difficult is a combination of powerful people making boatloads of money off the restricted supply, and inertia in favour of the low-density zoning that covers most of the city.

bobthepanda 6y ago
It is also unhelpful that transit in Toronto is packed to the gills, and so outer areas that are on a transit line that could also take development are basically full. I will believe that the hemming and hawing over whatever the Ontario Line/Downtown Relief Line is going to be is over when there are shovels in the ground, but until then, Line 1 is packed to the gills, and the future extensions north are not helping.

motohagiography 6y ago

Planners think the problem is a lack of planning, but the things that make the city great are the unplanned ones. Most desirable places in the city are the ones that were mostly left alone. It has become a city of busybodies and corrupt developers. The growth in Toronto is going to come from foreign capital flight, not endogenous growth, and it these days it might as well be an extended international airport where people and capital just pass through. We should rename it Greater Pearson. The planning we have today has been anti-restaurant, anti-patio, anti-car, anti-nightlife, and anti-street-life. Street level retail is dominated by money laundering operations run out of nail salons, massage parlours, and tattoo shops, and the rents are so expensive it's too much risk to start something unique, so we get a bunch of overcapitalized global franchises on every corner. The condos are just cells masquerading as display cases for shallow consumer lifestyles for people who won't have kids. The best possible solution to the waterfront would be to fence it off and leave a few thousand storage containers for people find and inhabit, and in 10 years you will have a real local culture based on an equilibrium of desire.

sneak 6y ago

There is a third option: a fully automated, smart sensor city that isn't built by an ad company that wants identity-linked behavioral profiles above all else. It's just as technically possible as the Google-shadow-profile one. Sadly I don't think those will be built in my lifetime.

sexy_seedbox 6y ago
You mean the Venus Project? If yes, then that will sadly never be built in our lifetime.

Semiapies 6y ago

I was weirdly amused that the article want into so much detail about the Google plan (when it's been dead for a year) and gave just meaningless buzzword puffery about what they're going to do instead.

josephwong 6y ago

As a Torontonian, I often wonder how real estate prices can be so high given the total number of condos downtown and in the GTA in general???