Blayne Haggart's Orangespace

It’s the the final part of my voyage through Part 2 of Chapter 1 of Volume 1. Or, as I like to call it, the Middle of the End of the Beginning of the MIDP.

Previous Master Innovation and Development Plan liveblog entries and relevant documents available here

Part 2.6: Digital Innovation (pp. 230-243; not listed in the Table of Contents)

In this section, Sidewalk Labs begins to set out its data-governance plan, which for the moment consists mainly of general intentions and proposals.

This section is all about Sidewalk Labs setting standards that would give it and Google significant leverage in other markets (standards are power), and defining data in such a way (i.e., a very slippery definition of something called “urban data”) that gives it and other companies access to data generated in Quayside, including data for advertising purposes.

Which Sidewalk Labs has fought every step of the way

Toronto and Ontario have taken some important initial strides to advance the conversation around data governance principles. (p. 232)

Toronto Star headline, August 14, 2018: “Sidewalk Labs unveils plans for timber towers, raincoats for buildings in Quayside, but Torontonians must wait for data details”

Key components of its data-governance plan

Distinction between urban and non-urban data: your regular reminder that urban data is a term that does not exist in Canadian law, leaving Sidewalk Labs with a lot of leeway to define it in its own interest.

An “open digital infrastructure” that will use “urban data to improve quality of life.” This would involve a “standardized mount system” that would “eliminate vendor lock-in” and would allow Sidewalk Labs a shot a setting a global standard. (p. 233)

“Open and secure” data standards. A set of publish standards around open-data architecture, access and sources”

Goal: to allow third parties to build on Sidewalk Labs’ system (i.e., creating a platform) (p. 233)

Question: is Sidewalk Labs’ standardized mount, “Koala,” a proprietary design?

New bureaucracy: An Urban Data Trust

anchored by a Responsible Data Use (RDU) Assessment — an in-depth review that is triggered by any proposal to collect or use urban data — and guided by a set of RDU Guidelines that incorporates globally recognized Privacy by Design principles. (p. 233)

• The Urban Data Trust would be “independent,” “not controlled by either Sidewalk Labs or Waterfront Toronto”
• It would have a five-person board and a Chief Data Officer
• It would approve “all collection or use of urban data in Quayside”
• It would only cover “urban data” (other types of data are not covered by this section) (p. 240)

More details apparently are in Volume 2.

It would be responsible for establishing “a set of Responsible Data Use (RDU) Guidelines that would apply to all entities seeking to collect or use urban data in the IDEA District, incorporating globally recognized Privacy by Design principles.” (p. 240)

Sidewalk Labs would play a key role in setting these policies, which, again, would be based on a category “urban data” that it has defined.

According to Sidewalk Labs, this policy should be governed by the following principles:

• Beneficial purpose for urban data’s use;
• transparent and clear notification to individuals about how this data would be collected.
• Minimize data collection with the least-invasive technology
• Publicly accessible data by default (property de-identified or non-personal data). No matter that it’s becoming increasingly clear that truly deanonymizing data is an impossible task.
• No selling or advertising without explicit consent. Of course, urban data by definition is collected in public spaces where it is pretty much impossible to get valid individual consent. So, consent would have to happen in another way; i.e., via mass consent.
  • Here’s the problem: Smart cities require ubiquitous surveillance and data collection. Getting individual consent for data collected from an individual’s movement through a public space is pretty much impossible. So consent would have to be done in a pre-determined manner (e.g., by merely entering the space, or by posting a sign, or). In other words, the Urban Data Trust is the only organization that can define what “mass individual consent” actually entails. It’s not going to shut down the smart city. Rather we’ll find that getting legal (but ethically fraudulent) “individual consent” can be achieved simply through a bit of bureaucratic manoeuvring, of defining the problem away. This is a good example of how Sidewalk Labs’ commitment to actual individual privacy is much less than it seems.
• Responsible AI principles (all these on p. 241).

It would also

implement and manage a process for approving the responsible collection and use of urban data anchored by a publicly auditable Responsible Data Use (RDU) Assessment — an in-depth review that is triggered by any proposal to collect or use urban data. (p. 240; proposed rules listed on page 241)

Data use

Urban data produced by Sidewalk Labs’ platform would be “publicly accessible, enabling companies, community members, and other third parties to use it as a foundation to build new tools.” (p. 233)

Questions:

• How would this use be qualified?
• To what extent would this involve the possibility of privatizing public services?
• Since this data would be produced from (Canadian/Toronto) residents and Toronto geography, will Canadian governments, NGOs and/or companies have priority access to this data? Otherwise, one could easily anticipate the monopolization of this level of services by data giants like Google.
• Who will maintain the platform? (Sidewalk Labs, I think.)
• For how long?
• What happens after the first contract finishes?
• What will the public authorities do to ensure that the city isn’t held hostage to Sidewalk Labs as the keeper of the platform?

Its promises for “best-in-class resiliency and security” are just that – promises – unless and until we see exactly what they are doing, beyond their current list of things the company (which isn’t a city) currently uses (p. 239).

What’s not here

What about “non-urban data”? Maybe it’ll be discussed later?

Public Engagement (pp. 244-249)

Nothing to see here: This part is repeated word-for-word from the Overview.

Next up

We have a Very Special Episode for Post 20: a quick look at the economic analysis underlying Sidewalk Labs’ projections and we all learn an important life lesson. See you there.

In which Sidewalk Labs promotes the innovative nature of building tinier-than-currently-allowed apartments and I note the irony of Sidewalk Labs touting a transparency app in what is easily the most poorly designed non-transparent document I’ve ever had the misfortune to spend three weeks reading.

But enough of my petty complaining. Let’s get straight to activitivating,  shall we?

Previous Master Innovation and Development Plan liveblog entries and relevant documents available here

Part 2.3: Buildings and Housing (pp. 168-196; not listed in the Table of Contents)

Changing regulations: A “digital building code”

a proposed digital building code system could help ensure that this vibrant mix of uses can thrive without creating nuisances, such as noise.

This proposal assumes that specific and easily measurable criteria – most notably noise – are the only reasons why manufacturing and residential have traditionally been separated. I would like to hear from municipal experts about why we have the current separation of building/activity types, and what is being gained and lost from this proposal.

The mass timber bet

It drives Sidewalk Labs’ cost projections and environmental commitment (p. 172) Also, it doesn’t yet exist. It may work out. Or it may not. That’s how innovation works.

Also, they want to save money via “Factory-produced buildings.” (p. 173) I’d love for an expert to weigh in on this proposal (which, again, remains an aspiration supported here by some pretty drawings).

“Flexible building interiors” (p. 178)

I’d like to see some actual designs and plans, certified by an engineer saying that these can actually work and won’t collapse, please. Instead, all we have again are aforementioned pretty drawings and a reference to “design concepts” from three architecture firms (p. 181). If actual plans exist, they’re not referenced in this section. I also want to see the architecture firms interrogated in public, by qualified engineers, regarding the viability of their mock-ups. In short, how theoretical are these proposals? How far away from being street-ready are they?

I don’t mean to sound too much like a broken record, but this is not a plan; it’s the world’s largest sales brochure.

Affordable housing

On page 191, we get some insight into how Sidewalk Labs would create affordable housing:

Smaller apartments (7% smaller on average), allowing for more units, including Murphy beds, “convertible furniture, built-in-shelfing and fold-out tables. … ” and off-site storage for their stuff, and tool (e.g., ladders) rental. This tool rental is referred to as “borrowing,” but given Sidewalk Labs’ tendency to want to charge for everything it can think of, I’m betting this would end up being a rental service.

Also, “communal spaces,” co-living units that sound like rooming houses or roommate flats, where people could rent out spare rooms for visiting relatives or to host “dinner parties.”

I would be curious as to who would be interested in living in a pod with a Murphy bed, sharing a kitchen and dining room with roommates. Because that’s what Sidewalk Labs is selling here. It all sounds like a way to cram as many poor people into a small as spaces as possible, while ensuring that more room exists to sell much-bigger condos to rich people. Or maybe it’s for single workaholic tech bros?

Their mass timber dream would also contribute to health, through reduced stress from people looking at wood.  This is based on research finding reduced stress “that have been shown to occur with exposure to nature in cities.”

The story of Jamie (pp. 192-195)

I’m not sure that the story that Sidewalk Labs is using to sell their unique flexible housing is telling the story that they think it is. First, it’s as much a story about financing as it is about housing. Second, it describes a person who doesn’t want to live outside of a, what, six-block, area his entire life. That Sidewalk Labs is proposing a mix of dwellings is fine, but it’s also kind of banal.

Part 2.4: Sustainability (pp. 198-213; not listed in the Table of Contents)

According to this section, Sidewalk Labs would hit its environmental goals by improving insulation, making buildings airtight, better filtering and more efficient air conditioning. (p. 200)

Also: a district-wide thermal grid relying on “clean energy sources” (p. 202), such as geothermal energy, waste heat, wastewater heat, and assuming solar panels and batteries (pp. 203-204). This is something that requires a system built on the level of the wider waterfront area Sidewalk Labs would like to control.

Also: an app that would allow you to manage your energy use. (p. 205)

I would like to hear from some independent engineers on the feasibility of this proposal. Also, Sidewalk Labs is all about telling us about how this would work if everything goes right. We also need to know, and what could go wrong?

On waste disposal (p. 209): I want to know who’s going to fix all this when it breaks down, what the maintenance budget is going to look like, and the skills needed by the people who are going to keep this complex system going.

Stormwater management (p. 210-213). Not my area of expertise.

Part 2.5: Social Infrastructure (pp. 214-229; not listed in the Table of Contents)

• Sidewalk Labs would not directly provide community services. (p. 216)
• It proposes allocating 90,000 square feet toward social infrastructure (question: how much of this is flex space?) (p. 216)
• It proposes “supporting local community organizations and service providers with expertise, digital prototypes, resources, and planning to bring innovative service delivery models to the community.” Question: How much would it charge for these services? (p. 216)
• It proposes working “with partners to ensure that critical services are accessible to all populations, including the most vulnerable.” Question: How long is this service commitment for? What does a for-profit development company know about social services? (p. 216) One possible answer, on p. 120: through below-market rents (p. 120) and possibly provision of its “expertise, including support on technical roadmaps for new or existing digital tools that could meaningfully improve outcomes, efficiency, and experience.” (p. 221) Question: What does Sidewalk Labs know about community services? Google, on the other hand, is building an expertise in this area.
• It proposes getting “a local partner to convene health care and community service providers; working together with the community, this group could explore opportunities to provide proactive, integrated, digitally enabled, and holistic service delivery offerings.” (p. 216)

Super-innovative: A government-transparency app.

This is all a bit vague:

To complement the physical space, fully accessible digital tools — both those already existing in the market and others created in partnership with the community — could help people to participate in civic life, collaborate, and shape their neighbourhood and help governing bodies to undertake more transparent, inclusive, and responsive decision-making. (p. 217)

What’s interesting here is Sidewalk Labs’ implicit view of what makes for good governance, namely full transparency as it relates to decision-making. This perspective is embedded in its description of Collab its prototype “digital tool.”

According to Sidewalk Labs, Collab:

engages community members in local decisions that can shape their neighbourhood, such as programming in a central public space, through a transparent process that reveals the decision-making framework and all community inputs. Users propose their choices for events in their community, and then the tool walks them through the trade-offs associated with each proposal — a farmers market provides fresh produce and draws a lot of foot traffic, but the space may feel too congested for a community picnic — and how their individual choices impact the community. (p. 217, emphasis added)

This app does hide a lot of the politics under the hood – who decides how issues are framed what tradeoffs are included/ignored, that everyone involved is fully informed about the issues, that all issues should be open to majority vote (think: minority rights), that there is no role for elected representatives – but for the moment, consider the bitter irony of its inclusion in this proposal.

The Master Innovation and Development Plan and the process leading up to it is the goateed evil twin of Collab, its anthesis, its negation. The MIDP proposes fuzzy, aspirational projects in the most opaque way possible, with relevant information for single parts of the project (such as the Open Space Alliance) scattered over 1,500 pages, with no complete description in any one place.

It does not include any talk of the tradeoffs involved in its choices. And the refusal of Waterfront Toronto and Sidewalk Labs to release key documents or to deal with key issues in a timely manner throughout the past two years has made the process anything but transparent.

For health and social services

The “Care Collective”: “for the co-location of preventive support, health care, and community services as well as offering leases at below-market rates to ensure a diverse set of service providers, including non- profit organizations.” (p. 220)

Sidewalk Labs invents the community centre!

the Civic Assembly, a place for gathering, learning, and engaging amongst the community. (p. 217)

This space would be operated by Sidewalk Labs (which presumably would be the landlord), working with others to plan its operations. (p. 225)

Private-public partnerships come for elementary school children!

To begin activitivating [typo, or a new business line? In a world where an “Assembly” refers to a physical space and not a group of people, nothing seems real anymore] opportunities for learning throughout the community, Sidewalk Labs is pursuing collaborations with educational leaders in Toronto. Sidewalk Labs and the Toronto Public Library (TPL) are currently exploring opportunities to seamlessly integrate the library’s presence throughout Quayside, building on the theme of learning happening everywhere.

These opportunities could include pop-up learning labs or lending services; TPL-developed classes, particularly those that support data, AI, and algorithmic literacy; or digital consult rooms in library branches or pop-up library stations that could allow residents to easily book a private session or meeting with service providers. (p. 228)

This section would seem to invite a conversation about whether or to what extent private companies should be invited into the classroom.

Another few sections finished. Let’s make #activitivating happen!

Continuing my voyage through The Plans. Note: This Part is pretty involved, so I’m dividing it into several posts.

For a document that is supposed to set out a plan and give us some certainty, I have so, so many Questions.

Previous Master Innovation and Development Plan liveblog entries and relevant documents available here

Part 2: How it Works (pp. 96-243)

These are the sections in which I become very aware that I am not a transportation expert. Or a housing expert. Or an environmental scientist (#respect). My expertise is in governance and the digital/knowledge realm.

Beyond being a reminder that I am not qualified to evaluate many of Sidewalk Labs’ specific proposals, I’m somewhat comforted by the fact that that nobody is capable of reviewing this document on their own. It highlights that this proposal needs an extensive, deep review by a lot of people.

What I can note is that these sections, which lay out a lot of the detail of Sidewalk Labs’ proposal, are kind of hidden from the curious expert. They’re not listed in Volume 1’s Table of Contents, where they are collectively called by the Future Planning Committee-style label “How it Works.”

I’m going to read these sections with an eye to what happens to stick out to me and that I haven’t mentioned elsewhere.

Part 2.1: Mobility (pp. 102-145; not listed in the Table of Contents)

On the much-coveted light rail

Sidewalk Labs wants:

6.5 kilometres of light rail transit proposed in the Waterfront Transit Network Plan, including a new Quayside- Parliament Plaza stop. Beyond the approved plan, Sidewalk Labs further proposes an optional second phase of construction to add light rail infrastructure to the area north of the Keating Channel to serve future development. These expanded plans can be pursued at a total estimated cost of approximately $1.2 billion (roughly $1.3 billion if the optional Sidewalk Labs link were included).

How it should be financed:

a future charge on real estate development and borrow in the present against that stream of funds to pay for part of the cost of construction of the transit system.

On transit

This approach is designed to operate safely and effectively in existing cities with traditional vehicles, however, it reaches its peak potential in a world of self-driving vehicles that can be programmed to follow traffic rules, be routed by a mobility management system, and defer to pedestrians. (p. 118)

Questions: This is yet another example of selling the best possible scenario, with no contingency for a technology (self-driving cars) not working out. The full viability of Sidewalk Labs’ plan will depend on circumstances beyond its control, namely, the replacement of all cars with centrally run, self-driving cars. This would require revamping the country’s entire transportation system to allow self-driving cars to work.

So, what happens if this tech doesn’t work out? Also, and more importantly, what bureaucracy is going to be responsible for monitoring these algorithms to ensure that they’re properly prioritizing the right things (e.g., pedestrians, transit vehicles)?

And, who will decide what these priorities will be? Right now, the politics – and the bureaucracy required to make these decisions – is invisible in this proposal. Accounting for them would both complicate and make more expensive this proposal.

On “dynamic curbs”

Sidewalk Labs’ is very big on these dynamic curbs, which is primarily a zoning innovation, turning part of a road – three metres in its drawings (p. 121) – into spots for “programming like outdoor cafés or pop-up shops (p. 124).

2035: Year of the self-driving car

It’s probably worth paying attention to how much of Sidewalk Labs’ promised deliverables are driven by the expectation that self-driving cars will work out, and also that self-driving cars, and not public transit, are the future.

There are two big issues with this prediction. First, what happens to Sidewalk Labs’ promised outcomes if this tech doesn’t work out? They need to account for this.

Second, planning is destiny. By planning for a world in which self-driving cars dominate, we are also planning to relatively minimize the role of public transit. This is a decision that should be opened up for debate. Its inclusion here highlights yet again the scope of Sidewalk Labs’ proposal, touching as it does on any number of political issues while ignoring their political nature.

It’s also yet another indicator that the issues it raises are far too big for this project, and certainly for the Waterfront Toronto consultation process. Waterfront Toronto isn’t approving a development; it’s approving a complete overhaul of almost every single regulation and policy governing life in a Toronto community, effectively outsourcing decisions about what these rules should be to a private, for-profit corporation.

Oh, and it’s really not a good idea to base your plans on something that might happen fifteen or more years down the road. And yet here we are.

“Real-time” mobility systems (p. 130)

As previously noted, Sidewalk Labs places a high priority on moment-to-moment responsiveness of streets to how they are being used (which of course will require that everything be surveilled at every moment).

Some questions:

1. How problematic (and provide evidence) is our current set-up, in which some people can cross the street at a slower or faster rate than others (an actual example Sidewalk Labs is using to justify pervasive surveillance and a multi-million-dollar spending project)? Would another, less-expensive, and less-intrusive system, work better, such as larger fines for cars blowing red lights or vehicle restrictions?
2. Is there something to be said for constancy, for being able to come to a neighbourhood and know that the roads and walkways will always be set up in the same way?

“Modular pavement” (p. 131)

1. What are the drawbacks to this technology compared with currently existing materials?
2. Would Sidewalk Labs’ “pavement solution” be proprietary? What would the maintenance costs look like?

(Again, answers to questions like this are the type of details I would hope a serious plan would include. Instead, we get promises and pretty drawings.)

Underground delivery and logistics hub (pp. 134-135)

“Quick and reliable deliveries are essential to urban living, especially for residents who do not own cars.” (p. 134) This is just correct. As a non-car-owning Toronto resident in the pre-Amazon era, I know that they’re a convenience, a luxury, not a necessity. This is a sales line.

22 accessibility principles (pp. 136-142)

This is the first section in which Sidewalk Labs makes a connection between community consultations and outcomes (and even here self-driving cars feature prominently (p. 140). And of course pretty much everything presented here is aspirational vapourware. There is no actual plan to deliver, just to explore.

In almost every other area of this report, it’s pretty clear that Sidewalk Labs sees the Eastern Waterfront as a playground for testing its own ideas.

The other exception where they say they have listened to the community is regarding data governance. Their response, however, was less-than-neighbourly, indicating that they want to get compensated for their heavily qualified commitment not to exploit data generated by this project.

And here’s something that I know nothing about, and may by nothing, but it’s interesting that it’s not mentioned in this report: Sidewalk Labs wants to do a lot of underground digging to make these parking garages and accessible garbage and package-delivery tubes work. What would be the effect of hollowing out the entire underground in this area?

Part 2.2: Public Realm (pp. 146-167; not listed in the Table of Contents)

Coulda, woulda, shoulda II

I don’t have anything insightful to contribute in this section, so I’ll take this opportunity to note that the world “could” appears 380 times in this 524-page (including soooo many pages that are either blank or have no substantive information on them) volume. This is very much a vision of what “could” be done, not what “will” be done.

More new bureaucracy: The Open Space Alliance

Oh, here’s something – another new form of bureaucracy:

In Quayside, a proposed new non-profit entity called the Open Space Alliance would have a robust programming budget to support ongoing community arts programs, design competitions, and residencies for local and international artists and technologists. (p. 156)

Dr. Natasha Tusikov addresses the Open Space Alliance in her guest post on all the agencies Sidewalk Labs wants to create. For now, I’ll note that this description severely undersells an agency that, as Sidewalk Labs describes it elsewhere in this plan, would have to deal with everything from programming to maintenance and stormwaters, and who knows what else. Also, part of its budget would be taken from existing City of Toronto programs. Also, it would be a public-private partnership (why would this be necessary). Basically, it would be a Department of Homeland Security-style behemoth: everything under one roof.

Questions: Was the City consulted about this proposal? What did they think of it?

“Building Raincoats” (p. 161)

More questions: What are the maintenance costs going to be like? Won’t these “raincoats” increase one’s separation from the overall environment? And how big a problem are the elements for people walking in Quayside? This is the cost-benefit question (the cost of the improvement versus the benefit it provides, compared with the status quo) that is entirely absent from this proposal.

Benefits from modular spaces?

Sidewalk Labs claims that “changing market forces — from online shopping to rising construction costs — and rigidly sized storefronts are limiting the variety of tenants who can survive.”

What is the relative importance of each of these factors?

How can modular spaces compete with online shopping?

Is a 30-business survey (p. 166) sufficient to support their findings/proposals?

More new bureaucracy: Seed Space

A proposed digital leasing service, Seed Space, would show all available spaces, possible configurations and fit-out options, leasing durations and terms, and potential matches for co-tenancy.

Who would run this Seed Space? Would it be a monopoly? Would it be a public entity? How would it be funded?

Zoning

The lower floors of Quayside would be zoned for retail, food and beverage; production; office space and social infrastructure space. (p. 165) How does this compare with how Toronto currently regulates in this area?

New types of leases (p. 165)

Opportunities for shorter lease terms (one-month versus traditional 10-year leases) and alternative leasing models (charging tenants a percentage of their sales versus a fixed rent) — all easily accessible through Quayside’s leasing service — would help businesses open and evolve.

Why aren’t these types of leases currently available? What rates would be demanded to provide these shorter leases? How would it be ensured that the rates would be fair to small businesses? Would the rates needed to cover the greater risk this leasing entity would have to assume eat up the benefits of a shorter lease?

That’s it for today. More tomorrow…