Against The Dystopia — STUDIOTEKNE™

PROJECT: AGAINST THE DYSTOPIA_
A Human-Centred Approach To Smart Cities
Case Study Proposal For The City of Toronto

It is projected that by 2050, two-thirds of the global population will call cities home.¹ This eventual surge puts significant demand on urban centres, their governing bodies, and inhabitants to invest in infrastructure, sustainability, and innovative architectural and engineering projects. Moreover, cities must rethink and invest in digital innovation to adapt to the coming decades, where digitization will undeniably shape the functionality and experience of urban life.

1 _ The Economist Newspaper. (n.d.). Resilient cities index. The Economist.

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The emergence of SMART CITIES, presents new possibilities in urban planning, environmental design, architecture, and technology.² This technological frontier holds the potential to elevate the collective well-being of the city and its inhabitants, reminiscent of the transformative architectural achievements of the Renaissance, creating a sense of civic pride and personal ambition. However, recent experiences, notably in Toronto, reveal a gap between this vision and reality.

2 _ Florida, R. (2019, September 4). Sidewalk labs is the future of Urban Tech. Toronto Life.

• Quayside _ Toronto, Canada (Picture Courtesy of Tim Wiscombe Architecture)

In 2017, Waterfront Toronto unveiled plans to collaborate with Sidewalk Labs, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., on a $900 million project to transform Toronto’s Waterfront district into North America’s first smart city.³However, by 2020, Sidewalk Labs had canceled the project amid notable public opposition. Concerns were made about potential impacts on privacy, governance, and the influence of a private company in urban development. Sidewalk Labs sought full autonomy from city regulators, leading to a lack of public trust in a plan that seemed detached from the genuine needs of the people.⁴ The attempt to address urbanization and infrastructure challenges through a Big Tech subsidiary revealed a significant disconnect between the vision of a smart city and the authentic needs and concerns of the citizens it aimed to serve.

As long as Waterfront remains clueless about IP and data while deferring to Sidewalk on all the critical decisions, Canadians will continue to be treated to glitzy images of pseudo-tech dystopia while foreign companies profit from the IP and data Canadian taxpayers fund and create. Sidewalk Toronto is not a smart city. It is a colonizing experiment in surveillance capitalism attempting to bulldoze important urban, civic, and political issues. Of all the misguided innovation strategies Canada has launched over the past three decades, this purported smart city is not only the dumbest but also the most dangerous.” ⁵

- JIM BALSILLIE

“Toronto now stands first in line to become surveillance capitalism’s real-world petri dish. Sidewalk’s proposals reveal the full arc of the new logic. With astonishing audacity, it claims the city as its laboratory and the lives of citizens as its free raw material for data creation, ownership, computation, and monetization.” ⁶

- SHOSHANNA ZUBOFF

3_ Jacobs, K. (2022, July 6). Toronto wants to kill the Smart City Forever. MIT Technology Review.
4 _ Balsillie, J. (2018a, November 29). Sidewalk toronto has only one beneficiary, and it is not Toronto. The Globe and Mail. 6 _ Balsillie, J. (2018a, November 29). Sidewalk toronto has only one beneficiary, and it is not Toronto. The Globe and Mail.
7 _ Zuboff, S. (2019, September 4). Toronto is Surveillance Capitalism’s new frontier. Toronto Life.

The Problem_
The legitimate doubts and concerns held by many must take center stage in shaping design initiatives as the inevitability of Smart Cities unfolds in the Western world. With the future rapidly approaching and a global shift towards urbanization on the horizon, strategies for ensuring human-centered design in smart city planning should be approached with a balance of optimism for the potential benefits and realism in acknowledging past shortcomings and their causes.

The Solution_
Through the course of our research, we aim to craft a multi-disciplinary design solution tailored for the future landscape of Canadian smart cities. This endeavor will scrutinize the opportunities and challenges, drawing valuable insights from the problems observed in the Sidewalk Labs and Waterfront Quayside project. The core objective is to seamlessly integrate technology with inclusivity, sustainability, and transparency principles, thereby creating a blueprint for resilient urban development.

• Smart Forest City _ Cancun, Mexico (Picture Courtesy of Stefano Boeri Architetti)

Design Rationale_

Anticipated outcomes for this research includes a comprehensive design solution comprising of a Smart Citizen Engagement Platform that utilizes mobile applications, augmented reality, and social media integration to enhance citizen engagement in urban planning. This platform can enable real-time feedback, surveys, and interactive simulations, empowering residents to actively participate in decision-making processes. governance, ethical data use, and a participatory community framework. This work looks to facillitate a tangible model for future smart city protocols.

• The Line _ Saudi Arabia (Picture Courtesy of Stefano Boeri Architetti)

Some other potential design solutions to include _

Develop an AR-based navigation system designed for diverse mobility needs. This solution can assist individuals with different modes of transportation, including pedestrians, cyclists, and users of public transportation, providing personalized navigation instructions based on real-time data and user preferences.
Utilize blockchain technology to establish a secure and transparent governance model. This decentralized approach can enhance trust in decision-making processes by ensuring transparency, traceability, and security in transactions and data management within the smart city infrastructure.
Employ machine learning algorithms to analyze housing preferences, demographics, and environmental factors. The system can then generate adaptive housing designs that meet the diverse needs of the population, fostering inclusive and sustainable urban residential spaces.
Utilize the Internet of Things (IoT) to create smart infrastructure that enhances accessibility for all residents. Smart crosswalks, adaptive traffic signals, and IoT-connected public spaces can provide real-time information and services tailored to the needs of individuals with different abilities, promoting inclusivity in urban design.
Create digital twins of key urban infrastructures; digital replicas will enable real-time monitoring, maintenance, and data-driven decision-making for urban assets, ensuring sustainability and resilience in the face of environmental changes.

• Telosa _ Undisclosed, USA (Picture Courtesy of BIG)

Citations_

Ashraf, S.N., Manickam, S., Zia, S.S. et al. IoT empowered smart cybersecurity framework for intrusion detection in internet of drones. Sci Rep 13, 18422 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-45065-8

Balsillie, J. (2018a, November 29). Sidewalk toronto has only one beneficiary, and it is not Toronto. The Globe and Mail. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-sidewalk-toronto-is-not-a-smart-city/

Cavoukian, A. (2019, September 4). De-identifying data at the source is the only way sidewalk can workA. Toronto Life. https://torontolife.com/city/de-identifying-data-at-the-source-is-the-only-way-sidewalk-can-work/

Doctorow, C. (2019, September 4). A smart city should serve its users, not mine their data. Toronto Life. https://torontolife.com/city/a-smart-city-should-serve-its-users-not-mine-their-data/

The Economist Newspaper. (n.d.). Resilient cities index. The Economist. https://impact.economist.com/projects/resilient-cities/en/whitepaper/the-resilient-cities-index/

Jacobs, K. (2022, July 6). Toronto wants to kill the Smart City Forever. MIT Technology Review. https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/06/29/1054005/toronto-kill-the-smart-city/

Jemmali, M., Melhim, L.K.B., Alharbi, M.T. et al. Smart-parking management algorithms in smart city. Sci Rep 12, 6533 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-10076-4

Josephson, A. (2019, September 4). Toronto needs exciting new architecture. Toronto Life. https://torontolife.com/city/toronto-needs-exciting-new-architecture/

Lorinc, J. (2022). Dream states: Smart Cities, technology, and the pursuit of Urban Utopias. Coach House Books.

Montgomery, C. (2013). Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design. Doubleday Canada.

Mohammadi, N., Taylor, J.E. Thinking fast and slow in disaster decision-making with Smart City Digital Twins. Nat Comput Sci 1, 771–773 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43588-021-00174-0

O’Kane, J. (2022). Sideways: The city google couldn’t buy. Penguin Random House Canada.

ZUBOFF, S. (2019, September 4). Toronto is Surveillance Capitalism’s new frontier. Toronto Life. https://torontolife.com/city/toronto-is-surveillance-capitalisms-new-frontier/

Zuboff, S. (2020). The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the New Frontier of Power. Public Affairs.

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Design Rationale_

Some other potential design solutions to include _