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How Smart Should a City Be? Toronto Is Finding Out

A data-driven “neighborhood of the future” masterminded by a Google corporate sibling, the Quayside project could be a milestone in digital-age city-building. But after a year of scandal in Silicon Valley, questions about privacy and security remain.
A verdant pedestrian walkway in Quayside, the "smart neighborhood" planned for Toronto's waterfront.
A verdant pedestrian walkway in Quayside, the "smart neighborhood" planned for Toronto's waterfront.Sidewalk Labs
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On a Tuesday night in August, Jesse Shapins, the director of public realm and culture at Sidewalk Labs, flipped through a set of colorful slides before a public audience in downtown Toronto.

On view were design ideas for Quayside, the 12-acre mixed-use neighborhood that Alphabet’s city-building subsidiary has planned for the city’s waterfront. “How might we create a people-first city in the digital age?” asked Shapins, who wore a heavy beard and round red spectacles.