Economy
Alphabet Announces Plan to Turn Toronto Neighborhood into Living Laboratory
The development is the company's first foray into what it has described as "rebuilding cities from the Internet up.”
Urban innovations company Sidewalk Labs and the Canadian government announced a partnership Tuesday to develop 750 acres along Toronto’s waterfront into what they envision as a high-tech living laboratory for solving urban problems. It would be the largest urban redevelopment project in North America.
“We have an opportunity to fundamentally redefine what urban life can actually be,” Sidewalk Labs CEO Dan Doctoroff said in an introductory video at a high profile press conference in Toronto. The company, founded in June 2015, is a subsidiary of Alphabet, Google’s parent company.