Sidewalk Labs a sister firm of Google has revoked previous planed for a smart city in Canada due to issues caused by the Coronavirus.
The first physical digital city was due to be built in Toronto, with futuristic designs and concepts coming out of everything they were doing.
The city has been in discussion for many years now and would have been built, “from the internet up”.
The CEO has cited the reason for it being scrapped is, “unprecedented economic uncertainty”.
The project has come under fire before now though due to the controversial plans, therefore the ambitious project had already been scaled down from the original concept.
Mr Doctoroff said in a blog: “As unprecedented economic uncertainty has set in around the world, and in the Toronto real estate market, it has become too difficult to make the 12-acre project financially viable without sacrificing core parts of the plan we had developed together with Waterfront Toronto to build a truly inclusive, sustainable community.
“I believe the ideas we have developed over the last two-and-a-half years will represent a meaningful contribution to the work of tackling big urban problems, particularly in the areas of affordability and sustainability.”
The original concept was a totally technology driven city, from your commute to work on a heated cycle path, to sustainable buildings with the future in mind.
However, it was deemed that a lot of the concept was “tech for tech’s sake”, and Sidewalk Labs had to downscale quite drastically to conform with the restrictions put in place.
It certainly could have been interesting to see what a future city has in store, but like many other things it was more of a want than a need, therefore we shall just have to live with the Facebook Horizon city for the momen.
