Crowned the “Jane Jacobs of smart cities” (CityLab), Bianca Wylie’s fierce advocacy calling for transparency over the proposed smart city project, Sidewalk Toronto—a tech-heavy, eco friendly neighbourhood being developed by the subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet—has earned her that notoriety. She is also the co-founder of Tech Reset Canada and a Senior Fellow at global think-tank: Centre for International Governance Innovation with a dual background in technology and public engagement.
Bloomberg argued “Sidewalk Labs’ failure signals how much attitudes toward big technology companies and their influence over our lives has shifted in recent years. If a company like Alphabet, with its talent and resources, can’t pull off such a project, it’s not clear anyone can.” with former reSITE curator Greg Lindsay expressing that this may be “the defeat of the privately owned city.”
As they say, the battle here may have been won on private companies commoditizing public space, but the war on privacy seems far from over. Sidewalk Toronto’s fate has become nothing more than an idealistic render of possibility, but it opened up a new conversation on how we handle technology in our public spaces. A discussion that is evolving as the use of digital surveillance has become more normalized in effort to help curb the spread of COVID-19 in countries like China and India. The question Bianca proposed is still relevant—how are we going to regulate the use of smart cities while preserving privacy in our future cities?
Late last year, Bianca delivered a powerful presentation reminding us of our collective power and the value of the democratic process at reSITE REGENERATE while unearthing the hidden agendas of Sidewalk Lab’s meddling in public space for profit. At the core of Bianca’s work is the upholding the importance of our public institutions, that have lagged behind in developing mechanisms for regulating such projects. Her vocal opposition cast a spotlight on the implications of data mining conducted by private corporations.
