The $1.3 billion development is being billed as ?the most innovative district in the entire world? Sidewalk Labs has delivered its $1.3 billion plan to redevelop 12 acres of Toronto?s industrial waterfront?along with a much bigger vision to create a massive urban-scale laboratory to prototype solutions to urban challenges.
On a call today, about 18 months after the Toronto Quayside site was selected by Sidewalk Labs, which is a subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet, the division?s CEO Dan Doctoroff said the planned development would be ?the most innovative district in the entire world.?
In addition to creating 44,000 new jobs?with five non-tech jobs for every tech worker job?the reimagined neighborhood will also be the largest climate-positive development in North America, and possibly in the world, according to Doctoroff, a former New York City deputy mayor under Michael Bloomberg. The area will generate 89 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than the average Toronto neighborhood, with an estimated 77 percent of all trips made using walking, biking, or transit. The draft plan, entitled Toronto Tomorrow: A New Approach for Inclusive Growth, is a 1,500-page document which can be viewed on Sidewalk Toronto?s website. A four-volume printed publication of the plan was delivered to Canadian officials and members of the media a few hours before Sidewalk Labs made the plan public.
Even stakeholders seemed taken aback by the amount of information. Waterfront Toronto,...