How to write about #BlockSidewalk
#BlockSidewalk will be a challenge for Canadian media to cover, but there are too many important stories to ignore.
You may have heard about #BlockSidewalk, the campaign to reset Sidewalk Toronto, that was launched yesterday at City Hall. I was one of dozens of people who showed up to offer my support. The press conference was attended by several local journalists, political strategists and other Toronto-based media.
In the coming months, Canadian media may have major challenges covering #BlockSidewalk, because like many community initiatives, the campaign won’t contain a single, simple narrative or polished talking points. There will likely be nuance and complexity that can’t be simplified into a sound byte.
Still, there are some really amazing stories that are worthy of our attention and time. Some of these stories follow the typical David vs. Goliath story arc, but there are also larger universal narratives baked into the campaign from the start.
WOMEN ARE GOING TO LEAD THIS RESISTANCE
While Silicon Valley continues to mansplain away its major diversity issues, #BlockSidewalk is led by a collection of informed Toronto residents that are richly talented, world renowned — and overwhelmingly female. Women, especially women of colour, are among many marginalized voices that have largely been ignored from Sidewalk Toronto narratives thus far. There has been some discussion about new jobs at Quayside, but no discussion about the availability or affordability of child care that prevents women from entering or remaining in the workplace in the first place. There has been much debate about building a light rail line through Quayside, but almost no coverage about how Sidewalk Labs would contribute to operating a transit system that is disproportionately used by women. There has been precious little evaluation of Sidewalk Labs and their proposals through the lens of gender equity, equal pay and intersectionality. The only way to access these stories is to speak with women who live and understand them, and #BlockSidewalk offers a unique opportunity to do just that.
THE INTERNET IS MADE OF RIGHTS, NOT THINGS
#BlockSidewalk is part of a global movement to re-gain political, social and democratic control over the power of the Internet and its giants. The vast majority of technology criticism related to Sidewalk Labs hasn’t come from voices inside of Canada — it has come from international voices who have dealt with the deleterious effect of tech giants like Facebook, Amazon and Google in their municipalities. In many ways, #BlockSidewalk shares less in common with other municipal fights in Toronto, and more in common with an ongoing international conversation about the role of the Internet in a digitally connected, climate changing world. Toronto loves to compare itself to other cities like New York and Paris, and #BlockSidewalk begins to connect the dots on this global picture. You should too.
STRANGE TECH BED FELLOWS
We don’t yet know what shape #BlockSidewalk will take, but we know for sure that the campaign will incorporate more bottom-up, democratic thinking than the top-down, controlled corporate experiment that Sidewalk Labs is currently executing. Democracy always produces a few surprises, and in times of upheaval, there are usually interesting stories around ad-hoc, unlikely coalitions formed around common interests. How will Toronto-based creators, consumers, users and targets of technology come together to combat the rise of surveillance capitalism? How will Toronto-based commerce, labour and human rights advocates negotiate the power of the Internet? How will north and south Toronto residents compromise on the role of technology in our neighbourhoods?
NEW AND UNUSUAL RESIDENT-BASED IDEAS
For all the talk of innovation on the waterfront, there is almost nothing that Sidewalk Labs has proposed that is actually new to Toronto. By contrast, #BlockSidewalk will offer residents the opportunity to think about how to build a 21st century waterfront that exists to serve more than a handful of North American political and business leaders. As a result, you’ll hear incredible, interesting, informed ideas about the future. You’ll also hear wacky and possibly outrageous ideas that would never make it into a professional document about how to transform Quayside, Port Lands, the waterfront and Toronto itself. Both perspectives are worth reflecting on, and both perspectives carry insights about how Toronto really feels about this project.
In the coming months, there will certainly be more stories to tell. And when the opportunity presents itself to cover these stories, we hope you’ll be there to cover them.
