Google Wants to Let Tech Workers Reserve Public Spaces
But its plan could exclude marginalized groups
Google sister-company Sidewalk Labs has been chosen to co-plan a 12-acre (4.9-hectare) site on Toronto’s waterfront called Quayside, which it claims will become an urban area “built from the internet up.” When reading through Sidewalk’s smart-city proposal, it can sound visionary and futuristic; but a more critical assessment reveals possible negative outcomes that it seems not to have considered. It’s a great example of how top-down planning by well-off individuals who have a hard time considering other perspectives — in this case, tech workers — fails to serve the poor and marginalized.
Among the ideas which demonstrate this blindness is Sidewalk’s proposal to make public spaces reservable. On the surface, it may seem like a great “innovation” to ensure you know whether space is available when you want to use it, but it can also exclude marginalized people and disrupt the informal rules that have developed in public spaces. It continues a trend toward the privatization of public space that is a growing problem in major cities.
There are aspects of Sidewalk’s plans that could work well. The company claims its reservation system would be used for pop-up shops, seasonal retailers, and “activity stalls” in a “next-gen bazaar,” but it also wants to let people reserve park space for family picnics, which seems a bit more troubling. Why couldn’t they simply go to the park and find a space, like people have been doing for… centuries?
Malcolm Harris gave a great example of the unforeseen downsides of reservable public spaces in his book Kids These Days, which challenges the conventional, and largely negative, stereotype of millennials by analyzing the social and economic factors which influenced their lives and development.
In San Francisco’s rapidly gentrifying Mission District — previously home to “Mexican immigrants, white flight, punk venues, and Central American refugees” — young tech workers are remaking the neighborhood for themselves. To accommodate this new population, an app was introduced to allow corporate activities coordinators to book time at sports facilities, but it conflicted with the norms that had developed around the facility, forcing kids out so tech workers could play soccer.
In September of 2014, a cell phone video surfaced of a corporate team from Dropbox attempting to remove a bunch of local kids in time for their scheduled 7 p.m. game with Airbnb. The city’s new policy conflicts with the field’s own informal rules (seven-on-seven, winner stays), but the uniformed Dropbox team has their reservation in order and is unconcerned with the codes they’re disrupting. In the video, you can hear a kid responding to one of the impatient players threatening to call the cops.
Tech workers are colonizing and gentrifying communities, ignoring the norms that have developed in those communities over time, and seem to feel that they can rewrite the rules to serve themselves. This trend could be moving to a higher level with Sidewalk’s plans to design cities in a way that puts the desires of tech workers, or the “creative class,” before those of other (often marginalized) groups.
Harris further describes how society has made it more difficult for young people to have a social life; with busy schedules, limited suburban mobility, and being increasingly unwelcome in malls and parks, they have been forced “online, where their flirting, fighting, and friending can be monitored and sold to investors and advertisers.” Major tech companies are driving the privatization of public space, which limits who can use that space, leading more people to rely on the apps from which they profit.
If Sidewalk plans to allow people to rent public space, does that mean the company will also own it? Or would it be owned by the City, but managed by a private company? Further, if space can be rented, does that mean there will be a fee associated with that rental?
In the United Kingdom, the privatization of public space has become a major issue, and residents are finding that it can be difficult to determine the ownership status of certain spaces and the rules that govern them. Private security guards patrol many of these spaces, and remove people they deem undesirable or who do things that go against their secret rules. Even parks where children have played for decades have been privatized and turned into spaces where basic equipment is free, but other experiences are available at a price, creating a hierarchy where kids were once equal.
Placing public space in the sphere of the market, and thus putting pressure on it to contribute to profitability, makes it naturally exclusionary to populations which will not aid that goal. The homeless, the poor, and young people are all victims of such initiatives, but they also tend to have little say in the decision-making process.
Sidewalk and Waterfront Toronto, the tri-government body ultimately in charge, are promising to hold consultations about the project, but how likely is the company to listen to marginalized voices? Quayside looks poised to become an enclave designed by tech workers, for tech workers, including subsidized ride hailing and a heavy reliance on Alphabet technologies. This is not the way to design inclusive cities, and it will be instructive to see whether the City of Toronto steps in to ensure the site is planned with everyone in mind, not just those who will generate maximum profit.
If you’re interested in further analysis of the Sidewalk Toronto project, see my other pieces on the new market Google is making for itself and the flaws in Sidewalk’s transportation plan.
