The desired symbiotic relationship between civil society and government
If you have watched Finding Nemo, you probably know the importance of sea anemones to marine habitats. Anemones provide food and shelter for reef animals such as clownfish. Clownfish, in turn, provide nutrients to the anemones. They engage in a classic symbiotic relationship, in which they can benefit from interacting with each other in the long term.
Ideally, civil society and government should engage in a similar partnership in addressing urban issues. The city can be seen as an aquatic habitat while businesses and non-profits, and governments are clownfish and anemones, respectively.
In class, we’ve seen examples in which private entities collaborated with the government to promote the common good. For example, there are much Privately-Owned Publicly Accessible Spaces (POPS) across Toronto that are privately owned but are open to the public (The map below shows the POPS within part of Downtown Toronto). I did not know Distillery District is POPS as it is so well-built and hosts number of public events every year.
However, there are times when civil society and the government fail to function in mutually beneficial ways. An interesting example is a failure of establishing Waterfront Toronto as one of Google’s first smart cities. The project was launched in 2017 but fell apart in 2020. Google’s sister company, Sidewalk Labs, visioned to redevelop the area to be more affordable and sustainable by using high-tech innovation.
However, Sidewalk Labs encountered a number of challenges. As explained in the book Sideways: The City Google Couldn’t Buy published by journalist Josh O’Kane, the economic hardship caused by COVID-19 was one. Another more serious problems were the miscommunication and dysfunction that can be attributed to Toronto’s governmental structure. Kane pointed out that Sidewalk Labs signed the contract with Waterfront Toronto while they were not truly aware of the fact that Waterfront Toronto does not have much real power. Everything had to be reported to three levels of government: municipal, provincial, and federal. Not to mention that things are prescribed under different jurisdictions, in which the complexity added on to the time and human cost.
Anyways, due to all sorts of reasons, Sidewalk Labs abandoned the smart city project in Toronto, which evoked quite a much debates. Referring back to the story at the beginning, it is interesting how marine animals are able to live in the best beneficial relationships that we desire to have.
References:
https://study.com/academy/lesson/symbiotic-relationship-definition-examples-quiz.html
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/may/07/google-sidewalk-labs-toronto-smart-city-abandoned
