Some
Thoughts...
Over the past two years, Sidewalk Toronto has brought some important questions about cities – and our collective futures
– into sharp focus. Some of those questions are new; others we’ve been asking for a long time. This is a collection of
ideas to help build on and continue these discussions.
We asked contributors for a short, standalone description of an idea, policy, strategy,
or best practice that might expand this conversation about cities. The people we asked met three basic criteria: a)
people that have shown an interest in contributing to the discussion b) people that have a history of participating in
public discourse and c) people with an explicit mission of inclusivity in their work. This list of contributors is not
comprehensive or complete.
Within the collection there are conflicting ideas and world-views, which is exactly the point: to open up dialogue and
create the largest possible tent to discuss what we want to see in our cities and spaces and how we might make those
things happen. Our hope is that this convening will make space for more collaboration and conversation in the future.
The entries are presented in tables, to represent conversations that might happen over a meal. We have immense gratitude to the contributors for sharing their thoughts quickly, and
with an openness to debate.
Thank you for taking the time to engage with us all.
Nasma Ahmed
Matthew Claudel
Zahra Ebrahim
Christopher Pandolfi
Bianca Wylie
Toronto, 2019
The
Tables...
Table 1
Colonialism, City-Building, and What Could be Next?
Justin Wiebe
‘Smart’ Cities Begin at the Neighbourhood Level
Aliya Bhatia
Cultural Homes in Cities
Shishani Vranckx
Civic Data Trusts
Sean McDonald
Indigenous Design, Infinite Capital
Dr. Walter Greason
Economic Development: From Big to Small and Back Again
Anthony Townsend
Patent Collectives
Jim Hinton
Table 2
Non-Citizen Voting Rights
Desmond Cole
#AbolishCars
sava saheli singh
Digital New Deal
Milan Gokhale
Can’t Wait
Vass Bednar
Unplanning the City
John van Nostrand
Public Data Belongs in the Public Library
Mita Williams
MyData in the Smart City
John Wunderlich
Table 3
Show Me the Money: How the Transit Funding Model is Broken
André Darmanin
Supporting Newcomer-owned Food Businesses
Andrew Do
Constructive Dissent
Rumman Chowdhury
Urban Collective Solidarity
Alejandro Mayoral Banos
Socially Responsible Intellectual Property
Myra J. Tawfik
Public Space in a Smart City
Pamela Robinson
Land as a Platform
Alastair Parvin
Table 4
Community Benefits Agreements
Kumsa Baker
Art Shaping the Rules that Govern AI
Valentine Goddard
How Do We Ask Wise Questions About Technology & Cities Amidst Our Climate Crisis?
Daniel Latorre
The Connected Community Approach: A Community Development Framework
Ajeev Bhatia & Anne Gloger
Deliberating on the Uses of Data in Cities
Stéphane Guidoin
What If People Were Sensors, Not Things to be Sensed?
Cory Doctorow
Renegotiating the Social Contract in Smart Cities
Emily Royall
Table 5
Mental Health Design Playbook
Pam Sethi and Deborah D’Amico
Municipal Briefings for Vendors and Partners
Siri Agrell
Digital Justice Principles
Nasma Ahmed
Canada’s Choice
Armine Yalnizyan
Canada Needs a National Data Strategy
Jim Balsillie
How Should a City Like Toronto Pay for Transit and Other Infrastructure?
Mariana Valverde
A Walkable Community 2.0
John Parker
Table 6
Coming to Terms with Digitally-Enabled Cities
Howard Tam & Amy Zhou
The Time and Space of Urban Technologies
Roger Keil
The Community Collaboratorium – Community Centers for the 21st-century
Nigel Jacob
Radical Rurality: Imagining Multiple Futures Beyond the City Limits
Ashleigh Weeden
Municipal Regulation, Disruption & Public Good
Shauna Brail
Extract from Review of AGAINST THE SMART CITY by Adam Greenfield
Tim Maughan
Table 7
Health+Cities
Mojan Jianfar
In Visible Cities
Asad Chishti
Cities Could Be the Key to Better Digital Governance
Mark Surman
Pulling on the Threads of Civic Imagination
Chris Green
Public Libraries in an Open, Smart City
James Chan
Data Trusts
Anouk Ruhaak
The Promise of Free Local Wi-Fi
Jim Roche
Table 8
Food Independence in the City Requires Indigenous Knowledge Supported by New Technology
Ushnish Sengupta
Artificial Intelligence Has a Problem With Gender and Racial Bias. Here’s How to Solve It.
Joy Buolamwini
Open Smart Cities and Systems Thinking
Tracey Lauriault
A Path to Affordable Housing in the Port Lands
Gil Meslin
Urban Information Ecologies
Shannon Mattern
Urgency for a Bike-friendly City
Yvonne Bambrick
Civic (Ad)ventures
Matthew Claudel
Table 9
Keeping Promises: Who Really Gets to Make their Canadian Dream a Reality?
Saadia Muzaffar
Say Yes. Yes, and... or why City Council is afraid of its constituents choosing their own adventure
Lanrick Bennett
Let’s Get Together
Zahra Ebrahim
Teams of Teams, Railways not Sandwiches
Dan Hill
Testing the Waters to Navigate Change
Ken Greenberg
Take Back Civic Life from the Commercial Platforms
Micah Sifry
Table 10
City-Builders Are Failing the Future Of Toronto
Yonis Hassan
Building Resilient Networks that Serve Local Communities and Economies
Benedict Lau
Communities Need a Say on How Their Data is Collected and Used
Amira Elghawaby
We’ve Been Here Before - Technology is Not Necessarily the Servant of Democracy
John Ralston Saul
The Importance of Peripheral Vision
Jutta Treviranus
Unprogrammable Cities and the Department of Possibilities
Giulio Quaggiotto
Table 11
Urbanization and the Public Good
Darren Bates
Radically Transparent & Accountable Data Use
Sam Burton
Surveillance Capitalism and the Challenge to Lawmakers
Shoshana Zuboff
Bilbao Transformational Narratives
Gorka Espiau Idoiaga
Closing the Digital Divide & Increasing Digital Inclusion
Ryan Fukunaga
We must Cut Carbon out of Construction – NOW
Paul Dowsett
How Should Economic Policy for the Data-Driven Economy be Framed?
Dan Ciuriak
Table 12
Sharing Space
Karen Carter
How Can We Make Our Justice System More Just?
Karen Pitre
Micro Fashion Breweries
Juan Carlos Goilo
For an Intelligent, Excellent City
Baruch Gottlieb
This is the World We Built
Ana Serrano
Future Cities - Who or What Decides?
Guy Baeten
City of Experiences
Christopher Pandolfi
Table 13
Making a Difference in the Lives of Vulnerable Youth
Kofi Hope
Valuing the Sacred in the City
Jayne Engle
Evaluating Cities: How We Treat Our Most Vulnerable Citizens
Gil Penalosa
Digital Masterplanning: A New Discipline?
Léan Doody
Why We Need Political Parties at City Hall
Barney Savage
A Digital Layer for All Torontonians
Andrew Clement
Smart City Digital Architecture Must Put Cities First
Andy Best
