Google's plan to revolutionise cities is a takeover in all but name

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: October 22, 2017 at 4:46:36 AM EDT
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Google's plan to revolutionise cities is a takeover in all but name
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> Google’s plan to revolutionise cities is a takeover in all but name
> Parent company Alphabet would provide services in response to data harvested
> By Evgeny Morozov
> Oct 21 2017
> <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/21/google-urban-cities-planning-data>
>
> Last June Volume, a leading magazine on architecture and design, published an article on the GoogleUrbanism project. 
> Conceived at a renowned design institute in Moscow, the project charts a plausible urban future based on cities 
> acting as important sites for “data extractivism” – the conversion of data harvested from individuals into artificial 
> intelligence technologies, allowing companies such as Alphabet, Google’s parent company, to act as providers of 
> sophisticated and comprehensive services. The cities themselves, the project insisted, would get a share of revenue 
> from the data.
>
> Cities surely wouldn’t mind but what about Alphabet? The company does take cities seriously. Its executives have 
> floated the idea of taking some struggling city – Detroit? – and reinventing it around Alphabet services, with no 
> annoying regulations blocking this march of progress.
>
> All of this might have looked counter-intuitive several decades ago, but today, when institutions such as the World 
> Bank preach the virtues of privately run cities and bigwigs in Silicon Valley aspire to build sea-based micronations 
> liberated from conventional bureaucracy, it does not seem so far-fetched.
>
> Alphabet already operates many urban services: city maps, real-time traffic information, free wifi (in New York), 
> self-driving cars. In 2015 it launched a dedicated city unit, Sidewalk Labs, run by Daniel Doctoroff, former deputy 
> mayor of New York and a veteran of Wall Street.
>
> Doctoroff’s background hints at what the actual Google Urbanism – as opposed to its theoretical formulations – 
> portends: using Alphabet’s data prowess to build profitable alliances with other powerful forces behind contemporary 
> cities, from property developers to institutional investors.
>
> On this view, Google Urbanism is anything but revolutionary. Yes, it thrives on data and sensors, but they only play 
> a secondary role in determining what gets built, why, and at what cost. One might as well call it Blackstone Urbanism 
> – in homage to one of the largest financial players in the property market.
>
> Since Toronto has recently chosen Alphabet to turn Quayside, a 12-acre undeveloped waterfront area, into a digital 
> marvel, it wouldn’t take long to discover whether Google Urbanism will transcend or accommodate the predominantly 
> financial forces shaping our cities.
>
> Sidewalk Labs has committed $50m to the project – mostly for hosting a year-long consultation after which either 
> party can exit. Its 220-page winning bid provides fascinating insights into its thinking and methodology. “High 
> housing costs, commute times, social inequality, climate change and even cold weather keeping people indoors” – such 
> is the battlefield Doctoroff described in a recent interview.
>
> Alphabet’s weapons are impressive. Cheap, modular buildings to be assembled quickly; sensors monitoring air quality 
> and building conditions; adaptive traffic lights prioritising pedestrians and cyclists; parking systems directing 
> cars to available slots. Not to mention delivery robots, advanced energy grids, automated waste sorting, and, of 
> course, ubiquitous self-driving cars.
>
> Alphabet essentially wants to be the default platform for other municipal services. Cities, it says, have always been 
> platforms; now they are simply going digital. “The world’s great cities are all hubs of growth and innovation because 
> they leveraged platforms put in place by visionary leaders,” states the proposal. “Rome had aqueducts, London the 
> Underground, Manhattan the street grid.”
>
> [snip]
>
> Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/wa8dzp



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