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A company under Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is planning to build a high-tech neighborhood in Toronto, Canada.
The company Sidewalk Labs, which focuses on urban innovation, has teamed up with Toronto’s local government to build the futuristic community called Quayside. It will be an 800-acre waterfront property to be developed between East Bayfront and Port Lands.
The project, which is called Sidewalk Toronto, aims to address the problems that urban areas are currently facing, such as traffic congestion, pollution, and overpopulation. It also intends to use technology to improve the quality of living in metropolitan areas.
Sidewalk Labs has committed $50 million to fund the initial phase of the project and its future pilot testing. Moreover, there are plans to relocate Google’s Canada headquarters, where over 1,000 employees work, to Quayside.
Sidewalk Toronto will install high-speed Wi-Fi connections and sensors around the area that can detect carbon monoxide, vibration, noise, and temperature. It will also use a more flexible zoning plan to accommodate residential, commercial, industrial, and other spaces. In addition, the project will prioritize improving transportation by creating infrastructures for walking, biking, and shared electric cars.
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau hopes to see the development not just in some parts of Canada but also in other parts of the world.
Like Canada, other cities around the world have allowed tech companies for the pilot testing of today’s smartest innovations. For instance, Moscow, Russia, fitted 146,000 cameras around different areas to ensure the safety of the people and to solve crimes. Meanwhile, in Singapore, the government gave the green light to driverless taxi testing. People can now hail taxis using only their smartphones.