So, Toronto, one question: How much of our fair city should we let Google gobble up in its epic quest to make Canada’s largest city the smartest in the world?None of it? Some of it? Or should we take the plunge and let Google and friends have everything they want, up to and including the takeover of vast swaths of prime Toronto waterfront outlined Monday by the digital giant’s sister company, Sidewalk Labs.Originally broached as Quayside, a futuristic yet affordable and sustainable city-within-a-city on 12 acres of vacant land at the foot of Parliament St., the project just got exponentially larger — a multi-phase undertaking that over time could encompass an additional 178 acres of Toronto’s eastern waterfront, anchored by the future home of Google Canada headquarters.The raising of the stakes to something much bigger than previously imagined came in the Manhattan-based company’s master plan, a 1,524-page document titled Toronto Tomorrow: A New Approach for Inclusive Growth.And for all its ambition, the trove of long-awaited details from Sidewalk Labs introduced a whole new basket of questions without answers — and prompted at least some degree of frustration from Waterfront Toronto, the tri-government agency (city, province and the feds) that now finds itself staring at plans that paint innovative redevelopment well beyond the margins of its mandate.It’s easy to get lost in these 1,500-plus pages of tantalizing hopes and dreams: wood-boned buildings with wide-open, walkable streetscapes shielded by “raincoats” from rain and ice, an always-connected live-in, work-in community incubator poised wirelessly to ride the next digital wave. And if you don’t like the Wi-Fi-everywhere vibe or find it altogether too Orwellian for comfort, ponder the climate goal for a moment — the project proposes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 89 per cent. If they get nothing else but that right, what wi ...
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