Sidewalk and Toronto: Critical Systems Heuristics and the Smart City Curtis McCord Christoph Becker University of Toronto University of Toronto Faculty of Information Faculty of Information Abstract—‘Smart cities’, urban development projects that stakeholders, Waterfront Toronto and Sidewalk Labs. This pa- design computational systems and sensory technology to mon- per will argue that sustainability, and thus smart city projects, itor activity and regulate energy consumption and resource should be considered more holistically than is possible through distribution, are a frontier for the prospective deployment of ICTs for sustainability. Often reduced to technological problems the narrow lenses of technological optimization and environ- of optimization, these projects have implications far beyond mental sustainability. Failure to consider systems critically narrow environmental and consumptive frames of sustainability. can leave out considerations with important impacts for how Studying them requires frameworks that support us in examining sustainability is pursued, and how power and decision-making technological and environmental sustainability dimensions jointly might influence that pursuit. with social justice perspectives. This paper uses Critical Systems Heuristics (CSH) to examine the design of Sidewalk Toronto, an The paper’s argument continues the trajectories set by Mann ongoing smart city development. We explore how the professed et al. [4], Easterbrook [5] and Becker et al. [6], namely values guiding the project are contentiously enacted, and we that Information Communication Technology for Sustainabil- argue that key stakeholders and beneficiaries in the planning pro- ity (ICT4S) research must take a more ambitious, critical, cess significantly constrain the emancipatory and transformative and holistic approach to sustainable design than is possible potential of the project by marginalizing the role of residents in determining project purposes. This analysis contributes an through piecemeal interventions or optimization of environ- example that illustrates the relevance of critical systems thinking mental parameters [4]. Sustainability design has implications in ICT4S and offers CSH as a conceptual frame that supports for our economies, societies, technologies, our cooperative critical reflection on the tensions between the visions and realities work, and our individual lives[6]. Building on Easterbrook’s of ‘sustainable’ ways of organizing human life. critique of “computational thinking”[5], we explore the vi- I. I NTRODUCTION ability of systems thinking concepts by analysing Sidewalk Toronto, a high profile sustainable smart city proposal. Unlike ‘A neighbourhood from the internet up’ [1] Easterbrook’s focus on System Dynamics, however, our anal- ‘Google’s Guinea-Pig City’ [2] ysis uses Critical Systems Heuristics (CSH) to examine the ‘Smart City, Dumb Deal’ [3] planning and engagement process of Sidewalk Toronto, and Controversy surrounds the proposed development of the to mount a boundary critique that provides insights on the Sidewalk Labs ‘smart city’ project in Toronto. In the world’s value judgments and justifications that promote and legitimate most diverse city, the world’s most powerful computing busi- the project’s technology choices and designs. By tracing the ness (Google’s Alphabet) has partnered with the municipal concerns of those involved and those affected, we examine government, promising to build the sustainable city of the how values and interests influence and constrain the purposes future. This project is imagined as a prototype, a technology- and vision of Sidewalk Toronto, offering CSH as a conceptual driven flagship, and a vehicle for legitimizing an ICT com- framework to support technology-supported transitions to just pany’s bid to shape the future of cities worldwide. and sustainable societies. We hope this can help the ICT4S The term ‘smart city’ is full of promises: as human activity community to better understand how each of us can ‘shift the condenses into urban environments, urban life has become maturity needle’ upwards [4]. the site for sustainable design. Since ICT have become a foundation of dominating cultures and economies, they are II. BACKGROUND seen as a choice strategy to make cities sustainable. The A. Smart Cities in ICT4S drivers of this kind of sustainable development are large- scale collection and analysis of observational and statistical Smart city research in the ICT4S community has focused on data, and cybernetic feedback through embedded devices and the design of specific products to affect consumption patterns human-facing software. The term ‘smart city’ subsumes these [7], [8], to provide ICT-based management and evaluation technologies, the logic that relates them to goals of sustain- tools [9], [10], [11], as well as to understand the new rela- ability, and the aesthetic of a sustainable city. tionships between technologists and policymakers forged in This paper examines how the Sidewalk Toronto project’s smart city projects [12], [13], even making structural critiques purposes are influenced by the goals of it’s most powerful about the agency of citizens herein [14]. 1 As the concept of the smart city becomes more popular Excepting the foregrounding of sustainability concerns, the in the ICT4S community, care must be taken to avoid repli- principles extolled in WT’s RFP and Sidewalk’s Vision are cating the weaknesses in considering technological systems congruent with the “Smart City Principles” explored by Cos- as separable from the much larger and complex systems of grove et al., placing the focus of human work on service social organization and reproduction within which they are provision driven by optimization, grounded in an “informa- embedded. For example, Borjesson et al. argue that a narrow tion marketplace” [12]. Beyond environmental sustainability, technological/environmental frame for smart cities neglect the Sidewalk Toronto’s ecology includes social and economic importance of social-systemic patterns of consumption and dimensions of sustainability through its focus on “complete activity, in favour of a simplistic understanding of humans communities”, and through specific products like a “public as atomized beings who make decisions based on economic realm management system”. The design process itself strives and rational calculations [14]. Kamilaris et al. [7] and von for “holistic planning”, where “innovation, community prior- Heland et al.[8] discuss interventions that build upon economic ities, policy objectives, placemaking, phasing, infrastructure, and social relations among their participants, although these economics, market, site planning, and technical issues will relations also act as a source of inertia. be thoughtfully merged” [1, p.59]. This public engagement To consider smart cities as abstract systems that can be component is the front line in drawing system boundaries that algorithmically optimized for sustainable energy and resource will structure the smart city and its operation. use fails to do justice both to present and future residents and C. Systems Thinking in ICT4S to the ideal of sustainability. As Mann et al. argue, approaches to sustainability in the ICT4S community must make a strident Sidewalk Toronto is envisioned in terms of systems: a “next- effort to move beyond merely acknowledging the importance generation transit system”, a “district wide energy system”, of sustainability, or simply proposing product-based inter- an “ecosystem” that supports economic agents, as well as ventions or efficiency finding manoeuvres [4]. For us, this a collection of information systems that support relations means enabling ICT4S research to conceive of sustainability between residents, such as the “public realm management holistically, without abstracting it to information and resource system” [1]. The Vision even foresees groups of people en- management projects. Transformative sustainability requires gaged in everyday life systemically: “a system of networked critical analysis and questioning of much of humanity’s habits neighbourhoods. . . [that] will begin to operate at a system and practises, be they social, economic, political or technolog- scale, like the internet, generating advantages that increase ical. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the discourse of with each new node” [1, pg.21]. Systems Thinking is essential the smart city, a new construction of urban life according to for a critique of Sidewalk Toronto because the project pursues state of the art technologies and practises. At this intersection, aims of sustainability through the systematization of everyday the political, economic and social dimensions of sustainability life, creating a space where the activities are monitored as practise are readily implicated, and researchers committed informational transactions, refined into actionable intelligence, to sustainability require tools to critically interrogate these and turned back onto the behaviours of smart city residents. relationships. As a systems design project, Sidewalk Toronto intends to construct a system of life from the ground up, so that it might be replicated universally. B. Sidewalk Toronto Easterbrook’s call for the integration of systems thinking The case we analyze is the Sidewalk Toronto smart contexts into computational research stems from three per- city project being planned in the 12-acre Quayside area ceived weaknesses in the dominating ‘computational’ way of of Toronto’s waterfront: a joint venture between Waterfront thinking. First, he argues that the domain ontology of compu- Toronto (WT) and Sidewalk Labs (SL), an urban development tational thinking is problematically biased by its dependence and technology firm and Alphabet (Google’s parent company) on computational terms, techniques, metaphors, and heuris- subsidiary. Sidewalk Toronto is to be a pilot for future local de- tics for describing the world [5, p.239-240]. Computational velopment, and a test-bed for smart city development globally. thinking is most powerful when complexity can be reduced In 2017, WT issued a request for proposals that situated smart to deterministic sets of variables and interactions, managed cities as a technological approach to sustainability, eliciting hierarchically by a system and “solved” by reckoning. As a partnering firm that could use ICTs to create a “climate Easterbrook notes, though subfields in computer science have positive approach [to urban design] that will lead the world in developed techniques to capture what was overlooked, they city building practises” [15]. This RFP was answered and won are for the most part expansions of computational thinking. by an ambitious Vision statement by SL for an ecologically To enrich the descriptive capacities of computational thinkers, sustainable community built on terms of cybernetic ecology Easterbrook proposes the use of concepts from the area of that could serve as a replicable and universalizable model for System Dynamics, which has a close connection of ecological smart city projects globally. SL’s Vision seeks to sustainability thinking and uses concepts of feedback, stocks, and flows. and replicability by building a neighbourhood informated and Second, Easterbrook argues that computational thinking monitored at all levels, the “most measurable community in has a limited capacity to understand how systemic change the world” [1, p.22]. occurs. Either change is explained deterministically (in terms 2 of having access to technologies or information previously CSH is heuristic, admitting that no standpoint or theory can absent), or as the result of responsible individuals, who “have ever sufficiently justify its own assumptions [17, p.287]. Any agency over their social and environmental impacts, ... [and analysis, including our own, must take its own partial stand- only need] better tools to help them become more sustainable” point, and can neither comprehensively describe a situation, [5, p.240]. In thinking about smart cities, we try to avoid nor subsume all possible perspectives of it. At best, CSH can technological solutionism. seek to reveal and problematize the normative assumptions Third, Easterbrook criticizes computational thinking as ill- informing a plan, making clear the contingent nature of these equipped to handle complexity critically, and as a result strug- boundaries and making them the subject of deliberation. CSH gles to consider “questions about how relationships of power is intended to enable citizens or participants in a decision are created and maintained in society, and how the tools that making process to engage in critique of expert knowledge, and mediate social interactions affect these relationships. . . [and] to discover sources of deception or implicit strategic action who has the power to create or prevent change” [5, p.241]. [17, p.22]. These questions are essential to considering how our societies CSH aims to avoid coercion in planning by, inasmuch as can be reorganized to be holistically sustainable. Easterbrook possible, eroding the boundaries between those affected by here covers the key presuppositions that underpin a critical a system and those involved in the decision making process systems approach: (1) that deciding on an account of a system [17, p.248]. At stake is how those involved, as participants and necessarily means partitioning it from the larger context in observers, can rationally justify and legitimate the boundaries which it is embedded, (2) that “any interesting system” will and concepts that structure systems design. Domain or tech- be complex enough such that no single definitive model or nical experts may be better able to make claims or have more counter-factual claim can be non-probabilistically true (so power to make decisions, but they cannot justify or legitimate disagreement is inevitable), and (3) that the standpoint of the these claims without recourse to assumptions about the way observers are undeniably mediated by the ways we think, act the world is structured and how a system ought to be designed and learn about a situation [5, p.242]. to accomplish the purposes for which it is created. Only the affected can legitimate the implications of any technology III. C RITICAL S YSTEMS H EURISTICS design as far as they affect their own lived experience. On As Ulrich compellingly argues, it is not enough to try and be this matter, they are the legitimate experts. holistic. Systems thinkers must also deal critically with their Those involved in decision making construct the boundary own inevitable selectivity and lack of comprehensiveness, by judgments that constitute an intelligible social systems de- reflecting on their own understandings as equally partial. sign. This raises questions about motivation, control, and the As the major framework in critical systems thinking[16], expertise needed for implementation. The sorts of decisions CSH is of course systemic. Some kinds of systems thinking inevitably made to plan a system are summarized in twelve –including System Dynamics approaches– are just as focused boundary judgments derived from the intersection of four cat- as computational thinking on description, abstraction, and egories with three levels of concern [17, p.244ff]. These four modelling. By contrast, CSH is not dependent on a ‘realist’ categories are shown in Fig.1. Application of CSH involves ontology that assumes descriptions of a system correspond to moving through the twelve questions, often shifting between a real (existing) arrangement in the world. CSH is concerned “is” and “ought” modes. The former mode asks us to reflect with discursive acts, with decisions made by multiple par- on how we see boundary judgments in practise. The latter ties with varying goals, epistemic frameworks, and ways of is intended to stimulate critical reflection on the adequacy describing the world and the systems being designed. Rather of those judgments. It might focus on what is left out, and than seeking to classify the component elements of an assumed the moves made by the involved to constrain or preempt system or provide a model of their relations, CSH focuses on boundaries for systems design. the reflexive consideration of a designed system’s purpose or CSH can be used: (1) to support ideal planning or critical goals, and how these are justified by a ‘reference system’ of reflection in reflective practise or action research; (2) as assumptions and judgments. The central entrance point to this an evaluative framework applied to planning situations or reflection is the system’s purpose, which is not a thing in itself, decision making processes that define and specify a system but deployed by someone as a matter of heuristic necessity. to be designed [19]; and (3) polemically, to question experts’ Any system or plan humans design will be designed for some claims about what is ‘objectively necessary’ and expose the purpose, to serve some interest or need, according to some implicit boundary judgments they make. CSH is not simply worldview [17, p.243]. Purposes are necessary to make an a questionnaire to be populated, however, but a system of endeavour intelligible. categories to structure a discursive, reflective, or dialectic CSH is critical. In contrast with structural accounts of process. As such, its raises questions rather than answers them. change, critical systems thinking means not only acknowledg- Our use of CSH to critically examine the boundary judgments ing the systemic interconnections of behavioural patterns (such in Sidewalk Toronto is no exception. For this analysis, we as the use of fossil fuels with the design of cities), but to see used official SL and WT documentation, public engagement that these patterns are not homeostatic but actively maintained reports, and press articles. We have also participated in several and could, therefore, be changed. planning sessions, and have visited the affected spaces. 3 Fig. 1. The CSH categories with a suggested order adapted from[18], [19] IV. CSH AND THE S MART C ITY to the Vision document [1, pgs.162-171]. Concerning social sustainability, WT sets measures for community creation in A. The official story terms of “quality of life”, measured in part through minimum The project’s stated purpose is to create “a vibrant, climate- shares for affordable housing (20% of units), “convenient and positive and prosperous community. . . as a national and global efficient” transit options, as well as the provision of sufficient model to encourage market transformation towards climate- social and cultural amenities and high quality design. For WT, positive city building” [15]. The RFP positions the initial site the purpose of building “complete communities” is realized by (Quayside) as stepping stone for “subsequent developments meeting people’s needs for jobs, services, housing, community on the eastern waterfront”[15, p.6]). WT adopts the “triple infrastructure, as well as transit options. bottom line” approach that balances environmental, economic, Before the release of the major planning document, the and “socio-cultural” purposes in the “3Ps” of people, profits, Master Innovation and Development Plan (MIDP), the Plan and planet [15], [20, p.A4]. Draft Agreement (PDA)[21] sets out the major resources at Declared beneficiaries include prospective residents in stake: land and real-estate property, IP, and data. It makes clear Toronto, including “people of all income levels and at all that no transfers of real-estate to Sidewalk have been made: stages of life” who will benefit from a “future proof” life in WT continues to assert its role as a steward of public lands and an inclusive “complete community”. This includes “employers act as negotiating partner (under the auspices of government) and job creators” who benefit from access to a dense cluster of in cases where privately owned land will be acquired within skilled labour and competing firms, as well as the businesses the scope of the MIDP [21, p.5]. The PDA identifies two who sustaining and sustained by the community. Tourists types of IP: “planning materials” and “products and services”, and residents of the greater Toronto area will benefit from referring to user-facing software and applications as well the addition of significant cultural and recreational amenities as standard and data layer “enabler” technologies[21, p.41]. to the waterfront[1], [15]. Finally, the RFP clearly denotes Importantly, data may become a source of IP in the future. the prospective partner (SL) as a beneficiary to balance the Within the ambit of “data governance”, the PDA insists on requirement that the partner provide $50M CAD to cover compliance with existing laws and encourages design princi- project costs. Key benefits to SL are an “unparalleled testbed ples such as “personal privacy, civil society protections and environment” to “showcase advanced technologies, building technological sovereignty” and “data governance and steward- materials, sustainable practices and innovative business models ship that ensures both data/information sovereignty protection that demonstrate pragmatic solutions to climate positive urban and innovation”. An expert advisory board oversees these development”; “financial opportunities” from real-estate trans- parts of the plan [21, p.46-9]. These commitments reference actions (even beyond Quayside); and, critically, intellectual distributions of control through consent, the creation of an property (IP) [15, p.18]. independent data trust, and innovation through open archi- To assure that the project has succeeded in its purpose to tectures. The PDA establishes WT and SL as joint decision create an environmentally and socially sustainable community makers about the MIDP’s structure and its approval, which in a market friendly urban area, measures of improvement will be based on a framework developed by WT[21]. The (MoIs) are developed. These provide an important basis to ultimate sign-off for the plan lies with the municipal and examine how parties involved in decision making understand provincial governments, which constitutes the administrative the system’s purposes and beneficiaries. WT’s RFP sets out decision making environment over which the decision makers sustainability-related MoIs in their Resilience and Innovation have no control. Framework and asks potential partners to provide key per- The planning process is centered on public engagement and formance indicators to measure and evaluate success [15]. A what the /emphVision calls“holistic planning”. The technical collection of these can be found in the Technical appendix expertise of Sidewalk Members and the facilitation skills of 4 WT and contracted firms continuously collect feedback and the democratic legitimacy of the project by ensuring that responses from citizens. Sidewalk Toronto thus involves an those affected are represented. To what degree does this self- array of experts and expertise in planning, implementation selected participation in highly structured exercises bring forth and operational phases. As the MIDP is drafted, pieces of an honest witness to testify to the experience of those affected the plan are presented for public comment and engagement by the outcomes of this process? In order to examine to what on specific ideas. In line with Borjensson et al.’s[14] call to degree those affected are free to emancipate themselves from include lived experience within the planning scope of smart the project’s worldview, and to offer their own perspectives, cities systems, the engagement mechanisms deployed by WT we turn to the conceptual framework of boundary critique and and SL have leveraged both residents and experts. Resident explore how CSH supports it. Advisory Panels provide situated everyday expertise in the form of reports [22]. In Expert Advisory panels, independent B. Boundary critique subject matter experts contribute to planning within areas such as information management and privacy. Additionally, a Having used CSH to represent the stated ‘is’ situation, we fellowship program leverages the experiences and training of discuss selected themes that illustrate how CSH helps us to: students and other young subject matter experts to provide (1) elicit and make visible the reference system of assumptions a report and recommendations after visiting a number of that underpin the project; (2) contrast it with complementary cities [23]. A summer camp even engaged children to provide perspectives on how things are as well as how things should experiential knowledge [24]. be; (3) evaluate how competing interpretations are politically In principle, the opportunities for residents and members marginalized through the design of the engagement process; of publics to learn about and contribute to planning supports (4) identify and critique central boundary judgments; and (5) the broad participation of a wide range of experts. Hundreds effectively structure our own critique so that its normative of people attend the frequent public meetings and open implications become transparent. events, staffed by dozens of volunteers. Public Roundtables 1) Elicit reference system: CSH can provide a discursive feature general and breakout sessions which are recorded grounding for critique of the normative assumptions at play in and streamable[25], while charettes and design jams address the planning process. The first step is the reconstruction of the specific themes with public and expert cooperation. To ask stated boundaries of the system within the CSH framework. about a guarantor for this project in this light is to ask We have done this above through reference to, and analysis what assures that our assumptions are justified? and, crucially, of, official documentation and presentations. Placing these what assumptions underpin the credibility of experts?, includ- statements of value and purpose into the relations of CSH ing assumptions about the relevance of their knowledge, the allows us to sketch out themes and boundaries based on our correctness of their predictions, and the legitimacy of their own standpoints, such that we can explore how boundaries perspectives. As purposeful human activity, systems design in are constructed, and potentially in disagreement with their the view of CSH implies recourse to a guarantor: something motivating principles. in which people must put their trust at the place when the CSH considers two kinds of boundary judgments. The first chain of justification breaks off. For example, we might trust kind refers to boundaries are established more or less explicitly in WT’s mandate to act in the public interest and believe in the process of partitioning a system, or in deciding what that market-led innovation and development will guarantee the should be considered a component or relation of the system best or most serviceable smart city. Or, we might trust in the and what is considered as environmental. The second kind expertise of SL, believing that the state-of-the-art technologies refers to the boundary judgments supporting the first. Any de- offered by one of the world’s most well-known firms is the cision about what and how to consider a system is a claim that most effective path to sustainable urban design, and that their admits of argumentation and justification. These supporting careful consideration of their public engagement work will statements are also claims that admit of justification, going on assure public have their say. until justification stops with a rhetorical appeal to something While categories of Motivation, Control and Knowledge like expertise or to a view of reality. The point at which a refer to those involved, Legitimacy addresses those affected. boundary admits of varying interpretation from complimentary The legitimate inclusion of multiple perspectives requires perspectives, or when the reason to accept it is left as an open the emancipation of the affected, the ability to speak their question, constitutes a “justification break-off”[26]. Revealing concerns freely, and the obligation of the involved to consider these justification break-offs is essential to creating an account them in good faith. This is to be made possible through of the reference system and worldview of the Involved. commitments to public engagement in the planning process. In the case of Sidewalk Toronto, justification break-offs For example, participants at Roundtables represent themselves; occur in the way that control over the system is to be exercised. they give their own opinions and thoughts, speaking to specific Questions about the first kind of boundary judgment can be questions in structured and facilitated venues. The resulting asked about not only the planning process but the design of material is collected, analyzed and responded to in iterated the system itself: who controls different aspects of the system- representations of the emerging plan. However, public en- will it be existing government authorities? Citizens? Sidewalk? gagement processes like this are clearly designed to establish Markets? Answering these questions in any manner prompts 5 a second order boundary question: why should the smart city versus the need to build them with a profit-oriented “business be administered in this way? model” that allows SL to accrue value through the operation of 2) Contrast complementary perspectives: Critical reflection the smart city. In part, discussion has focused on how the key on the boundaries set out in an official storyline need not resource of data generated in Quayside should be considered occur in a vacuum. We draw from the mainstream criticisms of as a social product or public good, how the data is treated and Sidewalk in the press that speak to specific parts of the official made accessible, and to whom it belongs [32], [33], [34]. story, and that often clearly reference the boundary judgments To address these concerns, decisionmakers announced a stabilized within the CSH framework. These complimentary plan to create a “Civic Data Trust” (CDT), a “third party public perspectives offer avenues for critical reflection, suggest alter- organization” to govern a repository of Quayside Data [28], native ways of interpreting the situation, and provide support [23]. The CDT is intended to balance the goals of spurning in- and direction for suspicions that arise from a perception of novation and protecting privacy, and to “[safeguard] the public marginalization or coercion within the official boundaries. interest”. Itis meant to do so by committing to open standards Take for example the commitment to ‘complete commu- in architecture and application programming interfaces (APIs), nities’. Its key pillar is a mixed-income distribution in the and by requiring data collection and sharing be minimal, done Quayside, to be assured and measured through the provision with ‘meaningful consent’, and in accordance with existing of “affordable housing”. The operationalization of affordabil- laws. The governing body of the CDT balances the market ity suggests how complete, mixed-income communities in value of this data with commitments to the people who are at Quayside are to be understood. At first glance, Sidewalk once the source of this data, and its presumed beneficiaries. Lab’s commitment to affordable housing seems to exceed the The proposal of the CDT was met with criticism. Former legal minimum set by municipal policy. Following a Sidewalk Privacy Commissioner for Ontario and global privacy expert Fellows report, as well as criticism by community organization Ann Cavoukian resigned from the aforementioned expert ACORN, they expanded the plan to include 40% affordable panel, citing unacceptable weaknesses in the fact that it did not housing[23], [27], [28]. require anonymization at the point of collection and merely However, this commitment does not address the affordable encouraged services collecting data to adhere to strong pri- housing crisis in Toronto, it merely sets the floor based on the vacy principles [35]. While Cavoukian’s resignation addressed existing need[29]. Crucially, WT and SL have operationalized concerns about privacy and social norms, it did not touch on affordability using the definition of the City of Toronto, which the deeper issues of ownership and control. In the case of the defines affordable housing as housing provided at a cost CDT, this means elaborating on how governance decisions are below the market rate. Housing advocates and the Canadian made about authorization and licensing for data use, guiding Mortgage and Housing Corporation generally consider afford- principles, and compliance– and by whom. These concerns ability as a relation between income and rent expenditure, i.e. are well spoken to by digital rights activist Bianca Wylie, less than 30% [30], [31]. More than one third of Toronto’s who criticizes the way that value-laden concepts are deployed residents cannot afford housing at current market rates. The in the engagement process but do not lead to a more honest market-based definition of affordable housing has changed discussion about ownership and control over the direction and the presumed beneficiaries of affordable housing in Sidewalk legal framework of constructs like the CDT[36]. Toronto; now half of the affordable units are intended for low Decisions of ownership and control over technological in- income residents, while the other is earmarked for “middle frastructure in the smart city draw boundaries with enormous income” residents [28]. The remaining 60% of units are for social and economic impacts within these systems. The CDT rental or sale at market rate, benefiting the affluent. This would control the infrastructure of data storage and use, prioritization of the real-estate market at the expense of lower produced by the sensors that collect that data and the technical and middle income families and other renters demonstrates not standards that structure access. The former head of Blackberry only the worldview of involved parties, but the stakes of smart maker RIM summarized the problem of private ownership city development. of the low level data infrastructure: because it enshrines 3) Evaluate discourse and marginalization: CSH can also Sidewalk’s ownership of IP based on the collection of public allow reflection on where and how concerns about boundary data, it inevitably “creates a systemic market advantage from judgments are marginalized. The specific boundaries drawn which companies can inexorably expand” [37]. Basillie argues through the design, architecture, management, and governance that the ownership structure makes SL the major intended of ICTs remain underdeveloped, but as CSH can focus equally beneficiary of Quayside data, to say nothing of their relation- well on process as on product, some of these boundaries ship with Alphabet, whose major competencies and source of are already tangible. The case of the Civic Data Trust value are the exploitation of data. Wylie builds on concerns (CDT) demonstrates how boundaries are drawn based on the about this kind of “platform capitalism” in her critique of SL’s worldview of the Involved, which focuses on innovation and ownership over the low level, built infrastructure, the data- resource allocation through markets, frustrating the honest layer infrastructure of storage and collection, as well as the consideration of smart city residents as beneficiaries. access-layer that allows use of the data [38]. Technological Much criticism of Sidewalk Toronto has focused on the development making use of these layers could effectively be tensions between developing smart cities to serve local publics controlled by the strategic interest of Sidewalk Labs, poten- 6 tially leading to the exclusion of local firms and community the planning process. Tensions between resource collection technologists from key development opportunities [32]. and control are tied to boundary judgments around what SL has drawn their boundaries of control of resources very constitutes the environment of smart city developments. For broadly. Tenuous agreements set out in the PDA protect the entities like WT and SL, the market is the ultimate envi- IP interests of Alphabet and Sidewalk, but do not provide ronmental constraint. This is apparent, on one hand, by the much detail on how contracts for services might be decided way WT positions itself as a partner that seeks to leverage in the future. Alphabet already controls applicable services relationships with the private sector [41]. Their role as a such as Coord (for managing transit and road-based assets) steward of public lands working for complete communities is and has proposed numerous application level products for feasible only insofar as they attract capital investment, which pilot at Quayside [39], [1]. With control over the smart city is only possible if their partners can see a return on that architecture and their role as decision maker, SL appears investment [15]. On the other hand, SL must look at smart city positioned to place their own subsidiaries into market niches development as a way of maintaining competitive advantage, that they themselves would create, maintain, ad control. protecting its assets by maintaining control and authority in Control over the low-level technical and physical infras- smart city governance. tructure by a single dominating firm allows a standards-level CSH has allowed us to stabilize an ‘official’ story for the monopoly to shape the environment and market within which smart city planning process, and to leverage some existing, technology development and service innovation occurs. What but marginalized, criticisms of that process to provide greater role will those affected, the citizens and residents of Smart nuance to our perception of boundary judgments. We use the Cities, play in the decision making and governance of these official narrative as a source of evidence for the way that these new ways of life? Civic engagement and community building boundaries are constructed and maintained, and in some cases, are alluded to in Sidewalk Toronto materials; Sidewalk says how they serve to brush aside criticisms by giving the sense that its smart city will make volunteering easier, or that its that they have been addressed, while still maintaining the same data-layers will be a great resource for civic tech and social strategic boundaries. entrepreneurialism. However, these civic activities are situated 5) Structure critique: Table IV-B5 briefly summarizes key within the boundaries of information systems controlled by standpoints, concepts, and questions that arose during our Sidewalk. Examples include ‘Intersection’, a product that pro- analysis of official and critical perspectives. In the spirit of vides internet access and “enables a vast array of neighbour- CSH, it should be seen as heuristic device rather than a result: hood experiences, including amenity reservation and digital not the outcome of CSH’s application, but a mid-point that feedback channels”[1, p.19] and a “Neighbourhood Assistant both helps to settle our reflections and points to more questions Tool” that could “enable Quayside residents to form new and avenues for critique. More iterations and versions of such neighbourhood groups, crowd-source community needs, and tables can be produced individually or cooperatively. The table access a peer-to-peer marketplace. . . another portal through here represents a period of research and analysis, it serves as which residents communicate feedback to officials, addressing a summary of our thoughts at the time, as a provocation to the need for digital tools that gauge community well-being” further reflection and analysis within the categories of CSH. [1, p.33]. By juxtaposing official and critical discourses of the project, V. D ISCUSSION CSH allows us to see how opposing views are addressed, A. Reflections and Limitations reconciled, and marginalized by the Involved. Specifically, we have tried to show how the Vision for Sidewalk Toronto As our tabular application of CSH (IV-B5) demonstrates, the posits the company’s role as a facilitator of civic engagement authors’ standpoint and the requirements of the format have and democratic decision making, but not as the site or object acted to select and constrain the perspective of this partial of governance. Public engagement exercises seem to address engagement with the Sidewalk Toronto planning process. Our governance issues, but in reality they obscure them. A CDT account here is not comprehensively holistic in terms of is just an act of trust if it does not have a governance description. The reproduction of urban life relies on global structure that allows the civic body that it describes to exercise and local systems well beyond our scope here. As a document control over its data in decision making. While the proposed of process, the CSH table passes over many considerations and information systems seem to encourage civic engagement, commitments to matters of environmental, social, economic, their design also specifies what counts as valid engagement, and individual justice. suggesting that these concessions are a form of what Cardullo In application, CST and CSH research could anticipate and Kitchin (via Arnstein) call “placation”, where citizens are these limitations and address them with a systematic expan- given the chance to change or challenge plans, but where their sion of methods. We have collected mainstream press and involvement is subordinated to the larger objectives of of those official documentation, and attended events when possible. Involved[40]. It would be desirable to sweep in a more diverse array of 4) Identify boundary judgments: The examples of afford- collaborators, participants, and publics into the creation of able housing and the CDT illustrate some of the central CSH documentation[53]. In matters of public concern, CSH is motivations and boundary judgments that appear to be guiding always one voice among many. As Systemic Intervention [54] 7 TABLE I CSH M AP E XAMPLE Category Stated is Selected Concepts Relevant Critical Standpoints for Critique 1. Who is/ought to be the Create “a vibrant, climate-positive and prosper- intended beneficiary of Side- ous [mixed-income] community. . . [a] model to • Complete communities • Actual purpose observable in behavior [42] walk Toronto? encourage market transformation towards climate- • Transformative Sustainabil- • Manifests in beneficiaries, actions, measures positive city building” by adopting a “triple bot- ity • Examine how control, knowledge, legitimation tom line” approach that balances environmental, • Sustainability and commu- are handled to infer purpose economic, and “socio-cultural” purposes of peo- nity within a market • Deviations: consider e.g. affordable housing ple, profits, and planet [15]. 2. What is/ought to be the Residents ‘of all income levels’ get ‘complete purpose of the Sidewalk communities’ where they can live, work, and play • Affordable housing defs • Residents as data source for surveillance capi- Toronto? in well-connected beautified space. • Privacy by Design talism The project partner gets an ‘unparalleled testbed • Value creation from smart • ‘Affordable housing’ is (re)defined so that it environment’ to ‘showcase advanced technolo- city data becomes unaffordable for most gies’ and ‘financial opportunities’ from develop- • Viability of local firms • The interests of Sidewalk compete with those of ment. other intended beneficiaries Employers get access to skilled labour, an emerg- ing industry cluster, and local commercial oppor- tunities. Visitors get access to public space and amenities. 3. What is/ought to be the Under developement, described in terms of: measure of the improvement • Social goals met through thresholds for afford- • Sustainability indicators[45] • Environmental sustainability as a service of Sidewalk Toronto? able housing and amenities • Definitions of affordable • affordable housing for the middle class • Environmental goals met through coherence with housing WT Resilience and Innovation Framework for • Tradeoffs or conflicts be- Sustainability and LEED certification[43], [44] tween the 3Ps • Economic goals met through investment returns • Transactionalization of rela- – economic output, government revenue, “full- tions time employment years”, private sector invest- ment 4. Who is/ought to be the PDA establishes WT and SL [21], under auspices decision maker in control of government • Boundaries around gover- • CDT governance left outside boundaries, pro- of the resources for Sidewalk nance posed information systems enclose civic engage- Toronto? • ‘Public Interest’ as a con- ment in decision making. tested concept • Role of public engagement gives WT, SL the initiative in communication and final calls. 5. What resources are/ought Criticism by Ann Cavoukian around IP points to to be under the control of • Data: Civic Data trust (CDT) • CDT governance discretionary power of SL around publicly pro- Sidewalk Toronto? • IP: set out in MIDP • Platform Capitalism [46] duced data[35], and ownership of the standards • Property: largely left up to the market layer positions SL for bottom level control [37] 6. What is/ought to be out- Public/Private Partnerships Community is not based on consumption of the side the control of the deci- • Markets, investor capital, competitive advantage and the enclosure of civic same services but based on interdependence and sion maker, the environment? • Public opinion engagement complex relationships among members 7. Who is/ought to be the ex- Technical/professional administration vs situated perts providing the relevant • Public Participation • “Tokenistic” engagement knowledge knowledge and skills ? • SL and WT experts [40] • Feedback as user testing • Utopian aesthetics in Vision and promotional material[2] 8. What are the relevant Data science and ICT: “the only urban innova- knowledges and skills tion company built expressly to bridge the divide • Publics[47], [48] as the ob- • “Confusion over what codesign means”[49]. (expertise) necessary for . . . between urbanists and technologists. . . No one ject of data collection • Public engagements seen not as a source of ex- the operation of Sidewalk else has envisioned the integration of technology • Everyday expertise, situated pertise, but as SL leveraging public engagements Toronto? into the physical environment that will give rise knowledges as a source of knowledge for their own experts, to an urban innovation platform. . . ”[1, p.16] to ‘inform’ MIDP [50]. 9. What guarantees the successful implementation of • Government, WT as steward • Technological Solutionism • Democracy as Guarantor Sidewalk Toronto? • Sidewalk Labs /Alphabet • Faith in markets 10. Who is/ought to be con- Atomization and aggregation poses public as in- sidered a witness representing • Public Engagement Process, including panels, • Curated publics dividuals to provide affective feedback and to the interests of those affected Roundtables, and workshops components rather than the system. Focus on by, but not involved with Side- • Appeals to Indigenous Planning in resident’s values provides rhetorical initiative to WT and SL. walk Toronto? panel and Roundtables [51], [28] No apparent inclusion or reference beyond land acknowledgement 11. What are/ought to be the Holistic Planning, where “innovation, community Preconfigured engagement, based on identified ar- opportunities for the interests priorities, policy objectives, placemaking, phasing, • Highly structured process eas, and offering no potential for emancipation of those affected free them- infrastructure, economics, market, site planning, • Feedback as representa- selves from (emancipation) and technical issues will be thoughtfully merged.” tion/engagement the worldview of Sidewalk [1, p.59] Toronto? 12. What space is/ought avail- Private entities, market transformation, in the Appealing to the ‘reality’ of neoliberal dominance, able for reconciling different “most measurable community in the world”[1] • Politics as management the balance of the 3Ps tilting to profit, which is worldviews regarding Side- • Computational thinking [5] always the most bottom line. walk Toronto among those af- • City as computer [52] fected but not involved? 8 or other action research, applying CSH could help maintain and citizens as a resource or product [40]? Politically, objects space for critical reflection and diversity of perspective. like the CDT or smart city MoIs could be a site for citizen control. A democratic approach to smart city design would B. Measured Management make citizen involvement in the creation of these standards a “Sidewalk expects Quayside to become the most measurable part of the planning process, open for debate and driven by community in the world” [1, pg.22]. Ambitions to environmen- the values of residents. Already within the context of smart tal sustainability in Sidewalk Toronto rest on the belief that city technologies, Balestrini et al., have used the concept of through measurement and systematization of urban activities a “city commons” to guide participatory design of a sensor such as energy use and transit, control and coordination can network[55]. So far, however, Sidewalk Toronto’s planning be improved to lessen waste and environmental impact. Smart process represents publics without including them. City technology enables pursuit of this goal through sensory and management systems that might track and analyze trends, VI. C ONCLUSIONS more efficiently consuming resources. In the case of a smart ‘Cities have the capability of providing something city like Sidewalk, these resources might include stocks for for everybody, only because, and only when, they heating, waste and recycling capacity, and for maintaining are created by everybody.’ [56] the physical spaces sought after for conducting economic and social activity, including dwelling, commercial, and public The ongoing SL project in Toronto is a major smart city de- spaces like parks. If discrete or aggregated measurements can velopment, the deployment of technologically advanced urban be sought, monitored, and managed, that data stands in as infrastructures built from scratch to achieve their designers’ a resource. As a representational layer on top of the city’s ambitious goals. Sustainability is a key value used to motivate (not to mention its associates) material activities, smart city the project. As this paper argued, however, sustainability systems want to manage that data. Value creation promised in smart city projects must be considered more holistically through increased convenience, efficiency, sustainability, etc., than is possible through the narrow lenses of technological are delivered only if the presumed requisite data is available, optimization and ecological sustainability[6]. and on who has access to it. Even after construction, capital Basing our analysis on CST, we have showed how the resources and labour are required needed to maintain these project’s purpose is framed by the rationalities and goals of infrastructures and to put their results to use. its most powerful stakeholders. We used CSH for a boundary Ambitions in the Vision extend beyond environmental sus- critique that traces the concerns of the numerous voices, and tainability, to “promoting activity, healthy eating, relaxation, to examine and critically reflect on how values and interests and connection to the environment. . . [through] capturing a influence and constrain the project’s purposes and vision. This variety of data and facilitating residents’ and others’ uses of situates CSH, and CST more broadly, as a powerful tool for the that data through existing and new applications”, as well as holistic consideration of sustainability in smart city projects to the business of neighbourhood politics [1, pg.171]. From and large scale transitions to sustainable societies. this perspective, ecological sustainability intersects with other This is not a call to disregard the technical expertise offered aspects of sustainability as resource consumption and use is by Sidewalk or any other firm. If we are to truly transform our related with activities, lifestyles, exchanges (etc.), and with societies to be sustainable and prosperous, we must critically supporting infrastructures, computational and otherwise. How- reflect on the role and purpose of technologies in our everyday ever, mere measurement is insufficient for management: “to lives. What becomes clear through critical analysis is that understand what makes the urban environment work well, and technical decisions in the smart city are, as much as ever, detect when it is under-performing, it is necessary to perform political decisions about relations between people, organiza- longitudinal analysis, and be able to distinguish normal states tions, and power. Governance of smart cities is tied to design from anomalous ones” [1, pg.72]. and architecture choices, both in regards to the sustainability Achieving normal, “livable” space requires evaluation, and of any underlying infrastructure of smart cities, but also to a value-based framework that is implied, but, we think, the intersection of this new datafied layer and everyday life, unspecific. Sidewalk’s commitment to Quayside suggests an through the systems and interfaces constructed to create and ongoing endeavour, actively managed at different time scales manage that resource. with successive interventions by, for example, “facility man- A key challenge for the ICT4s community is to ensure that agers” [1, pg.74]. Commercially, efficiency and convenience these types of boundaries do not go unnoticed in smart city can perform as MoIs– a decrease in travel time or noise research. This will mean continuing to critically reflect on complaints, increases in overall air quality, successful user the role of technological choices in instantiating social and transactions, etc. Proposed innovation platforms or information political relationships and assessing their potential as environ- marketplaces articulate the resident/citizens of a smart city mentally sustainable technologies. Critical systems thinking primarily as the beneficiaries of services, or consumers of can assist in just that type of work. As a heuristic tool, CSH resources. Just who delivers these services and manages the does not need to supplant or dominate research in order to resources? Would municipal or public actors be replaced by a be effective. Beyond this evaluative role, as framework for market where returns were sought through treating residents interventionary practise or self-reflection in technology design 9 it can help practitioners and technologists to more effectively [23] A. Wishloff, A. Espanol, B. Chang, C. Leung, C. Yeung, H. Brath, probe the normative implications of their work. H. Ngo, K. S. Louis-McBurnie, P. Seufert, S. Persaud, S. Chan, and W. Sutter, Sidewalk Toronto Fellow Report. Sidewalk Toronto, 2018. [24] Sidewalk Toronto and Kids Camp Participants, Sidewalk Toronto Sum- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS mer Kids Camp. Sidewalk Toronto, 2018. This research was partially supported by Natural Sciences [25] Sidewalk Toronto, 2018. YouTube Channel. [26] W. Ulrich, “Critical heuristics of social systems design,” 1987. and Engineering Research Council through RGPIN-2016- [27] ACORN Canada, “Acorn to sidewalk toronto: Give us real affordable 06640, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Onatrio Re- housing!.” Online, 2018. search Fund, and the Social Science and Humanities Research [28] Waterfront Toronto and Sidewalk Labs, “Public Roundtable #4.” Pre- sentation, 12 2018. Council through the Canadian Graduate Scholarship. Special [29] City News Staff, “By the numbers: Toronto’s rental market - CityNews thanks to Dawn Walker. Toronto,” Feb 2018. [Online; accessed 21. Jun. 2018]. [30] Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, “About affordable hous- R EFERENCES ing.” Online, 04 2018. [31] J. Pagliaro, “Toronto to review defintion of ‘affordable’ housing,” The [1] D. L. Doctoroff, “Sidewalk toronto project proposal,” proposal, Sidewalk Toronto Star, 2018. Labs, 10 2017. [32] B. Bean, “The world is watching as data drives toronto’s smart city [2] M. Sauter, “Google’s Guinea-Pig City,” The Atlantic, Feb. 2018. experiment,” Open Data Exchange, 10 2017. [3] The Guardian, “The Guardian view on Google and Toronto: Smart city, [33] C. Rattan, “Torontonians should take control of their data,” Now Mag- dumb deal,” Feb. 2018. Editorial. azine, 05 2018. [4] S. Mann, O. Bates, and R. Maher, “Shifting the maturity needle of ict [34] B. Wylie, “Sidewalk toronto, procurement innovation, and permission for sustainability,” Proc. 5th Int Conf on ICT4S, 2018. to fail,” Medium, 04 2018. [5] S. Easterbrook, “From computational thinking to systems thinking,” in [35] CBC News, “‘not good enough’: Toronto privacy expert resigns from Proc. 2nd Int Conf on ICT4S, 2014. sidewalk labs over data concerns,” CBC News, 10 2018. [6] C. Becker, R. Chitchyan, L. Duboc, S. Easterbrook, B. Penzenstadler, [36] B. Wylie, “Google is still planning a ‘smart city’ in toronto despite major N. Seyff, and C. C. Venters, “Sustainability design and software: The privacy concerns,” Motherboard, August 2018. karlskrona manifesto,” in Proc., 37th Intl. Conference on Software [37] J. Balsillie, “Sidewalk toronto has only one beneficiary, and it is not Engineering, vol. 2, IEEE Press, 2015. toronto,” The Globe and Mail, 10 2018. Editorial. [7] A. Kamilaris, A. Pitsillides, C. Fidas, and S. Kondepudi, “Social [38] B. Wylie, “Civic Tech: On Google, Sidewalk Labs, and Smart Cities,” electricity: The evolution of a large-scale, green ict social application Torontoist, Oct 2017. through two case studies in cyprus and singapore,” in Proc. 3rd Int Conf [39] S. Smyth, “Announcing coord: The integration platform for mobility of ICT4S, (Copenhagen, Denmark), Atlantis Press, 2015. providers, navigation tools, and urban infrastructure,” Sidewalk Labs, [8] P. F. von Heland, M. Nyberg, A. Bondesson, and P. Westerberg, “The 2018. citizen field engineer: Crowdsourced maintenance of connected water [40] P. Cardullo and R. Kitchin, “Being a ‘citizen’in the smart city: up infrastructure,” in Proc. 3rd Int Conf on ICT4S, Atlantis Press, 2015. and down the scaffold of smart citizen participation in dublin, ireland,” [9] H. Shahrokni, B. Van der Heijde, D. Lazarevic, and N. Brandt, “Big GeoJournal, vol. 84, no. 1, pp. 1–13, 2019. data gis analytics towards efficient waste management in stockholm.,” [41] Waterfront Toronto and Sidewalk Labs, “Public Roundtable #3.” Pre- in Proc. 2nd Int Conf on ICT4S, Atlantis Press, 2014. sentation, 08 2018. [10] J. Studzinski, R. Brylka, and K. Kazubski, “Ict system for smart city [42] D. H. Meadows and D. Wright, Thinking in Systems: A Primer. Chelsea management,” in Proc. 2nd. Int Conf on ICT4S, Atlantis Press, 2014. Green publishing, 2008. [11] A. Kramers, T. Ringenson, L. Sopjani, and P. Arnfalk, “Aaas and maas [43] Canada Green Building Council, “Leed®certification process.” Online, for reduced environmental and ccclimate impact of transport,” in Proc. 2018. 5th Int Conf on ICT4S, vol. 52, EasyChair, 2018. [44] Waterfront Toronto and Canadian Urban Institute, “Waterfront toronto [12] E. Cosgrave, T. Tryfonas, and T. Crick, “The smart city from a public resilience and innovation framework for sustainability,” tech. rep., Wa- value perspective,” in Proc. 2nd. Int Conf on ICT4S, Atlantis Press, terfront Toronto, 2017. 2014. [45] S. Bell and S. Morse, Sustainability Indicators: Measuring the Immea- [13] A. Kramers, J. Wangel, and M. Höjer, “Planning for smart sustainable surable? Routledge, 2012. cities,” in Proc. 2nd Int Conf on ICT4S, Atlantis Press, 2014. [46] N. Srnicek, Platform capitalism. John Wiley & Sons, 2017. [14] M. Börjesson Rivera, E. Eriksson, and J. Wangel, “Ict practices in [47] C. DiSalvo, “Design and the construction of publics,” Design Issues, smart sustainable cities: In the intersection of technological solutions and vol. 25, no. 1, 2009. practices of everyday life,” in Proc. EnviroInfo and ICT for Sustainability [48] J. Dewey, The Public and its Problems: An Essay in Political Inquiry. 2015, (Copenhagen), Atlantis Press, 2015. Penn State Press, 2012. [15] Waterfront Toronto, “Request for proposals innovation and funding [49] B. Wylie, “Sidewalk toronto, social license, and the limits of a borrowed partner for the quayside development opportunity,” Request for Proposal reputation,” Medium, 06 2018. 2017-13, Waterfront Toronto, 03 2017. [50] Sidewalk Toronto, “Design Jam: Background.” Presentation, 2018. [16] M. C. Jackson, Systems thinking: Creative holism for managers. Cite- [51] Sidewalk Toronto, Sidewalk Toronto Residents Reference Panel FAQ. seer, 2003. Sidewalk Toronto, 2018. [17] W. Ulrich, Critical Heuristics of Social Planning: A New Approach to [52] S. Mattern, “A city is not a computer,” Places Journal, 2017. Practical Philosophy. J. Wiley and Sons, 1983. [53] C. W. Churchman, The Systems Approach. Delta, New York, 1968. [18] W. Ulrich and M. Reynolds, “Critical systems heuristics,” in Systems [54] G. Midgley, Systemic Intervention. Springer, 2000. Approaches to Managing Change: A Practical Guide, Springer, 2010. [55] M. Balestrini, Y. Rogers, C. Hassan, J. Creus, M. King, and P. Marshall, [19] M. Reynolds, “Evaluation based on critical systems heuristics,” 2007. “A city in common: a framework to orchestrate large-scale citizen [20] A. Henriques and J. Richardson, eds., The Triple Bottom Line: Does it all engagement around urban issues,” in Proc. ‘17 CHI Conference on Add Up? : Assessing the Sustainability of Business and CSR. Earthscan Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 2282–2294, ACM, 2017. Publications Ltd., 2004. [56] J. Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Vintage Books, [21] Waterfront Toronto, “Plan development agreement between toronto 1961. waterfront revitalization corporation and sidewalk labs llc,” agreement, Waterfront Toronto, 07 2018. [22] F. Chowdhury, F. West, G. Chau, G. Hewitt, G. Cabigas, H. Kang, H. Mactaggart, J. Goodman, J. Duong, J. Ruzic, J. Slaughter, K. Don- aldson, L. Clamageran, M. Houghron, P. MacKay, R. Jia, S. Mahmood, S. Mehta, and S. Fung, Resident’s Reference Panel Interim Report. Sidewalk Toronto, 2018. 10