A smarter Toronto: some reassembly required

Abstract

Bob Hankes Smarter Toronto is an important study of a key event in the recent history of urban planning, technological innovataion and urban journalism. The book masterfully weaves together complex theoretical ideas while remaining readable and deeply engaged with the events it describes. Hankes account of Googles failed Sidewalk project in Toronto should interest anyone concerned with media, urban democracy and the future of cities. Will Straw, James McGill Professor of Urban Media Studies, McGill University This book bridges media, technocultural, urban, and journalism studies to examine the role of journalism in relation to a smart city project on Torontos waterfront. From the announcement of the public-private partnership called Sidewalk Toronto to the projects termination, a mediatized controversy unfolded. Through an assemblage approach to this project and a case study of The Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star, it follows the actors and chronicles the Quayside project story as a conversation about the promise and perils of a future smart neighbourhood. In the news of Waterfront Toronto, Sidewalk Labs, other actors, events, and developments, there were multiple voices and views, interpretations and arguments, that manifested conflicting interests and values. As a locally situated actor, journalism produced a porous discourse that expressed a proposeand- public pushback movement. This work of articulating mediation conditioned the projects alteration and dissolution within asymmetrical relations of power. In addition to a wave of opposition that inflected the projects enactment, a time lag between project time and governmental policymaking made the controversy over this future urban space intractable. With their residual symbolic power, quality journalism contributed to dialogical urban learning. Bob Hanke, a former a faculty member in the Department of Communication & Media Studies, York University, Canada, is currently an independent scholar living in Toronto