Technology today touches virtually every aspect of life and is, at an accelerating rate, changing how we communicate, altering the nature of our human contacts, shaping the daily choices we make, changing the future of work and impacting issues of social equity.

Technology is also impacting cities, for better and worse, and often with too little thought about the long-term implications involved.

We in Toronto have an opportunity to influence that at the nearly five-hectare Quayside site at the head of the Parliament slip where Sidewalk Labs is seeking to develop a new kind of neighbourhood. This new neighbourhood is to be devoted to urban innovation, demonstrating how technology, married with thoughtful urbanism, can improve the quality of city life, making it more affordable, productive and environmentally sustainable.

There are many real questions about how all this will work, questions that Sidewalk Labs and Waterfront Toronto have said they will work on for a year or more to think through, in consultation with the public. But from the moment it was announced, some critics of Sidewalk Toronto have focused on privacy and data collection to the exclusion of almost everything else about the project, assuming that anything unanswered was something being hidden from us.

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Opposing view: Is Sidewalk Labs doing enough to protect privacy? No

Sidewalk Labs has recognized from the outset that the notion of a technology company helping design a new neighbourhood in Toronto raises real questions about privacy and ownership of data.

Rather than begin this process with a set of answers from on high, Sidewalk Labs is working with privacy experts, Waterfront Toronto and the public, first to define the issues and then to try to find best solutions. Data security, privacy and governance have always been integral parts of the conversation.

Already, it has already pledged full transparency about what data is collected and why, to embed privacy protections in everything they design and to never sell personal information.

Will that be enough? By design, it is too soon to say. Critics point to the lack of answers as a reason to write off the project entirely, even before a full plan is presented to the public.

But that would be a mistake, a big missed opportunity to explore whether real, pressing problems facing cities around the world can be addressed through new tools and ideas — and to do so on the Toronto waterfront.

Can redesigned streets and self-driving cars make it easier and safer to get around? Can new construction techniques and flexible buildings lower the cost of living that is rising so quickly in Toronto and other successful international cities? Can we achieve new levels of sustainability as climate change becomes a reality? And perhaps most of all, can urban design and new technology create a better, more enjoyable place to live with greater opportunities for human interaction?

THE BIG DEBATE: For more opposing view columns from Toronto Star contributors, click here.

I am hopeful that the answers may be yes. The early designs are promising: safer streets that make more room for people, bicycles and public transit, and that can change based on traffic. Public spaces that are flexible and block the wind, rain and snow so they can be used more of the year. Buildings made of wood that rise as high as 40 storeys, helping remove carbon from the atmosphere instead of creating it, like concrete and steel do.

Beyond these appealing concepts, there is a deeper opportunity: to have an important conversation about the appropriate use of technology in cities as a host of new innovations inevitably arrive.

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How do we assess potential solutions against human values? Take driverless cars: how do we ensure that their arrival makes cities more livable, instead of an invitation to more sprawl and isolation?

Toronto is in the throes of an astonishing growth spurt. Our systems are strained; established ways of doing basic things in an increasingly dense and dynamic city are stretched to the limit and beyond.

The Sidewalk initiative may just provide the catalyst, R&D resources, and the time and space we urgently need to help us make the shift.

Ken Greenberg is the former director of urban design and architecture for the city of Toronto and principal of Greenberg Consultants. He is the author of Walking Home: the Life and Lessons of a City Builder and is serving as an adviser to Sidewalk Labs.

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