Early on, Bianca Wylie began an ever expanding list of questions on The Torontoist, an urban affairs website.

And well over 100 readers posted comments on my article.

“A fascinating vision,” Lewis Sternberg wrote from Ottawa. “History would show, however, that central planning (no matter how benign) does not make neighborhoods. It can start them but it is their inhabitants that will remake it in the long term.”

R. Fishell from Toronto wrote, “I am a skeptic of Google, social media and the end of the separation of personal and public spaces,” but added, “I am in favor of letting the experiment proceed as well as encouraging all the public discourse with its resident messiness to evaluate what works and what doesn’t.”

While Sidewalk’s plan eclipses in scale and scope everything that came before it, the idea of using data collection and analysis common in the digital world to shape the physical world is not unique to the company or its sibling Google. The federal government is running a “smart cities” competition that will give out millions of dollars to local governments looking to reshape their communities through the “use of data and connected technology.”

Let’s continue the debate. Please send your thoughts about shaping cities by marrying the virtual and physical worlds to nytcanada@nytimes.com