Fordham Law Review Volume 88 Issue 2 Article 4 2019 Urbanism Under Google: Lessons from Sidewalk Toronto Ellen P. Goodman Rutgers Law School Julia Powles University of Western Australia Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr Part of the Law and Society Commons, and the Science and Technology Law Commons Recommended Citation Ellen P. Goodman and Julia Powles, Urbanism Under Google: Lessons from Sidewalk Toronto, 88 Fordham L. Rev. 457 (2019). Available at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol88/iss2/4 This Symposium is brought to you for free and open access by FLASH: The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and History. It has been accepted for inclusion in Fordham Law Review by an authorized editor of FLASH: The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and History. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. URBANISM UNDER GOOGLE: LESSONS FROM SIDEWALK TORONTO Ellen P. Goodman* & Julia Powles** Cities around the world are rapidly adopting digital technologies, data analytics, and the trappings of “smart” infrastructure. These innovations are touted as solutions to help rationalize services and address rising urban challenges, whether in housing, transit, energy, law enforcement, health care, waste management, or population flow. Promises of urban innovation unite cities’ need for help with technology firms’ need for markets and are rarely subject to evidentiary burdens about projected benefits (let alone costs). For the city, being smart is about functioning better and attracting tech plaudits. For the technology company, the smart city is a way to capture the value of data flows—either by directly monetizing behavioral insights or by using those insights to design or acquire services—and then realizing the network effects and monopoly rents that have characterized information technology platforms.