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by annapurna 2240 days ago
Couldn't agree more as a Torontonian. It didn't help that they conducted most of the discussions in bad faith with the whole "trust us with your data" approach when these were geniune concerns due to the amount of oversight and control they were provided.
1 comments

I agree that this was a train wreck in slow motion. What is sad is I didn't see any significant open engagement with GTA's existing tech scene (did hear a lot of talk of it though). Maybe the VCs club had access but as a technologist, I certainly didn't. If this was happening in SF, there would be grass roots meetups all over the place, and a more serious focus on action rather than planning.
They did a series of town halls, funded a bunch of urban / tech meetups. Pretty proactive for a period. The townhalls were very... SF style, it didn't mesh with the local culture well. But I don't think they did a lot of work either, there's a pretty lackluster showroom and they put out some very middling concept sketches - not proper renders like you see in most smart city projects. Didn't seem like they were taking things seriously. A lot of words. Maybe too many. At least not enough right ones.