I can get lost on Google Maps for hours on end. I love looking at maps and I love using Street View to virtually explore cities. This morning I’m honed in on Cincinnati, Ohio (a city I’ve never been to) while I listen to this podcast about their unfinished subway.

In 1916, the city voted in favor of spending $6 million on a new subway. But it was never finished and so today – 100 years later – it has the dubious distinction of being the largest abandoned subway tunnel in the United States. 

The podcast I’m listening to is with a fellow by the name of Jake Mecklenborg. He has written a book on the subway’s history and has emerged as the expert on this topic. And it all started with him just throwing up a website.

One particularly interesting aspect of the subway is how it tied into the city’s flooding problems. At the time, the population density of the constrained downtown was surging and the subway was viewed as a way to stitch together desirable land and relieve some of those urban pressures.

I’m also very interested in understanding how cities got founded in the locations that they did. As in, who was the person who dropped their bag and said: “yup, this, is the spot.” Somebody had to have made a decision.

Oftentimes there were specific strategic, economic, and/or environmental reasons for a certain location. And this is something that Jake touches on. In the case of Cincinnati, flooding was again a major determining factor. 

If you can’t see/listen to the podcast through the embed below, click here.

//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/4210424/height/90/width/580/theme/custom/autoplay/no/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/backward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/87A93A/

Image: Jonathan Warren via Wikipedia

One of Alphabet’s subsidiaries is a company by the name of Sidewalk Labs. Some of you, I’m sure, have been following it. The goal of the company is to leverage technology in order to solve some of our biggest urban challenges.

Initially, they were fairly under the radar, but more recently they’ve become a lot more public with their projects and their mission. Here is a snippet from a recent blog post written by their CEO, Daniel L. Doctoroff: 

“The world is poised for a fourth urban-tech revolution — an age of connectivity capable of reshaping cities as much as the steam engine, electricity, and automobile have in the past. New technologies will help citizens and elected officials tackle those intractable urban challenges that Larry outlined last summer, but making sure this age imposes fewer social costs than those previous shifts is critical.”

Earlier this week it was also announced that the company is likely to enter the real estate development business and construct a new city precinct in order to pilot some of their ideas and projects. The initiative is called Project Sidewalk. 

Here is an excerpt from the Wall Street Journal:

“According to people familiar with Sidewalk’s plans, the division of Alphabet is putting the final touches on a proposal to get into the business of developing giant new districts of housing, offices and retail within existing cities.

The company would seek cities with large swaths of land they want redeveloped—likely economically struggling municipalities grappling with decay—perhaps through a bidding process, the people said. Sidewalk would partner with one or more of those cities to build up the districts, which are envisioned to hold tens of thousands of residents and employees, and to be heavily integrated with technology.”

When I read this, I immediately thought of the Port Lands area in Toronto. Not because Toronto is decaying – far from it – but because it’s a massive 880 acre site that is both adjacent to downtown and entirely underutilized. I can’t wait to see this area transformed into a thriving waterfront community.

In any event, if or when Project Sidewalk gets off the ground, it will be very interesting to see what a Google-backed real estate development company looks like.

I can get lost on Google Maps for hours on end. I love looking at maps and I love using Street View to virtually explore cities. This morning I’m honed in on Cincinnati, Ohio (a city I’ve never been to) while I listen to this podcast about their unfinished subway.

In 1916, the city voted in favor of spending $6 million on a new subway. But it was never finished and so today – 100 years later – it has the dubious distinction of being the largest abandoned subway tunnel in the United States. 

The podcast I’m listening to is with a fellow by the name of Jake Mecklenborg. He has written a book on the subway’s history and has emerged as the expert on this topic. And it all started with him just throwing up a website.

One particularly interesting aspect of the subway is how it tied into the city’s flooding problems. At the time, the population density of the constrained downtown was surging and the subway was viewed as a way to stitch together desirable land and relieve some of those urban pressures.

I’m also very interested in understanding how cities got founded in the locations that they did. As in, who was the person who dropped their bag and said: “yup, this, is the spot.” Somebody had to have made a decision.

Oftentimes there were specific strategic, economic, and/or environmental reasons for a certain location. And this is something that Jake touches on. In the case of Cincinnati, flooding was again a major determining factor. 

If you can’t see/listen to the podcast through the embed below, click here.

//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/4210424/height/90/width/580/theme/custom/autoplay/no/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/backward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/87A93A/

Image: Jonathan Warren via Wikipedia

One of Alphabet’s subsidiaries is a company by the name of Sidewalk Labs. Some of you, I’m sure, have been following it. The goal of the company is to leverage technology in order to solve some of our biggest urban challenges.

Initially, they were fairly under the radar, but more recently they’ve become a lot more public with their projects and their mission. Here is a snippet from a recent blog post written by their CEO, Daniel L. Doctoroff: 

“The world is poised for a fourth urban-tech revolution — an age of connectivity capable of reshaping cities as much as the steam engine, electricity, and automobile have in the past. New technologies will help citizens and elected officials tackle those intractable urban challenges that Larry outlined last summer, but making sure this age imposes fewer social costs than those previous shifts is critical.”

Earlier this week it was also announced that the company is likely to enter the real estate development business and construct a new city precinct in order to pilot some of their ideas and projects. The initiative is called Project Sidewalk. 

Here is an excerpt from the Wall Street Journal:

“According to people familiar with Sidewalk’s plans, the division of Alphabet is putting the final touches on a proposal to get into the business of developing giant new districts of housing, offices and retail within existing cities.

The company would seek cities with large swaths of land they want redeveloped—likely economically struggling municipalities grappling with decay—perhaps through a bidding process, the people said. Sidewalk would partner with one or more of those cities to build up the districts, which are envisioned to hold tens of thousands of residents and employees, and to be heavily integrated with technology.”

When I read this, I immediately thought of the Port Lands area in Toronto. Not because Toronto is decaying – far from it – but because it’s a massive 880 acre site that is both adjacent to downtown and entirely underutilized. I can’t wait to see this area transformed into a thriving waterfront community.

In any event, if or when Project Sidewalk gets off the ground, it will be very interesting to see what a Google-backed real estate development company looks like.