Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs announced the launch of Sidewalk Talk — a blog and forum for urbanists and technologists to converse and collaborate.
Sidewalk Talk will take up a broad range of issues pertaining to the role of technology in cities: "mobility, buildings, infrastructure, open data, social services, and most critically, civil liberties."
The blog will feature expert Q&As, research, and maps and data visualizations, as well as updates about Sidewalk Labs' own projects. A podcast is also planned.
In a post on Medium, Sidewalk Labs CEO Daniel L. Doctoroff writes that the "smart city" movement has found its main obstacle in the poor communication between urbanists and technologists, who often don't understand each other's needs and abilities. Disputes between cities and companies like Uber or Airbnb are just one example.
"The world is poised for a fourth urban-tech revolution," Doctoroff writes, but "it takes talk."
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