Tech and the Post-Pandemic City To steer American cities into the future, public and private sectors—and citizens—must work together to build broad, lasting support around complicated issues such as transparency and data privacy. April 6, 2021, 7am PDT | Sara Maffey Share When Google introduced the world to Sidewalk Toronto in 2017, the company hailed the project as an "urban innovation" that would "make cities more sustainable and affordable for all." The project, an effort by the world’s most recognizable tech company, aimed to bring private and public interests together and make the city of the future a reality. Then, in late February of this year, another high-profile Google-related project dissolved when the city of Portland, Oregon ended a partnership between with a Google-spin off called Replica—this time over concerns about data privacy. The collaboration aimed to deliver "privacy-safe, real-time data on how people move around the Portland area."