4.3.1 Collaborating for new employment initiative 4.4.2 Toronto’s growing tech and startup ecosystem Sidewalk Labs planned to work with various partners, including The rapid growth of Toronto’s tech and innovation ecosystem Toronto Employment and Social Services and Miziwe Biik has attracted more and more talent and further investment in Aboriginal Employment and Training,23to ensure opportunities the region. In 2017, Toronto added over twenty-eight thousand in both the construction and high-tech sectors. The project tech jobs, and it is now home to over 240,000 tech workers, set minimum targets, including a requirement that 10 percent representing an increase of more than 50 percent over the past of all construction hours be worked by members of equity- five years (Sidewalk Labs, 2017). seeking groups. While creating attractive employment in today’s industries is essential, helping the next wave of local Toronto’s tech sector has demonstrated growth among large entrepreneurs to stimulate innovation is fundamental too. and small firms. Major tech companies with a presence in the city include Shopify, Microsoft, and Uber. These and other Sidewalk Labs envisioned a business incubator program that would players have increasingly sought to invest in local talent and have been developed with a local partner in order to provide space innovation projects, announcing more than 1.4 billion dollars and support for underrepresented and low-income entrepreneurs of new investments in September 2018 alone (Sidewalk Labs, and small business owners from diverse communities. The core 2017) (https://pcma.news/torontos-tech-boom-brings-us1-4bn- idea was to promote diversity and innovation. investment-in-september/) (Accessed on 23 July 2021). 4.4 Business-led job creation 4.4.3 Job creation repartitions Within the ninety-three thousand jobs that Sidewalk Labs hoped that Sidewalk estimated that the whole IDEA District could create its project would create in Toronto, the firm predicted that forty-four up to ninety-three thousand jobs by 2040 (Sidewalk Labs, 2017). thousand would be permanent, full-time positions that would have Sidewalk Labs planned to launch a new workforce development fallen into three broad categories: industrial jobs, population-based initiative and a construction jobs program for equity-seeking services, and knowledge-based industries (Sidewalk Labs, 2017). The populations. following is a more detailed breakdown of these three categories: Moreover, Sidewalk Labs planned to help to catalyze a group • Industrial: The IDEA District could have maintained a small focused on urban innovation. This could have been done by but core mass of industrial jobs in industries such as light enabling innovators, entrepreneurs, and private companies manufacturing and transportation. According to the analysis (large and small) to research, explore, and develop ideas that of UrbanMetrics,24 this segment could have accounted for might improve the quality of life in cities. 2,500 jobs within the forty-four thousand positions in the IDEA District (Sidewalk Labs, 2017a: 424-425); 4.4.1 Benefits of Sidewalk Labs’ vision • Population-BasedServices: Primarily offering products and Sidewalk Labs believed that most jobs located within the IDEA services for the local market, these jobs would have included District could be considered “new,” by which the firm meant professions like teachers, doctors, and retail workers. In its jobs that would not have existed in Toronto but for the creation analysis, UrbanMetrics estimated that this segment could of the district. Some of the benefits that would result from its have accounted for approximately twelve thousands of the plans, according to Sidewalk’s estimates, were: forty-four thousand jobs within the IDEA District (Sidewalk •The creation of more than ninety-three thousand jobs in total Labs, 2017a: 424-427; Sidewalk Labs, 2017b: 379); (including forty-four thousand full-time, permanent jobs); • Knowledge-Based Industries: The IDEA District could have been •The addition of roughly 14.2 billion dollars to annual GDP home to tens of thousands of jobs related to tech, finance, output from 2040; professional services, and creative fields. In total, UrbanMetrics •The raising of approximately 4.3 billion dollars in annual estimated that knowledge-based industries could have tax revenue (federal, provincial, and municipal) by 2040 accounted for approximately 29,500 of the forty-four thousand (Sidewalk Labs, 2017). jobs within the IDEA District (Sidewalk Labs, 2017a: 422-427); - Over time, Sidewalk Labs predicted that a substantial Based on these estimations, this growth could have enabled portion of the jobs created within the knowledge-based Toronto’s government to maximize the return obtained from its industries segment could fall under the umbrella of urban investment, and it would also have delivered an enhanced public innovation, with actors working in this field explicitly drawn transit infrastructure and thousands of affordable housing units. in by the unique conditions created within the IDEA District. (23) https://miziwebiik.com/education-and-training/ (accessed on 9 June 2021). (24) https://urbanmetrics.ca/ 181 Quélin and Smadja | HEC PARIS | SMART CITIES | The sustainable program of six leading cities | 2021