Google planning a high-tech neighbourhood in Toronto

Toronto's waterfront is undergoing lots of development, but there's still plenty of opportunity to reshape the areas located right by the lake.

Bloomberg reports that Alphabet Inc's (Google's parent company) urban innovation arm Sidewalk Labs responded to Waterfront Toronto's request for proposal to build up Quayside, a new 12-acre community on the city's eastern waterfront, just south of Parliament Street.

In March, Quayside announced it was looking for an innovation and funding partner to bring this "globally significant" project to life.

According to the RFP, "the aim is to establish Quayside as a testbed for emerging technologies, materials and processes that will address these challenges and advance solutions that can be replicated in cities worldwide."

In a speech at the Smart Cities NYC conference last week, Dan Doctorof, Sidewalk Labs' CEO, said his company was looking to develop a "large-scale district," writes Bloomberg.

Sidewalk Labs works to create technological solutions to urban problems. "We’re pursuing a large-scale district that can serve as a living laboratory for urban technology — a testbed for coordinated solutions, a foundation for people to build on, and a vision for other cities to follow," reads its website.

Apparently, Sidewalk Labs was considering other cities, including Denver and Detroit, but Toronto seems to make sense now because our tech scene just keeps growing.