Certain smart cities around the world are leading by example. By examining the solutions that are delivering the highest impact, these best practices can be more widely adopted to replicate their success. This smart city portrait provides an overview on the smart city strategy and intelligent solutions implemented in the City of Toronto.
Toronto, Canada's largest city, has long been working on becoming smarter, being awarded the "Intelligent Community of the Year" by the Intelligent Community Forum in 2014. In 2015 the city made a big leap through a partnership with CityZenith. With a citizen-centric approach and the recently announced partnership with Google's Sidewalk Labs, the city now aspires to take another big leap forward to become one of the smartest North American cities.
Toronto’s Smart City Strategy
Strong collaborations are a good foundation for any successful smart city strategy, and Toronto’s smart city approach has certainly led it to form some powerful relationships.
Waterfront Toronto is the body in charge of revitalizing the city’s waterfront real estate, which has long boasted little infrastructure despite its apparently prime location in Canada’s largest city. It has now partnered with Sidewalk Labs, tasking the Google-spawned startup company with the re-development and re-envisioning of Toronto’s Quayside area as a testbed for truly smart living, creating a unique smart city solutions ecosystem.