Tech backlash hindering Sidewalk’s Toronto plan, executive says

Growing public mistrust of technology giants is making it more challenging for Sidewalk Labs LLC to gain support for its high-tech neighbourhood in Toronto, according to an executive at the firm. 

“There’s no question that that has affected our reception,” said Rohit Aggarwala, head of urban systems at New York-based Sidewalk, a unit of Google parent Alphabet Inc. “What we have been facing is the complete shift from say five, six years ago where large tech firms were highly trusted on almost everything and the public, in general, shared the perception that tech is going to solve a bunch of our problems, to the opposite, which is, whatever they’re doing, there’s danger there.”