Sarah Owen

A high-tech neighborhood that was slated to rise along Toronto’s waterfront, Quayside was the brainchild of Sidewalk Labs, the urban innovation arm of Google parent company Alphabet. Projected to create 44,000 jobs and $14.2 billion annually in GDP for Canada, the interconnected smart city would’ve housed residents in 12 timber high-rises designed... See more

No roads, cars or emissions, it will run on 100% renewable energy and 95% of land will be preserved for nature. People's health and wellbeing will be prioritized over transportation and infrastructure, unlike traditional cities. Only 200 meters wide, but 170 kilometers long and 500 meters above sea level.

Thus we stumble across a new standard for productivity: non-self-coercion. If you wouldn't vociferously berate your coworkers or roommates for their various foibles and inefficiencies, why do you keep behaving as if it’s acceptable to do it to yourself?

Social psychologists have known for decades that people are motivated to work harder when others are watching. When they are observed, people run faster, are more creative, and think harder about problems.

"frictionless experiences with technology mean that we notice less about the tools we’re using and what it is they actually do. This, he thinks, promotes a kind of self-absorption. We don’t see ourselves as being in conversation with our tools or the physical world; instead, we see ourselves as masters of our environment, with the expectation that... See more