In this paper, we take the concept of ‘new urban spaces’ as our jumping off point to engage with the efforts of Alphabet/Google affiliate Sidewalk Labs to cultivate a new integrated digital and infrastructural urban space on the Toronto waterfront. We interrogate the process and politics of imagining this new, digital urban space as an urban socio-technical imaginary. The paper critically examines the central role of ‘big tech’ in producing the urban socio-technical imaginary not as a snapshot but, rather, as a ‘process of becoming’. This processual focus on the role of big tech allows us to develop three interrelated analytical contributions. First, we generate in-depth understanding of the proxy politics of urban socio-technical imaginaries in constituting new digital urban spaces. Second, we argue that an urban socio-technical imaginary was used as a Trojan horse to promote private experimentation with urban governance. Third, we demonstrate attempts to imagine a global beachhead via ‘the global model’ of a new digital urban space predicated on the digital control of integrated urban infrastructure systems.

在本文中，我们将“新城市空间”的概念作为出发点，与Alphabet / Google附属公司Sidewalk Labs共同努力，在多伦多滨水区培育新的数字化和基础设施一体化的城市空间。我们探讨了将这个新的数字化城市空间想象成一种城市社会技术想象的过程和政治。该论文批判性地考察了“大技术”在产生城市社会技术想象中的中心作用，而不是作为一个快照，而是作为一个“形成过程”。对大型技术角色的这种过程性关注使我们能够开发出三个相互关联的分析性贡献。首先，我们对构成新的数字城市空间的城市社会技术虚构的代理政治有深入的了解。第二，我们认为，城市社会技术虚构被用作特洛伊木马，以促进私人对城市治理的试验。第三，我们展示了通过基于集成城市基础设施系统的数字控制的新数字城市空间的“全球模型”来想象全球滩头堡的尝试。