Group 3

Andy, Ben, Abrar, Ilinca

History

Beginning after the 2008 financial crisis, housing costs in Toronto increased by 9.8% year over year. As the 21st century progressed, an increasing percentage of the population was driven to live the streets and by 2057 Toronto reached 70% homelessness.

Toronto municipal politics at that time was dominated by an interest group called, “Property Owners of Toronto Collective” (POTC). They pressured the city council to clear the city of homeless encampments and in September of 2057 a state of emergency was declared. A $350 billion dollar emergency fund was tapped by city council and tech megacorporation 6ixcorp was given the biggest housing contract in history with a mandate to build affordable housing.

In April of 2058, condo buildings at Young and Eglinton began to be converted into DrakePod units. These single occupant units offered tenants enough space to sleep, consume calories, and link to the Drake Intelligent Simulation System (DISS) at an affordable rate.

From the spring of 2059 to early 2060 there was continued widespread civil unrest surrounding the implementation of the DrakePod program. Many of the unhoused people living in the city at the time argued that they were being forced to live in “prison cells” and that they were being “treated like cattle”.

In 2061, the unrest in the city reached a tipping point and the Property Owners Of Toronto Collective lobbied the city government to build a barrier to keep vagrants out of the city. City council voted unanimously to offer a contract to 6ixcorp and construction began in October of the same year. This period has been called “The Great Collapse”

6ixcorp began construction of the 6Barrier project which was completed in 2064. The barrier system consists of two electric fences in concentric semi-circle formation. The inner barrier called “The Inner Six” separates the inner city or “Hub” from the “Border Lands”. The Inner 6 runs from Bloor at the north, Bathurst on the West, and Church St. in the East. The Outer Six wall separates the border lands from the “Crop Lands”. It is heavily guarded by 6ixCorp defensive robots to defend against scavengers from outside of the city.

In 2066 a mass eviction campaign was implemented and 6ixCorp defensive robots carried out a mass eviction of the unhoused to the CropLand outside of Toronto city limits. Since the completion of the DrakePod housing project and Six Barrier, homelessness has dropped to 0% within Toronto city boundaries. There are, however, large encampments of unregistered people living outside of city limits who live off the grid.

Geography

Historically, Toronto covered a surface area of roughly 630 square kilometres, with a maximum east-west distance of 43 kilometres, and a maximum north-south distance of 21 kilometres. Since 2066, while the city’s total occupied space has remained the same, urbanisation greatly varies depending on the area. The city is divided into three distinct and separate areas: the city centre, colloquially known as “The Hub”, the Borderlands and CropLand. The Hub takes up 16.6 square kilometres, and its borders remain unchanged from that of the old Downtown sphere, though it was drastically reworked in the years after the Great Collapse of 2066. On the outskirts of The Hub, there are the Borderlands. This area, measuring 40.4 square kilometres, is less urbanised than The Hub. After the Great Collapse, much of the area has remained the same, spare three infrastructure building projects organised by 6ixCorps starting in 2058 and ending in 2066. The rest of the landmass of the old city of Toronto (573 square kilometres), named CropLand, is almost completely rural. Old infrastructure was completely bulldozed in 2061 and redesigned for resource exploitation.

The Hub

Though The Hub contains the smallest land mass out of the three sections of Toronto, it has been optimised to house as many people as possible. It is the area that has the highest density of skyscrapers in the city. While Toronto has always been relatively flat, 6ixcorps organised several flattening projects following the Great Collapse to accommodate for the optimised city layout. The Hub is designed according to the modernist architectural style, with 6ixcorps citing “the necessity to prioritise function over form, to embrace minimalism in these trying times [after the Great Collapse]”. As such, buildings are very minimally ornamented. Following complaints from the citizens that the area was “bland, sterile and depressing”, 6ixcorps organised “meaningful art initiatives” that were meant to “bring life back to our city, in a meaningful way”. Since the official start of the initiative in 2094, 98% of the buildings in The Hub have permanent advertising projections constantly running on one side. There are no dedicated green spaces on ground level, with all greenery confined to the roofs of the buildings. As a result, there are no naturally-occuring instances of wildlife. All animals present in The Hub are domesticated house pets, with the most common being the Super-Poof dog and cat breeds. The Hub has a strict border patrol that is manned by the military 24/7.

The Borderlands

In The Borderlands, much of the city’s previous infrastructure has been allowed to remain. Around 85% of the buildings predate the Great Collapse, having undergone various renovation projects for modernization purposes in the time since. Such renovation projects consist of the integration of the DrakePods in every living quarter. The only completely modern structures are the 6ixcorps Associate Inc. building, which is the headquarters of the Borderlands Division of 6ixcorps, and the Outer6ix Fence, which separates The Borderlands and CropLand. The Outer6ix fence is heavily fortified, due to the area’s increasing problem with scavengers coming from CropLand. The Borderlands contains some green spaces in the form of pre-Collapse public parks, though they are no longer regularly maintained. All other aspects of The Borderlands mirror that of The Hub. As in The Hub, all non-human life consists of domesticated pets, among which are hound the Super-Poof dog and cat breeds, as well as the Regular Tabby Cat, native to The Borderlands.

CropLands

Once 6ixCorps established the borders of The Hub and the Borderlands following the Great Collapse, the remaining area was set to be converted into a space solely dedicated for resource exploitation. In 2061, the infrastructure in the area that now houses CropLand was almost completely bulldozed so as to optimise farm building. As such, there are no updated dedicated residential or urban areas designed by 6ixCorps. Any residential areas are abandoned and not maintained. Of the farms located in CropLand, 78% are specialised for growing produce, while the remaining 32% are livestock ranches. The animals raised in these farms are imported locally and internationally. As for the produce, while the first generation of non-indigenous crops were also imported, state-of-the-art greenhouses now allow for these plants to grow naturally in Toronto. Despite CropLand being the only region that was not designed for large-scale housing, it boasts the largest percent of the population [see “Demographics” section for more details]. This is because CropLand became the refuge for those who refused to integrate into the tier society when it was first introduced after the Great Collapse. The area is mostly flat, on account of the farms, but there are also large, dense pockets of greenery that cannot be found elsewhere in Toronto, as well as the small residential areas. The Deviants (those who fled to CropLand following the implementation of the 6ixCorps Societal Tier System) occupy this space. Many animals other than livestock have been recorded in the area: squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, foxes, coyotes, snakes, rodents, crows, eagles, hawks, pigeons are most commonly noted.

Demography

Total population: 2.8 million
The Hub: 311, 111
The Borderlands: 622, 222
CropLand: 933,333

Politics

Toronto politics in 2089 are dominated by 6ixCorp and the Property Owners of Toronto Collective (POTC).

The transition from a democratically elected city council occurred in the mid 21st century when homelessness reached it's peak. Only those with a fixed address were able to vote in municipal elections and so wealthy homeowners were able to lobby as a group and seize all 25 seats in the city council. The POTC lead council then turned over the majority of the city budget to 6Corp and gave them a mandate to resolve homelessness.

6ixCorp executes all major government functions: 6Corp defensive robots maintain law and order within the city, the Bix Barrier acts as a border where goods are allowed to enter and vagrants are kept out; Drake Pods are the preferred solution to public housing in the Toronto; education for the middle class is carried out through DISS.

DISS is also used to monitor the thoughts and behaviors of the middle classes so as to avoid the type of widespread civil unrest that was so common in the 2060s.

6ixcorp receives its mandate and funding from the POTC lead city council and then devises and implements the specific strategies for city improvement.

Society

There are three major class groups in and around Toronto:

Upper Class

The Upper class maintains political power in the city council through their lobby group Property Owners of Toronto Collective (POTC). They were able to keep their houses through the financial crisis of the 2050s and the upheaval of the 2070s and as homeowners with voting rights, were able to control the City Council. The primary employer for the upper class is 6ixCorp.

Middle Class

The middle class, or renter class, of Toronto lives in DrakePods. The majority of time is spent within DISS and make up %85 of Toronto City residents.

Deviant Class

The lower classes, deemed "the deviants" were evicted from the city in 2066 and live outside of the 6ix Barrier. There numbers are unknow since they do not interact with DISS.

Technology

As the 21st Century draws to a close, technology plays a crucial role as the defining maker of class divisions in Toronto. The access to and use of technology vary greatly among the city's social classes, reflecting and reinforcing existing inequalities. While the wealthiest residents enjoy unparalleled technological advancements, the middle class experiences a more constrained and controlled interaction with technology, and the poorest citizens rely on salvaged and outdated devices for basic survival.

Upper Class

The Upper Class (also known as the Ultra-Rich) live in luxury, seamlessly merging human ingenuity with the latest cutting-edge technology. They inhabit giant mansions equipped with AI systems that anticipate every human need, from mood-based room lightning to personalised medical diagnostics. They have access to their own “auto-doc” system that cures and provides instant remedy to various sickness and bone reparation. Neural implants grant direct brain-to-network connection, enabling instant communications with other neural implant users as well as cognitive enhancements. For the wealthy, technology is a tool of indulgence and ego.

Middle Class

The Middle Class by contrast, experiences technology as a double-edged sword. Cramped within closed spaces in condos and apartments which will be known as DrakePods- a literally pod with high-tech modular units. In the Pod, the user will be able to access the digital world through an immersive VR “Coffin” system that they have to “sleep” in order to access the virtual world. These VR coffins simulate tailored realities, allowing them to work, shop, and “socialise” within the confines of their pods. However, this technology isn't perfect; bugs and glitches frequently disrupt their lives, and updates are slow and costly. Furthermore, DrakePods serves as a Data collecting device in order to attainmore knowledge on the Human consciousness by monitoring activities. The Corporation, 6ixCorp, governs their daily schedules, assigning tasks and monitoring their performance system through the “coffin”. A social credit point system is implemented in the UI interface of the Coffin to keep count of Completed/Incompleted tasks, Digitizied “social media” profile page, breached offenses and more. The middle class is more servant than master to their devices.

Lower Class

For the lower class (also classified as the Deviants in society), technology is a distant dream. Living in the decaying remnants of Toronto’s outskirts, they rely on salvaged devices such as Old smartphones and other outdated devices. Smartphones are used as communal tools for organising resources and sharing knowledge. Ingenious “scrappers” dismantle the acquired tech from “scavengers” to build makeshift power sources as communication devices. For the Deviants, technology serves as a lifeline rather than a luxury. The deviants main form of communications is through genuine human interactions.