The 12-acres (just Quayside) was what Toronto's RFP asked for in the first place and Sidewalk Labs won out for (https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2017/10/17/google-fir...), which now turns out to have not been financially viable for them given the high cost of their R&D (including those mass-timber buildings which aren't even in Ontario's building code yet). Sidewalk Lab's wider plans were really an unsolicited proposal that no one asked for, so it's unfair to blame "regulators" or the tech backlash.