Upwards of $80 Million in Federal Investment to Flow Toward Smart Cities Projects
Funding will go toward transportation, public safety and other areas.
The federal government will make about $80 million in new “smart cities” investments, the Obama administration announced Monday.
At the same time, the number of communities participating in the administration’s Smart Cities Initiative will grow to over 70, according to the White House. The new investments will target areas such as energy conservation, transportation, public safety and social services.
Smart cities technology generally includes self-driving vehicles, infrastructure sensors and advanced data analytics. But the category covers other emerging technology as well.
Some of the investments announced Monday include: nearly $15 million for programs related to climate change and energy; over $15 million in grants and other funding for urban transportation; and upwards of $10 million in grants and other funding for public safety.
The National Science Foundation is set to fund research in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on how autonomous vehicles might communicate with one another to improve traffic flows and road safety during severe weather. And the Department of Homeland Security is funding the development of low-cost sensor technology in Texas to help improve responses to flooding.
A smattering of other new programs and investments were also outlined in Monday’s announcement.
For instance, the U.S. Department of Energy is launching something called the Better Communities Alliance, a network of cities, counties and organizations that will focus on areas such as energy efficiency, transportation and renewable energy.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology, through a program known as the Global City Teams Challenge, plans to establish “multi-team super-clusters to take on grand challenges too big for any single city team to tackle,” like natural disasters and regional air pollution.
And the MetroLab Network, which includes 38 cities, four counties, and 51 universities, organized by regional partnerships, will start a lab to explore the intersection of data analytics and human services.
One of the major programs to already unfold under the Smart Cities Initiative was the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Smart City Challenge. Through the competitive grant program, Columbus in June won access to as much as $40 million in federal funding to help pay for high-tech transportation projects.
Bill Lucia is a Reporter for Government Executive's Route Fifty and is based in Washington, D.C.
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