Google’s next challenge is to improve city life
Sidewalk Labs project aims at incubating technologies that address urban issues
SAN FRANCISCO— Google, famous for its search engine, maps, Android phone operating system and ambitious projects to build self-driving cars and interactive glasses, is now aiming to tackle another big challenge: improving city life.
Called Sidewalk Labs, the new initiative will use technology and innovation to improve urban life at a time when the U.S. population is gravitating to cities, said Google CEO Larry Page.
Based in New York, it will be run by Dan Doctoroff, a former deputy mayor of New York City, who will draw on his experience managing cities and will be backed by funding from Google.
“Sidewalk will focus on improving city life for everyone by developing and incubating urban technologies to address issues like cost of living, efficient transportation and energy usage,” Page said in a Google+ post.
“Many cities around the world have already made a lot of progress in some of these areas, for instance, developing ‘dashboards’ to measure and visualize traffic patterns, and building tools that let residents instantly evaluate and provide feedback on city services.
“But a lot of urban challenges are interrelated; for example, availability of transportation affects where people choose to live, which affects housing prices, which affects quality of life,” Page wrote.
“So it helps to start from first principles and get a big-picture view of the many factors that affect city life.
“Then, you can develop the technologies and partnerships you need to make a difference.”
Page described Google’s investment as “relatively modest.” He compared Sidewalk Labs to Google X, Google’s research lab, and Calico, a Google-funded company researching health and aging.
“Making long-term . . . bets like this is hard for most companies to do, but (Google co-founder) Sergey (Brin) and I have always believed that it’s important,” Page wrote.
Wrote Doctoroff: “We are at the beginning of a historic transformation in cities. At a time when the concerns about urban equity, costs, health and the environment are intensifying, unprecedented technological change is going to enable cities to be more efficient, responsive, flexible and resilient.”