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Google wants to build its own futuristic, smart city

Get ready for Google City.

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Sidewalk Labs, a division run under Google's parent company Alphabet, is looking to buy large swaths of land in different cities to create its own high-tech, futuristic municipalities, the Wall Street Journal reported. The aim is to transform parts of economically struggling cities into a proving ground for cities of the future.

LinkNYC wifi
Sidewalk Labs is behind the LinkNYC WiFi kiosk project. LinkNYC

Google's "Smart City" would provide an area to test everything from self-driving cars to a more efficient way to deliver water and electricity.

Sidewalk Labs is currently finishing up its proposal to build new districts of housing, offices, and retail within existing cities. The Alphabet subsidiary wants full autonomy from city regulations so it can build without constraint.

Sidewalk CEO Dan Doctoroff, who served as deputy mayor of economic development for New York City under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has hinted at his desire to build a smart city in the past during a speech at New York University in February.

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"That is why the combination of Google, which focuses on the technology, and, me, who focuses on quality of life, urbanity, etc., we think is a relatively unique combination,” Doctoroff said, according to the WSJ.

Google driverless car
AP/Tony Avelar

The Smart Cities competition, a joint venture with the Department of Transportation and Sidewalk Labs, will reward one city $40 million that can be spent in whatever way possible to "become the country’s first city to fully integrate innovative technologies – self-driving cars, connected vehicles, and smart sensors – into their transportation network."

The Department of Transportation is also working with Sidewalk Labs on its Flow program, which will aggregate anonymized data to better understand traffic patterns and congestion areas in cities. The data will be used to help driverless cars navigate successfully in cities.

Google's Smart City looks like another step in the tech giant's plan to get driverless cars on the road by ensuring cities can accommodate the robot cars.

On February 28, Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, joined 31 other media groups and filed a $2.3 billion suit against Google in Dutch court, alleging losses suffered due to the company's advertising practices.

Google Cities Self-Driving Car
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