Google Unveils a New Project That Will Help Improve Urban Life

Google recently unveiled a new project, Sidewalk Labs, whose goal is to bring technologies to cities for improving urban life.

The project will "develop technology at the intersection of the physical and digital worlds," the new company said in a statement Wednesday.

Google is backing the project and the investment is "modest," according to Google CEO Larry Page. In a web post, Page compared Sidewalk Labs to Google X, Google's research lab, and Calico, a Google-funded company that focuses on health and well-being.

Google is known to invest technologies that are beyond its main Web-search advertising business, i.e., self-driving cars.

"As more and more people around the world live, work and settle in cities, the opportunities for improving our urban environments are endless," Page wrote in the post. "Now it's time to hit the streets and get to work."

Sidewalk will be aimed at improving quality of urban life by using technology. It will help address challenges that extend beyond helping traffic conditions or finding apartments.

The company plans to build products, platforms and partnerships to tackle issues such as making transportation more efficient, lowering the cost of living and reducing energy usage, Bloomberg noted.

"We are at the beginning of a historic transformation in cities," said Dan Doctoroff, a former deputy mayor of New York City who will be heading the project. "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."