7 'Smart Cities Challenge' Finalists Announced

Alissa Walker reports on the announcement of seven finalists in the U.S. Department of Transportation's "Smart Cities Challenge." The seven finalists announced over the weekend "will receive $100,000 each and work closely with the USDOT and a group of partners to streamline their proposals," according to Walker. Eventually, one city will receive up to $40 million to fund their strategy from the U.S. DOT, and an additional $10 million from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's company Vulcan. Walker's article includes more background on the competition so far, as well as next steps for the finalists.

U.S. DOT Secretary Anthony Foxx announced the following competition finalists:

• Austin, Texas
• Columbus, Ohio
• Denver, Colorado
• Kansas City, Missouri
• Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• Portland, Oregon
• San Francisco, California

The announcement took place at the South By Southwest Interactive festival taking place in Austin. The festival and the news about the competition attracted news about the finalists from other publications. Tim Stevens reports for CNET on the finalists. Tom Knox reports for the Columbus Business Journal on the details of the proposals that got Columbus into the final group. Austin Mayor Mayor Steve Adler also sent a press release celebrating his city's inclusion among the finalists.

Just a month ago, the U.S. DOT was spreading news about the large response to the competition, after 77 cities submitted competition proposals. The large number of submissions compelled the U.S. DOT to announce seven finalists—two more than the originally intended five finalists.