Dive Brief:

• Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg earlier this week announced the "American Cities Initiative," a collection of investments that will "empower cities" and "advance policy" to generate innovation, according to a press release.
• The initiative focuses on three areas: promoting "bold" leadership in city halls; advancing policy and legislation in areas including climate change, education and the opioid epidemic; and empowering citizens.
• The first round of investments comes in the form of the 2017 Mayors Challenge. "Innovation experts" will visit and give one-day training sessions to the first 300 cities that register. Up to 35 "Champion Cities" will then get up to $100,000 to test and refine ideas; one city will win a $5 million grand prize; and four others will get $1 million implementation grants.

Dive Insight:

For the challenge, Bloomberg is looking for solutions to problems that cities face — and the selection criteria include the idea of "transferability," so that the solutions could have practical applications for other urban areas. 

Bloomberg is trying to influence policy — and it's not the first time the former mayor has made his vision for the future clear. It's not even his first foray into thinking about cities: A new book that he co-authored deals with how cities and businesses can tackle climate change.

The initiative follows Bloomberg Philanthropies' announcement earlier this year that it would create a new certification initiative to advise local governments on introducing data-driven policy to improve their city's smart infrastructure. What Works Cities will mirror existing building certification programs by offering a point-based system.

Both of these initiatives come amid increased attention and investment in gathering data from cities in real time to inform future design and planning decisions. In September 2016, the Obama administration announced plans to invest $80 million in smart city technology. The directive, which followed the White House's September 2015 launch of the Smart Cities Initiative, encourages collaboration between the public and private sectors.