海角大神

Columbus, a city of around 825,000 located smack-dab in the middle of Ohio, has beat out聽seven competing finalists聽across the nation from San Francisco to Austin to Pittsburgh, to win the Department of Transportation鈥檚聽.

The award, which comes with $40 million from the DOT and an additional $10 million from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen鈥檚 company Vulcan, is given to a city with plans to 鈥渇ully integrate innovative technologies 鈥� self-driving cars, connected vehicles, and smart sensors 鈥� into their transportation network.鈥�

Columbus with a proposal that includes numerous concepts for integrating technology with city infrastructure. Some of the plans on the drawing board include autonomous shuttles, electric vehicle charging stations, and traffic signals that communicate with cars, as well as an app that advises truck drivers on the best routes to navigate city streets.

A key part of focused on how transportation technology could decrease inequality in Columbus. The city, which is the fastest-growing in the mid-West and has a , has a low overall unemployment rate of 3.8 percent.

However, in the city鈥檚 poorer neighborhoods that rate , according to The Columbus Dispatch. Infant mortality rates in Franklin County, which encompasses the city, are stunningly high. The city鈥檚 website reports that under the age of one die every week.

鈥淭his grant will help of Ohioans who live in the low-income neighborhoods in and around Columbus to ensure they can get to their job, or receive a good education,鈥� US Sen. Rob Portman (R) said in a statement.

Mayor Andrew J. Ginther and city and state officials welcomed the official announcement this afternoon in the neighborhood of Linden, an impoverished part of the city where much of the Smart City proposal鈥檚 focus was directed.

"We are thrilled to be America鈥檚 first Smart City. Our collaboration between public, private, and nonprofit sectors is the perfect example of how we and connect all communities,鈥� he said in a statement.聽

In the the initial proposal, officials noted that Linden has 鈥渁 , unreliable access to employment and health services, a lack of access to digital information, and a high portion of cash-based households.鈥�

Each of those is a barrier to moving the neighborhood out of a decline that was augmented by numerous foreclosures of investor-owned properties during the financial crisis 10 years ago, says聽donna Hicho (who spells her name with a lower-case "d"), executive director of the nonprofit Greater Linden Development Corporation.

鈥淲e currently don鈥檛 have a lot of job opportunities within the boundaries of Linden,鈥� Ms. Hicho tells 海角大神. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 have an OSU or a nationwide children鈥檚 hospital or something within our boundaries that can employ a large part of the population.鈥�

Hicho says she and other Linden community leaders feel that better transportation is a crucial way to alleviate this issue, because the jobs are out there, but聽Linden tends to be a self-enclosed zone; for many residents 鈥済oing outside the neighborhood is like going to a whole different city.鈥�

She hopes that the city administration will think broadly about where those job opportunities are, such as at the sprawling Rickenbacker Global Logistics Park in nearby Dublin, which takes about 20 minutes in a car from Columbus, but would take a Linden resident over an hour and a half to reach on public transportation and would require a transfer in the city鈥檚 center, she says.

鈥淲e need to look at how we match things together, because we have an obvious need and an obvious opportunity,鈥� she says.

The city plans to increase the mobility of low-income residents by creating a digitized transit pass, accessible to those without access to credit or banking. The pass could be used for mass transit as well as ride-share apps.

Another concept in the proposal includes autonomous buses that would transport people from Linden and other low-income neighborhoods to areas where there are more job opportunities. Free access to wifi, another proposed amenity, would allow residents who can鈥檛 afford their own connections to access online job and education applications.

The governing idea is to strengthen the connection between residents in these neighborhoods and resources elsewhere, like training and post-secondary education centers, health care, and job opportunities.

Laura Dresser, a labor economist at the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, notes the importance of transportation in connecting labor opportunities and work force, especially as jobs began shifting outside of urban centers at the end of the twentieth century.

鈥淭he 1980s is the first time that people started talking about spatial mismatch 鈥� that jobs were in the suburbs and people were in the cities,鈥� Dr. Dresser told 海角大神. It was essential for the transportation to shift to a more difficult model of moving commuters from a dense site to dispersed areas, as opposed to vice-versa, she says.

While mass transit has been working toward this shift, 鈥渋t still needs solving,鈥� she says, and new technologies could be key.

On a more granular level, the concept of using transportation to decrease unemployment and social disparity in a city is not new, but it can bring unintended consequences, research suggests.

Researchers at the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy found that in cities as diverse as Atlanta, Seattle, Minneapolis, and Houston increasing transportation in underserved neighborhoods has created changes to neighborhood make-up. And while these effects were often amplifications of city-wide trends, improved transit , with rising rent prices that created higher cost burdens for residents.

鈥淭he research reveals how a new transit station can set in motion a cycle of unintended consequences in which core transit users 鈥� such as renters and low income households 鈥� are priced out in favor of higher-income, car-owning residents,鈥� the 2010 study says.

However Columbus鈥檚 plan may circumvent these issues by not just increasing actual vehicles of transportation, but by improving access to existing ones through non-credit card linked transit cards and apps.

With the $50-million award fresh in the grasp of the town, $90 million聽in additional funding pledged to the city from outside sources, and a bevy of ideas for tech-driven change, it remains to be seen how Columbus will transform, but in Hicho's words: "The future is really bright."