Dive Brief: Airbnb announced Monday it is pledging $250 million in last-dollar financing for multifamily housing projects, beginning with a $6.4 million investment in an affordable housing development in Austin, Texas.
Dive Insight: As cities seek ways to address the affordable housing crisis, many are exploring public-private partnerships to spur development.
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson lauded Airbnb’s investment in the city, where the company has around 14,400 active short-term rental listings, according to AirDNA.
The company’s $6.4 million investment will go toward 201 affordable housing units, known as the St. John redevelopment project, which will tie in with a companion project expected to generate 325 units of mixed-income housing.
The company said it will invest in multifamily projects with expected investor rates of return of at least 50% below standard.
Sep 15, 2026 · via smartcitiesdive.com
Dive Brief: A coalition of cities and counties on Monday sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security over its new “public charge” rule that expands the criteria immigration agents can use to deny green cards and visas based on immigrants’ use of local, state or federal public benefits.
Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia on Monday filed a separate lawsuit challenging the rule.
A month later, DHS released a new version of its policy manual directing that “an alien is likely at any time to become a public charge” if they are “likely at any time to depend on means-tested public benefits,” the lawsuit states.
The new public charge rule is expected to go into effect Sept. 18.
“This rule is not only cruel, it is unlawful, and it threatens the health and safety of our entire city.”
Sep 15, 2026 · via smartcitiesdive.com
Telefónica is once again taking part in Greencities, one of the leading forums for promoting efficient city management projects.
At the Telefónica stand, visitors will be able to explore its proposals through a range of demonstration areas, including smart city and smart tourism solutions, a digital e-government kiosk, critical connectivity and edge computing solutions (Titan Connect + Edge), and the Tourism Innovation Hub (HIT).
Telefónica at the 6th RECI Congress.
Taking place simultaneously at the same venue, the Málaga Trade Fair and Congress Centre (FYCMA), the 6th RECI Congress, organised by the Spanish Network of Smart Cities (RECI), will focus on the challenges of urban innovation.
During the presentation, Telefónica will explain the evolution of its Smart City value proposition, now known as Smart Urban Systems, and will showcase a success story through the PICA Project (Integrated Air Quality Platform) developed by the Generalitat Valenciana.
Sep 15, 2026 · via telefonica.com
Karnal Smart City spans 87 square kilometre (sq km) and recorded a population of 357,334 in the 2011 census, with an estimated population of 1,505,324.
A sex ratio of 996 females per 1,000 males and administration across 20 wards support balanced urban planning.
Agriculture remains central, with Karnal known for rice, wheat and milk production and home to the National Dairy Research Institute, the Central Soil Salinity Research Institute, the Wheat Research Directorate and the Sugarcane Breeding Institute.
Urban planning emphasises sustainability through transit-oriented development, pedestrian-friendly zones and mixed-use hubs that reduce congestion and carbon intensity.
The Smart City programme aims to model sustainable urban transformation in Haryana.
Sep 15, 2026 · via constructionworld.in
Managing modern cities requires processing massive streams of urban data across transport, public safety, and utilities.
A primary example of this technology in action is Lusail, Qatar's flagship smart city.
How the "City Brain" Powers Smart City Operations At the core of modern urban management platforms are AI capabilities that help operators interpret massive data volumes, flag anomalies, and execute fast decisions.
Within AGIL® CityAI, these functions are anchored by the City Brain—a centralised hub operating within Lusail's overarching system-of-systems architecture.
The City Brain processes events in real time, leveraging AI to recognise emerging patterns, trigger automated alerts, and initiate proactive interventions before disruptions escalate.
Sep 15, 2026 · via stengg.com
Korea Airports Corporation’s drone and Urban Air Mobility (UAM) traffic management technology has moved one step closer to entering Central Asia for the first time.
Korea Airports Corporation (President Kim Won-jun) signed a letter of intent (LOI) on the 15th at the Four Seasons Hotel Seoul with Alatau Future Aviation Group (AAAG), a Kazakhstan-based company responsible for smart-city development, to participate in the Kazakhstan UTM (Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management) and UATM (Urban Air Traffic Management) system development project.
The Kazakhstan government has recently been overhauling its laws and institutions to introduce future mobility and is actively pursuing the adoption of advanced low-altitude air traffic management infrastructure linked to smart cities.
Specifically, KAC plans to develop UTM and UATM software tailored to Kazakhstan, transfer the technology, and train operating personnel.
Kim Won-jun, president of Korea Airports Corporation, said, “Through this LOI, the excellence of KAC’s UTM and UATM systems has been officially recognized on the international stage.”
Sep 15, 2026 · via mk.co.kr
Dive Brief: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin is expected to formally rescind carbon pollution standards for fossil fuel power plants today, according to multiple media reports.
Dive Insight: The EPA has initiated rollbacks of greenhouse gas emissions standards since President Donald Trump took office.
In September 2025, EPA proposed a rule to end the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, which requires over 8,000 facilities and suppliers in the U.S. to report their greenhouse gas emissions annually.
That lawsuit also challenges EPA's rollback of real-time continuous emissions monitoring at power plants, alleging it violates the Clean Air Act.
The most acute effects of greenhouse gas emissions are often felt in cities, the letter states.
Sep 14, 2026 · via smartcitiesdive.com
Dive Brief: Joby Aviation began demonstration air taxi flights in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, area Sept. 10 as part of the Federal Aviation Administration’s eVTOL Integration Pilot Program.
Archer Aviation’s infrastructure consortium announced plans in a Sept. 10 press release to develop a charging network for electric air taxis covering North Texas, as well as Houston, Austin, San Antonio and rural Texas communities.
Archer began a series of demonstration flights on Sept. 4, which will take its aircraft from California to Texas and Florida.
Its Texas flights aim to provide real-world operational data the FAA needs to build safety rules for commercial service at scale, Joby said in a press release.
“This is just the beginning of what Texas and Joby can build together," Joby founder and CEO JoeBen Bevirt said in a statement.
Sep 14, 2026 · via smartcitiesdive.com
Exegin Technologies has become one of the first two stack vendors worldwide certified for Suzi, a new sub-GHz feature set introduced by the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) alongside Zigbee 4.0.
Suzi extends Zigbee connectivity into the 868MHz band in Europe and the 915MHz band in North America, allowing devices to communicate over longer distances and with greater resistance to obstacles than conventional 2.4GHz Zigbee deployments.
“Being one of the first two vendors certified for Suzi reflects work our team has been part of from the earliest stages of the standard,” said Mulder.
Products combining 2.4GHz and sub-GHz radios can continue to communicate with existing Zigbee infrastructure while using the lower-frequency band where greater range or improved penetration is required.
Exegin says its mesh networking software has been deployed in more than 300 million IoT devices, primarily in smart metering and smart city applications.
Sep 14, 2026 · via iotinsider.com
On this day, under the presence of the two leaders, a total of 13 agreements, memoranda of understanding (MOUs), and contracts were signed or exchanged.
Institutional mechanisms to connect Uzbekistan's industrial advancement with market entry opportunities for Korean companies have also been established.
Defense industry cooperation has also been concretized.
The plan is to enhance the intellectual property protection environment in Uzbekistan to support the advance of Korean companies.
Additionally, the two countries signed treaties on the transfer of sentenced persons and a protocol amending the basic agreement for grant aid.
Sep 14, 2026 · via asiae.co.kr
The Greater Muscat Structure Plan also forms part of Cundall’s wider contribution to Oman’s planning agenda, alongside the Greater Salalah Structure Plan, the Ibri Structure Plan and Salalah Smart City.
One of the defining characteristics of the Greater Muscat Structure Plan is its commitment to balancing sustainability, connectivity and competitiveness without compromising Oman’s cultural identity.
The result is not just a vision for the future, but a practical framework for delivering it,” explains French.
“This approach has been a common theme across Cundall’s work on the Greater Muscat Structure Plan, Greater Salalah Structure Plan and Ibri Structure Plan.
By planning infrastructure from the outset, cities can accommodate growth more efficiently, avoid costly future interventions and ensure development is resilient, connected and sustainable.
Sep 14, 2026 · via meconstructionnews.com
The agreement was signed on September 9 at the World Smart City Expo in Busan by AST Holdings, ILJOO GnS and the Alatau City Authority.
Alatau City lies 47 kilometers from Almaty and covers 88,000 hectares.
The Alatau City Authority (ACA) says it will eventually house 1.87 million residents, a projection that runs a quarter century out.
Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed the Constitutional Law on the Special Legal Regime of Alatau City on May 8.
South Korea is not the only country making this argument to Kazakhstan, and it is arriving with smaller numbers attached.
Sep 14, 2026 · via ajupress.com
With robotaxis hitting the streets in other cities as well, the growth of the service is sparking fresh conversations about congestion pricing, a sometimes-controversial topic that city and regional leaders have only gingerly explored.
Transportation watchers like Andrew Miller — the former Toronto mobility lead for Sidewalk Labs, a smart-city project led by Google — have advocated for using robotaxis as a way to examine road-usage charging, known more commonly as congestion pricing.
Schwartz said that congestion pricing is expected to move forward as a future strategy for controlling traffic, managing AVs and monetizing city streets, but a number of cities may be timid, given the attacks by the Trump administration on the New York City congestion pricing program.
In March, however, a federal judge ruled in favor of the congestion pricing plan, finding the federal government's effort to terminate it unlawful.
Schwartz describes congestion pricing as a whole new frontier, led by the system in Manhattan, which he also sees as simplistic because it's limited to simply charging one price for entrance.
Sep 14, 2026 · via govtech.com
Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, ahead of the first South Korea–Central Asia summit in Seoul, called for deeper cooperation with South Korea in advanced technologies, investment and human capital development.
He expressed hope that the meeting would bring breakthrough agreements on expanding investment cooperation, The Korea Herald reports.
Investment and technology South Korea, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are expected to participate in the summit.
According to Mirziyoyev, trade between Uzbekistan and South Korea has increased fivefold in recent years, while accumulated Korean investment has exceeded $8 billion.
Regional and educational cooperation Mirziyoyev also linked bilateral partnership to broader cooperation between South Korea and the Central Asian states.
Sep 13, 2026 · via ua.news
By Anthony King In cities, air pollution can vary sharply from one street to the next.
The vast majority of people in European cities are exposed to air pollution levels above what the World Health Organization (WHO) considers safe.
Air pollution increases our risk of heart disease, stroke and various cancers, and worsens asthma and respiratory infections.
Its existing BrusAir platform maps air pollution across Brussels, including near sensitive locations such as schools.
BuildWind has worked with scientists such as Parente on real-world air pollution challenges and hopes the new research will strengthen BrusAir further.
Sep 13, 2026 · via cyprus-mail.com
Smart City Thiruvananthapuram Limited (SCTL) received the information about the city’s inclusion in the manual through the Govt of India about a week ago, officials said.
A senior SCTL official said the recognition reflected the city’s efforts to use technology for better urban management.
“The inclusion of Thiruvananthapuram in the manual is an important recognition of the smart-city initiatives implemented in the capital.
The manual identifies SCTL as the agency leading the city’s smart initiatives, with the Smart City Command and Control Centre and Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC) at their core.
The systems use adaptive traffic signals, intelligent traffic management, and urban surveillance to improve traffic flow, road safety and crime detection.
Sep 12, 2026 · via timesofindia.indiatimes.com
To my mind, beyond the glitz of skyscrapers, flashy malls and hype of smart cities, the stark truth is that India’s urban infrastructure is on the verge of collapse, and nobody seems to care.
Even at roughly 36 per cent urbanisation, this translates into hundreds of millions of people living in towns and cities.
We often speak of the ‘Smart Cities Mission’, digital governance, artificial intelligence and technology-driven administration.
But there is something faintly absurd about calling a city smart when its most elementary civic systems do not work.
A smart city is not one with the largest number of sensors or the most impressive command centre.
Sep 12, 2026 · via deccanchronicle.com
The global reflective delineator posts market is entering a phase of steady expansion, with a projected compound annual growth rate of 4–6% between 2026 and 2035.
Government programs focused on highway safety audits and nighttime visibility improvements are accelerating the adoption of reflective delineator posts.
Instead, the core market will continue to be defined by conventional reflective posts, components, and replacement parts.
Components, Replacement Parts, and Accessories (estimated share: 8%) Components, replacement parts, and accessories for reflective delineator posts represent approximately 8% of the global market.
Market Outlook (2026-2035) In the baseline scenario, IndexBox estimates a 5.0% compound annual growth rate for the global reflective delineator posts market over 2026-2035, bringing the market index to roughly 155 by 2035 (2025=100).
Sep 12, 2026 · via indexbox.io
As cities work to reduce emissions, improve accessibility and manage growing transport demands, EU-funded projects play an important role in testing, demonstrating and scaling up innovative mobility solutions.
From urban logistics and public transport to digital mobility services, these initiatives help cities collaborate with partners across Europe, share knowledge and turn ideas into practical action.
Navigating the funding landscape, however, can be challenging, particularly for cities with limited experience in European projects.
Understanding where to find opportunities, how to build strong partnerships and what makes a successful proposal can help local authorities make the most ...
Sep 12, 2026 · via cities-today.com
Ordnance Survey has published a Heat Vulnerability Index ranking all 71 cities in Great Britain by their exposure to retained urban heat.
The index finds that 59 of the 71 cities, or 83%, already fall into the high heat vulnerability category.
Urban heat islands form when buildings, roads and other hard surfaces absorb heat during the day and release it slowly overnight.
External research cited in the analysis points to the health and economic cost of urban heat in the capital.
Even so, it is still projected to move from moderate to high heat vulnerability by 2040 and remain there through the end of the century.
Sep 11, 2026 · via itbrief.co.uk