Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton and City Manager David Cavazos have announced the city has been selected as a finalist for the Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Mayors Challenge, a competition created to inspire American cities to generate innovative ideas that solve major challenges and improve city life and ultimately can be shared with other American cities.
A news release says Phoenix was chosen based on its innovative idea to transform Phoenix into the Smartest Energy City in the World by creating community-driven “smart-energy districts” that improve neighborhoods, reduce the urban heat island and maximize energy diversity. Phoenix will now compete against 19 other cities across the country for the $5 million grand prize as well as one of four additional prizes of $1 million each.
“As our city rises out of the recession, the time is ripe to invest in new energy that powers us forward,” Stanton said.
Cavazos said the city’s citizen-driven Innovation and Efficiency Task Force helped design the smart-energy districts idea, which have saved residents more than $59 million and helped to set the new goal of $100 million in innovation and efficiency savings by 2015.
