Cities across the country are clamoring for technological upgrades to transform themselves from cities of the past into “smart cities” of the future. Today, Sidewalk Labs says it will help over a dozen cities do just that. The Google smart city spinoff announced today that it will join forces with national advocacy group Transportation For America (T4A) to help 16 cities better prepare themselves for innovations like self-driving cars and ride-sharing apps, as well as share information with each other to find out what works and what doesn’t.

The collaboration is an effort to capitalize on the momentum created by the White House’s Smart City Challenge, a competition for midsized cities to rethink urban transportation using technology like self-driving cars and smart street lights. In June, the top prize was awarded to Columbus, Ohio, which edged out six other finalists to win $40 million in federal grant money to enact its proposal.

Sidewalk Labs and T4A wanted to ensure that those cities that didn’t win the contest, or weren’t eligible to compete, still received help in getting a technological facelift. The 16 cities that were selected are: Austin, TX; Denver, CO; Boston, MA; Centennial, CO; Chattanooga, TN; Lone Tree, CO; Los Angeles, CA; Miami-Dade County, FL; Madison, WI; Minneapolis / St. Paul, MN; Nashville, TN; Portland, OR; Sacramento, CA; San Jose, CA; Seattle, WA; and Washington, DC.

Rohit Aggarwala, chief policy officer for Sidewalk Labs, cautioned that the goal of the collaboration was not to sell Google products to these cities, but to provide technical assistance to improve transit services and the flow of traffic in these cities. “There are legitimate sensitivities when private sector entities get involved in policy making conversations,” Aggarwala said. “We want to stay on the right side of that.”

Sidewalk Labs will provide cash to T4A for “operating costs,” Aggarwala added, but it’s unclear whether the company will help these cities set up public Wi-Fi networks like its done in New York City with LinkNYC. (Aggarwala said it’s not likely to be part of this project.)

Also on the table is Flow, Sidewalk Labs’ “transportation platform” that uses aggregated, anonymous traffic data to help city managers identify bottlenecks or redirect trains and buses to transit-starved neighborhoods. Aggarwala says that by working with these 16 cities, Sidewalk Labs will be able to improve Flow as a product.

And of course, if the cities want to eventually buy Flow, it seems likely that Sidewalk Labs, a for-profit company, will be happy to sell it to them — although Aggarawala said repeatedly that this wasn’t “a sales effort.”

“All 16 of these cities already exist.”

While this collaboration will help Sidewalk Labs test out its smart city theories, residents of these 16 cities shouldn’t be concerned that the Google spinoff will try to annex whole districts for its tech-driven experiments. Earlier this year, it was reported that Sidewalk Labs was moving ahead with "Project Sidewalk," a plan to create a district in which it can trial self-driving cars, Wi-Fi solutions, new public transport, and other city planning advances that modern technology make possible.

“All 16 of these cities already exist,” Aggarwala quipped, adding that Sidewalk Labs will have more to say about its efforts to build its own “technopolis” from scratch in the months to come.