NEW YORK CITY—Former New York City Deputy Mayor and CEO of Bloomberg LP Dan Doctoroff will lead Google's urban innovation initiative Sidewalk Labs as its CEO based here. The new effort will develop physical and digital technology geared at improving city living for residents, businesses and governments.

Sidewalk Labs says it will tackle some of the biggest challenges cities face, such as making transportation more efficient and lowering the cost of living, reducing energy usage and helping governments operate more efficiently. The company will look to develop new products, platforms and partnerships to make progress in those areas.

“We are at the beginning of a historic transformation in cities. At a time when the concerns about urban equity, costs, health and the environment are intensifying, unprecedented technological change is going to enable cities to be more efficient, responsive, flexible and resilient,” Doctoroff says. “We hope that Sidewalk will play a major role in developing technology products, platforms and advanced infrastructure that can be implemented at scale in cities around the world.”