Dubuque, Iowa is about to become one of the smartest cities in the country when it comes to sustainability, if IBM has its way.

IBM wants to make the city of 60,000 on the banks of the Mississippi River a centerpiece city for its broad-ranging "Smarter Planet" initiative, which basically involves instrumenting and networking as much infrastructure as possible.

In Dubuque's case, that will involve projects to improve its energy and water management systems. First will come new devices to better measure water flow to detect leaks and waste, IBM said.

IBM is already doing a similar water and power metering and management project on the island nation of Malta (see IBM Brings Smart Meters to Malta).

It's also partnering with Cisco Systems to bring digital energy management systems to Amsterdam, which has declared itself a smart city as well (see Green Light post).  

Dubuque is already pretty smart on sustainability measures, according to the National Resources Defense Council's smarter cities project. But then again, there seem to be too many smart cities to count out there nowadays.