Innovation-in-Europes-Cities_Bloomberg-Mayors-Challenge1

ConclusionThe Mayors Challenge is itself an innovation. Byconsidering bottom-up initiatives at the city level,it confirms that at a time of general disillusionmentwith systems of governance, local governmenthas the capacity to be resilient and pro-active inways that national governments and internationalinstitutions find difficult. The Mayors Challengeprovides an opportunity for cities to recognise theneed to think through potential innovations clearlywithout immediately closing down the conversationby considering only the budget implications. Timeis another scarce commodity in budget-strappedlocal councils, and many of the finalist cities felt thecompetition freed up the time and space needed tothink through ideas. The encouragement to workacross government departments that, by their ownadmission, seldom interacted further enriched theseideas. The whole application process – includingthe feedback, coaching sessions and Ideas Camp –is a carefully constructed practice that helps citiesembrace new innovation techniques. Examplesfrom the private sector provided important andhelpful design models for some.The process itself yields an in-depthunderstanding that, despite the extent to whichexisting political systems place limitations on localgovernment, cities still have significant potentialto be innovative. When trying to do more withless, having a good idea of what has already beenshown to be possible certainly helps, and the mediaexposure and sharing of information through thenetwork of finalists works to support this. All scalesof government can benefit from exploring newapproaches to solving problems, and competitionslike the Mayors Challenge can play a significantrole in encouraging new types of relationshipsbetween local governments and their citizens.However, widely sharing best practices through acompetition like the Mayors Challenge requirestime to produce results. Many of the projects fromthe American and European challenges may onlyproduce tangible outcomes in a number of years.As the Mayors Challenge plans a third roundof the competition, the choice of geographywill provide valuable insight into the capacityto transfer innovations not only between citieswithin a given region, but also between cities insignificantly different political, social, economicand environmental contexts. It will undoubtablycontinue to provide an invaluable platform for localgovernments to influence how regional and nationalgovernments engage partnerships to improve thequality of life for their citizens.45