Research &
Resources

Whether cities are places of equal opportunity or marginalization depends to a large extent on equitable access to justice, power, services, and the economy. This chapter in Governance for Urban Services examines barriers to access and promising practices that have increased access for residents.

Why do some words move people to action while others are quickly forgotten? A new study supported by the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative proposes “public narrative” as a key form of leadership development in organizations and communities. 

Which abandoned properties should rise to the top of the demolition list? Since workloads often exceed and outpace government resources, prioritizing work strategically is a critical capability. A new study demonstrates how combining satellite imagery and police data can help inform how to allocate resources in code enforcement.

How do you lead strategically? Moving an organization forward requires paying attention, simultaneously, to multiple dimensions of a team’s experience—like a pilot constantly scanning the dials on a plane’s dashboard during flight. A new paper offers a framework for executing strategic leadership while balancing competing demands.

Based on real-world public-sector labor negotiations in modern America, this three year simulation explores collective bargaining via a spectrum of coalitions including state representatives, teachers, and facilitators.

In a networked world, employees at every level of the organization need to navigate complex issues and act strategically—not only at the top layer. How can leadership and human resources best engage and support employees?

Do you know your full arsenal of power moves when you’re at the negotiating table? Here is how city leaders can better understand power in public negotiations.

Housing inspectors often witness hidden and serious threats to public health yet lack the tools and training necessary to respond. Integrating referrals for social services within home inspections could be one solution.

Thinking and acting strategically is central to effective public management. Public Value Theory offers analytic tools to help public managers guide inquiry and shape decisions.

Bringing partners together around complex social issues and sustaining a joint effort demands capabilities that are often underdeveloped in public organizations. A new study outlines how investing in collaborative, analytical, and reflective capabilities can help governments solve problems more effectively.

During this session, we heard from experts from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, including Josh Sharfstein, MD and David Dowdy, MD, PhD, who gave a COVID-19 situation report...

City housing inspectors witness hidden and serious threats to public health. In this article in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, we explore integrating a novel Social Service Referral Program within the Inspectional Services Department in Chelsea, MA.

The overarching learning objectives of this case are designed to help participants explore and understand 1) why to use data; 2) how to use data; and 3) what to do to become—and remain—a more informed city hall.

Cross-boundary collaborations typically face three types of challenges: substantive problem-solving challenges, accountability challenges, and teaming challenges. This article in Public Manage...

The overarching learning objective of this case is to help senior leaders in government understand how to build data-analytic capabilities designed to tackle tough urban problems that require a...

Networked governance requires public managers to think and act strategically across their organization. Leaders need to be able to assess their strategic capacity to do this work well.

Andrew Pekosz, Professor of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Josh Sharfstein...

Public sector innovation often involves disputes over what is most important. All too frequently, these “value conflicts” can undermine or even derail the new policy, tool, program, or process...

Complex social issues cannot be solved by individual organizations. Yet cross-boundary collaboration is by no means a simple or easy process. So what can you do to innovate across organizational silos effectively?

This set of teaching cases explores the opioid crisis from different angles and perspectives in city government. The premise is that there are no “quick fixes” or technical solutions available...

Dr. Josh Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health discussed how the pandemic has changed...

Mayors can play an important role in making their cities safer and more just. That work starts with asking the question what public safety and racial justice mean.

Dr. Josh Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Dr. Caitlin M. Rivers, Senior Scholar at the...

The case is designed to help mayors, city leaders, and other public executives think through adaptive leadership challenges with highly sensitive moral dimensions.

This case is designed to help senior leaders in government better understand the need for adaptive leadership when dealing with crises, and the skills required for this work. In particular, the case...

The overarching learning objective of this case is to help senior leaders in government understand how to mobilize resources for important priorities based on public spirit, especially when it...

Dr. Josh Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and E. Oscar Alleyne, Chief of Programs and Services for...

Is it possible to save lives, time, and money, all at once? Could you use data that you already have to do it? A new study shows that machine learning can help housing inspectors identify risky...

Housing inspection ensures minimum health and safety standards in rental housing. This article in the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice shows how machine learning can help inspectors...

Negotiators are often left wondering how to identify and leverage various sources of power. This article in Negotiation Journal presents a new structure for analyzing power in the public sector...

One innovation doesn’t change things. A culture of innovation does. This article on Apolitical examines what makes innovative municipal organizations innovate effectively and repeatedly.

For the city’s next chapter, Bilbao can look to its past. This article on Apolitical examines the architecture of collaboration that helped Bilbao revitalize its economy.

Dealing with the problems public leaders face requires knowing how and what to ask. This article in Governing examines various ways in which thoughtful and focused inquiry can be used as a leadership tool.

Working across organizational silos is a highly challenging endeavor, and success depends on the attention and support given to the act of collaboration itself. This article in Policy and Politics...

Value conflicts are inherent in public innovation. This article in the International Journal of Public Administration argues that responsible and effective innovators should pay at least as much...

The ability to exercise leadership effectively requires skills and capacities that must be developed. Mostly, leadership is non-heroic and involves painstaking work, paying attention, and being able...

Dr. Josh Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Dr. Letitia Dzirasa, Commissioner of Health at the...

The most pressing social problems facing cities today require multi-agency and cross-sector solutions. We offer tools and techniques to facilitate the process of diagnosing and solving problems...

Dr. Josh Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Andrew Pekosz, Professor of Molecular Microbiology and...

Dr. Josh Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Caitlin Rivers, Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins...

The case is designed to help mayors, city leaders, and other public executives think through adaptive leadership challenges with highly sensitive moral dimensions.

This set of materials is designed to help leaders understand and evaluate challenges with highly sensitive moral dimensions. Each of the cases focuses on a city leader forced to make a particular moral choice.

The case is designed to help mayors, city leaders, and other public executives think through adaptive leadership challenges with highly sensitive moral dimensions.

Dr. Josh Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Dr. Ruth Karron, Professor of International Health...

Dr. Josh Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Dr. Ana Maria Rule, Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health...

This case asks students to think about the tasks and challenges associated with mayoral leadership during a major crisis and to consider how this type of leadership differs from overseeing city gov...

A set of materials designed to facilitate feedback and advice from peers in an open and psychologically safe environment, inviting greater clarity and focus to challenges that peers face, especially leadership challenges.

Dr. Josh Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Dr. Monica Gandhi, Professor of Medicine and Associate...

Dr. Tom Frieden, President and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative of Vital Strategies, and former Director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), provided a situational...

Dr. Tom Frieden, President and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative of Vital Strategies, and former Director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), provided...

Dr. Josh Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, provided a briefing of critical public health information...

Dr. Carissa Etienne, Regional Director for the Americas of the World Health Organization and Director of the Pan American Health Organization, provided...

For each session of the COVID-19 Local Response Initiative, faculty and staff at the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative worked with professors from the Harvard Kennedy School and the Harv...

Amanda McClelland, Senior Vice President of Prevent Epidemics at Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative of the global health organization Vital Strategies, provided a briefing of critical public...

These three short cases chronicle city officials leading civic engagement and public participation initiatives in pursuit of public goals. From a variety of positions in city government, the protag...

Dr. Josh Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, provided a briefing of critical public health information...

Dr. Cyrus Shahpar, Director of the Prevent Epidemics Team at Resolve to Save Lives, provided a briefing of critical public health information on COVID-19 in...

A set of materials designed to help educators and practitioners understand, utilize, and share the core concepts of the public value framework.

The case navigates the challenges facing a new task force that needs to collaborate on defining the problem, collaborating effectively, and holding each other accountable.

In the first session, Dr. Cyrus Shahpar, Director of the Prevent Epidemics Team at Resolve to Save Lives, provided a briefing of critical public health information on COVID-19 in Latin America and Africa and...

The case introduces basic concepts of negotiation within a procurement context.

The case focuses on negotiation concepts applied to a city context, with procurement as the scenario for analysis.

This case focuses on how positional bargaining prevents creative deal-making when negotiators fail to understand the interests of other parties.

This case focuses on how a well-organized setup and interpersonal strategies can create the necessary conditions to design better deals.

This case focuses on the varying sources of power a city leader can leverage when pursuing their policy agenda.

This case is designed as the capstone case in a series of negotiation cases developed by the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative. It is recommended for participants with some negotiation experience.

This set is designed to teach negotiation concepts using the local, public sector context. Each of the six cases focuses on different negotiation concepts starting with fundamental ideas, such as...

In the first session, Dr. Josh Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, provided a briefing of critical...

This case explores tensions between working to achieve a prescribed mission and adapting missions and organizational capacities to changing social, political, and practical realities.

In the eleventh session, Juliette Kayyem, the Belfer Senior Lecturer in International Security at the Harvard Kennedy School, and Dutch Leonard, the George F. Baker Jr. Professor of Public...

The case navigates the strategic challenges of implementing change, particularly when introducing innovations that disrupt the status quo.

The case raises questions around how to deliver on a campaign promise when your organization seems to have hit a ceiling in performance improvement.

“The success of how we respond as a nation to this outbreak is in your hands: the mayors, the city officials, the community leaders.” - Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Alle...

The rich details of this case can be used to support a class discussion on a policy issue, a strategic challenge, a leadership dilemma, or a combination of these areas.

The case is designed to help mayors, city leaders, and other public executives think through adaptive leadership challenges with highly sensitive moral dimensions.

The overarching learning objective of this case is to help senior leaders in government understand or better diagnose challenges in developing state capabilities, and to introduce a framework for...

The overarching learning objective of this case is to help leaders and practitioners examine the challenges of building capabilities for problem-oriented government action.

Explores government innovation through the story of a program started by the United Arab Emirates government to spur projects toward faster, meaningful results.

Illustrates work by Mayor Daniel Rivera of Lawrence, Massachusetts, and his administration, to use data in decision-making around problem properties in the city.

Focuses on leading collaborative work in cities, through the lens of a Louisville group established by Mayor Greg Fischer and designed to improve educational outcomes.

Highlight key design decisions made in the cases of five different collaborations (in Georgia, Mississippi, Ohio, Massachusetts, and Minnesota) to explore how to be effective if/when choosing...

Explores how cross-boundary collaboration mechanisms and different leadership styles enabled the city of Bilbao’s revival from a deep economic, political, and social crisis.

“You, more than most, have been on the front lines of this crisis. The American people are seeing what leadership looks like. And it’s coming from the mayors of this country.” - Vice President Biden

“We know that the big issues are going to have to be solved at the local level.” - Jose Andres, founder of World Central Kitchen

“It is our leaders at the state and local level who are on the frontlines working in a bipartisan manner to respond effectively to this public health emergency.” - Larry Hogan, Governor of Maryland

“I know and really appreciate the mayors who are with us now and the work that they do – and how they are the first line of defense in meeting the needs of the constituents in their cities.”

“We owe it to the health workers and the people on the front lines to accelerate our deep understandings so that we can get back to normal.” - Bill Gates

“Speak the truth. Speak it clearly. Speak it with compassion. Speak it with empathy for what folks are going through. The biggest mistake any of us can make in these situations is to misinform...

“When we all look back at this moment in American history, I do believe the mayors, who are on the front lines, are going to be instrumental in helping us recover.” - President George W. Bush

“You, as mayors, more than anybody else, can influence people to avoid getting or transmitting COVID-19.” - President Bill Clinton

In the first session, Josh Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health provided critical public health information.

Social problems are often so large and multifaceted that various organizations and sectors need to work closely together to solve them. Governments face the challenge of effectively bringing parties...

The tools of public management – such as public value and the strategic triangle – are increasingly used by scholars and practitioners alike. At the same time, some confusion remains about how to use them effectively. This article in Public Management Review analyzes these tools to help explore and structure different dimensions of public management.