Social and Urban Policy

Climate Resilience in New York City: The Battle over East River Park

Publication Date: November 28, 2023

What makes climate change different as a policy challenge? Why is it so hard to solve? And how can we balance the need for the right technical solutions with the importance of having the process be as democratic and participatory as possible?The...

A User-Centered Design Process for Data-Driven Policymaking

Publication Date: August 22, 2023

Well-conceived, user-friendly data visualizations have the potential to bring fresh perspectives derived from analyzing, visualizing, and presenting data to inform evidence-based policymaking. This case uses the Metroverse project from the...

Confronting the Unequal Toll of Highway Expansion: Oni Blair, LINK Houston, & the Texas I-45 Debate (A)

Publication Date: April 6, 2023

 In this political strategy case, Oni K. Blair, newly appointed executive director of a Houston nonprofit advocating for more equitable transportation resources, faces a challenge: how to persuade a Texas state agency to substantially...

Making Place for Migrants: Housing Asylum Seekers in the Netherlands

Publication Date: November 7, 2022

 Mid-2015, hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the Near East sought asylum in the European Union. At the spike of the influx, over 4,000 asylum seekers, most from war-torn Syria, were landing in the Netherlands each week. The Dutch...

Conflict Minerals: Influencing the Supply Chain for Public Purpose (Postscript)

Publication Date: November 2, 2022

This postscript accompanies HKS Case Number 2248.0. Gold, tungsten, tantalum, and tin are essential to a wide array of today's products. Industries ranging from electronics to health care to defense rely on these minerals. A sizable portion of...

Conflict Minerals: Influencing the Supply Chain for Public Purpose

Publication Date: November 2, 2022

Gold, tungsten, tantalum, and tin are essential to a wide array of today's products. Industries ranging from electronics to health care to defense rely on these minerals. A sizable portion of these minerals are sourced from Democratic Republic...

Work or Exploitation? Debating Whether to Decriminalize the Sex Industry

Publication Date: August 12, 2022

As traditionally written and enforced, laws regulating the sex trade in the United States and abroad have disproportionately penalized the least powerful players in the industry—the people, mostly cis- and transgender women, directly...

Confronting the Unequal Toll of Highway Expansion: Oni Blair, LINK Houston, & the Texas I-45 Debate (B)

Publication Date: April 6, 2023

 In this political strategy case, Oni K. Blair, newly appointed executive director of a Houston nonprofit advocating for more equitable transportation resources, faces a challenge: how to persuade a Texas state agency to substantially...

The Making of a Public Health Catastrophe: A Step-by-Step Guide to the Flint Water Crisis

Publication Date: January 12, 2022

The Flint water crisis, which began in 2014, is widely regarded as a textbook example of structural racism and injustice. This teaching case provides a close examination of the building blocks of the catastrophe, some all-too-familiar in...

Power and Social Change

Publication Date: December 6, 2021

The concept of power has often been viewed very narrowly by public leaders. In this 30-minute video, Harvard Kennedy School Professor Archon Fung lays out a broader vision of how power works in our society. Public leaders need to understand...

“A Difficult Lady”: Shutting Down Pollution in Kampala, Uganda Practitioner Guide

Publication Date: October 15, 2021

This practitioner guide accompanies HKS Case 2231.0. In 2011, sanitation and environmental management expert Judith Tumusiime joined the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), where she and KCCA Executive Director Jennifer Musisi quickly became...

“A Difficult Lady”: Shutting Down Pollution in Kampala, Uganda

Publication Date: October 15, 2021

In 2011, sanitation and environmental management expert Judith Tumusiime joined the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), where she and KCCA Executive Director Jennifer Musisi quickly became a dynamic team, working together to execute a mandate...