The Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative’s teaching cases and associated materials are available free of charge through the Harvard Kennedy School Case Program. The Initiative’s mission is to equip current and future city leaders with the insights and tools to tackle social issues and to advance the field of study. These cases—designed to translate the most relevant and up-to-date knowledge about leadership, management, governance, and innovation in cities into active tools for teaching and learning—feature diverse city leaders as protagonists: more than two thirds are either women, people of color, or leaders outside of the United States. They are designed to help mayors and city leaders address issues that require innovative thinking and approaches and are part of a repository of teaching tools and online learning materials dedicated to improving professional practice. The tools include teaching cases centered around urban problem-solving, analytic teaching notes, concept frameworks on leadership capabilities, and graphics to illustrate teaching concepts. To support the effective use and interpretation of these cases, educator and practitioner guides for faculty and facilitators interested in teaching the material are also available for select cases.
To learn more about the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, a program of the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University, please visit their website.
To download materials:Operation Pufferfish: Building and Sustaining a Department of Neighborhoods and Citizen Engagement in Lansing, Michigan
Lansing native Andi Crawford returned home and took over a mismanaged and outdated neighborhood grant program, revamping grant processes, bringing in new money and capacity, and expanding…
Case and Educator Guide; Epilogue; Practitioner Guide; Slide Deck
"Trust the People" Civic Engagement and Collaborative Imagination in Bologna, Italy
In the 2010s, Bologna, Italy, faced a crisis of civic trust and participation that seemed at odds with the city’s long tradition of progressive politics and cooperative enterprise...
Case and Educator Guide; Epilogue; Practitioner Guide; Slides
Leading Civic Engagement: Three Cases
These three cases are stories of city officials leading civic engagement and public participation in pursuit of public goals. From a variety of different positions in city government, the...
Case and Educator Guide; Practitioner Guide
Growing Pains: How a Dutch Cross-Agency Team Took On Illegal Marijuana Production in Residential Areas
In June 2015, a task force convened in the Netherlands to consider cross-sectoral approaches to fighting organized crime in the south of the country, particularly in the homegrown marijuana...
Case and Educator Guide; Practitioner Guide
Tackling Homelessness And Addiction: Coalition-Building In Manchester, New Hampshire
Elected at the height of the opioid epidemic, Mayor Joyce Craig came to represent the city of Manchester, New Hampshire as it grappled with the dual tragedies of substance use disorders and…
Case, Slide Deck, and Educator Guide; Practitioner Guide
Change at the Speed of Trust: Advancing Educational Opportunity through Cross-Sector Collaboration in Louisville
At the turn of the twenty-first century, Louisville, Kentucky, found itself in the middle to the back of the pack among peer cities along a number of key measures of prosperity and quality...
Case and Educator Guide; Practitioner Guide
The “Bilbao Effect” The Collaborative Architecture that Powered Bilbao’s Urban Revival
In 2018, Bilbao was presented with the Best European City award, adding the prize to a long list the Spanish city had collected since the mid-2000s. The success was often attributed to the...
Case and Educator Guide; Practitioner Guide
More than a Contract: Black Self-Determination and People's Assemblies in Jackson, Mississippi
In Jackson, Mississippi—a city with a 200-year history of racialized terror and division—failing infrastructure, disinvestment, and crime plagued residents. For those who saw a future…
Case and Educator Guide; Epilogue; Practitioner Guide, Slide Deck"The Toughest Beat": Investing in Employee Well-Being at the Denver Sheriff Department
Facing staffing shortages, safety concerns, and widespread burnout at the Denver Sheriff Department, Chief of Administration Sonya Gillespie was overseeing a novel experiment in boosting...
Mayor Curtatone's Culture of Curiosity: Building Data Capabilities at Somerville Hall
For sixteen years, longer than any mayor in the city’s history, Mayor Joseph Curtatone has led his hometown of Somerville, Massachusetts. The case begins in January 2020 when the...
Case and Educator Guide; Epilogue; Practitioner Guide
Shanties in the Skyline: Addressing Unauthorized Building Works in Hong Kong
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, high atop a great many of the older, concrete-block buildings in lower-income areas of central Hong Kong and the neighborhoods of the Kowloon...
Case and Educator Guide; Epilogue; Practitioner Guide
A Task Force with Teeth?: Driving City Performance in Lawrence, MA
After taking office, Mayor Daniel Rivera created a new task force to combat blight in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Although blight and distressed properties were not on Rivera's campaign...
"The Toughest Beat": Investing in Employee Well-Being at the Denver Sheriff Department
Facing staffing shortages, safety concerns, and widespread burnout at the Denver Sheriff Department, Chief of Administration Sonya Gillespie was overseeing a novel experiment in boosting...
"Doing Something with Nothing" Trying to Make Kampala's Primary Schools Healthier and Safer
By late 2012, well into Jennifer Musisi’s second year as executive director of the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), city revenues were improving. But there was little in...
Case and Educator Guide; Practitioner Guide
Fortaleza: Keeping an Electoral Promise
During his re-election campaign in 2016, Mayor Roberto Cláudio faced recurring complaints from voters concerning the availability of essential medicines at their health clinics...
Case and Educator Guide; Epilogue; Practitioner Guide
Driving Change in São Paolo
In 2016, after many months of negotiation, the City of São Paulo approved a new ordinance regulating Transportation Network Companies (TNC). The new regulation allowed citizens to...
Case and Educator Guide; Epilogue; Practitioner Guide
Shanties in the Skyline: Addressing Unauthorized Building Works in Hong Kong
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, high atop a great many of the older, concrete-block buildings in lower-income areas of central Hong Kong and the neighborhoods of the Kowloon...
Case and Educator Guide; Epilogue; Practitioner Guide
"You Have One Hundred Days": Accelerating Government Performance in the UAE
In the fall of 2016, the state government of the United Arab Emirates decided to take a new approach to spur floundering projects toward faster results. Frustrated with slow progress on…
Case and Educator Guide; Practitioner Guide
The “Garbage Lady” Cleans up Kampala: Turning Quick Wins into Lasting Change
In 2011, at the newly formed Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), Judith Tumusiime, an impassioned technocrat who prided herself on operating outside of politics, was charged with...
"The Toughest Beat": Investing in Employee Well-Being at the Denver Sheriff Department
Facing staffing shortages, safety concerns, and widespread burnout at the Denver Sheriff Department, Chief of Administration Sonya Gillespie was overseeing a novel experiment in boosting...
Charting a Course for Boston: Organizing for Change
Michelle Wu was elected on the promise of systemic change. Four days after her November 2021 victory—and just eleven days before taking office as mayor of Boston—she considered…
Mayoral Transitions: How Three Mayors Stepped into the Role, in Their Own Words
New mayors face distinct challenges as they assume office. In these vignettes depicting three types of mayoral transitions, explore how new leaders can make the most of their first...
No Trust in Miracles: Leading Through a Water Crisis in Cape Town
After several years of scarce rain, Cape Town started to prepare for a potentially unprecedented drought at the beginning of the 2017 rainy season. When the season did not deliver the...
Case and Educator Guide; Epilogue; Practitioner Guide
"Doing Something with Nothing" Trying to Make Kampala's Primary Schools Healthier and Safer
By late 2012, well into Jennifer Musisi’s second year as executive director of the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), city revenues were improving. But there was little in...
Case and Educator Guide; Practitioner Guide
Reckoning with History: Confederate Monuments in American Cities
When the Reverend Clementa Pinckney and eight worshipers were massacred during bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015, a widely...
Case and Educator Guide; Practitioner Guide; Abridged Case
"A Difficult Lady": Shutting Down Pollution in Kampala, Uganda
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...
Case and Educator Guide; Practitioner Guide
At the Center of the Storm: San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz and the Response to Hurricane Maria
This case profiles how Carmen Yulín Cruz, Mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, led her city’s response to Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island in the fall of 2017. After...
Case and Educator Guide; Epilogue; Practitioner Guide
Making a Statement: Mayor Libby Schaaf and the Sanctuary City of Oakland, CA
In February 2018, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf learned through unofficial sources that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was planning to arrest a large number of undocumented...
Case and Educator Guide; Epilogue; Practitioner Guide
"Pressing the Right Buttons": Jennifer Musisi for New City Leadership
Jennifer Musisi, a career civil servant most recently with the Uganda Revenue Authority, was appointed by President Museveni as executive director (equivalent to city manager) of a new...
Case and Educator Guide; Epilogue; Practitioner Guide
The “Garbage Lady” Cleans up Kampala: Turning Quick Wins into Lasting Change
In 2011, at the newly formed Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), Judith Tumusiime, an impassioned technocrat who prided herself on operating outside of politics, was charged with...
Case and Educator Guide; Epilogue; Practitioner Guide
Galvis City Schools Collective Bargaining Simulation
Based on public sector labor negotiations in twenty-first century America, this exercise demonstrates that sides are not monolithic and cross-cutting coalitions are possible. It is set…
Peer-to-Peer Consultative Exercise Tool Kit
The goal of the Peer-to-Peer Consultation Exercise is to elicit feedback and advice from peers in an open and psychologically safe environment, inviting greater clarity and focus to...
Public Value Tool Kit
A set of materials designed to help educators and practitioners understand, utilize, and share the core concepts of the public value framework.
- Creating Public Value Concept Note and Graphics Deck
- Nobody's Core Business: Confronting Cross-cutting Problems in the Public Sector
Case and Educator Guide; Practitioner Guide - Animated Videos
Making a Difference: In Search of Public Value; Creating Public Value: A Short Introduction