The majority of cities and metropolitan regions, or 66 per cent of those surveyed, have a two-tiered government structure. In some cities, there are two tiers covering the city itself. In others, a metropolitan tier goes beyond the administrative boundaries of a single city to cover the wider urban region. This latter approach, the creation of a metropolitan tier of government, has in many countries been a response to urban growth and territorial expansion, as many cities' administrative borders push further into surrounding rural areas, and municipalities merge and overlap. A strong argument for a metropolitan layer of government is its ability to drive greater efficiency and coordination. The respondent for Osaka, Japan noted that the ruling party has argued for consolidation between the region and its constituent cities, due to fragmentation and duplication of responsibilities across the Greater Osaka Metropolitan Area. However, the creation of an additional tier does not always remove fragmentation because the many independent municipalities constituting a metropolitan government may have local priorities that compete with those established at regional level. Our expert on Vancouver discussed this in relation to the issue of transport. Vancouver has a Metro Vancouver Board that brings together leaders of 24 municipalities. The city mayors pursue their cities' individual priorities, such as their desire to see rapid transit expanded in their jurisdictions, while the Metro Vancouver Board attempts to identify and pursue a regional approach. Another actor is also in the mix: TransLink, the regional transportation authority, is made up of officials appointed by the Province of British Columbia, who pursue a technocratic approach.

Coordination between tiers of government or, in contrast, a lack of coordination, also influences the participation of cities in the complex landscape of global urban governance discussed above. The wide literature on city networks and urban experimentation (Bulkeley and Castán Broto, 2013) demonstrates how local governments 'jump scales' rather than adjusting their governance structures, reaching out to peers, multilateral agencies and private actors 'abroad' to deliver strategic local initiatives. These practices can be empowering for city leadership but can also produce further challenges to coordination with other tiers of governance.

In many of the cases, city leaders have not just taken influential lobbying roles but also demonstrated a clear appetite to bypass their national executives (as seen in the stance taken by many US cities towards their federal government at the time of writing). Yet this implies in many instances a narrative of confrontation or substitution, rather than coordination, between tiers of governance. The argument of 'scale jumping' (Johnson, 2017) is centred on the assumption by city leaders that they have a 'strategic governance capacity' (Healey, 2002: 1779). Mayors have framed this capacity not solely in terms of international networking but also in terms of their deep reach into the everyday realities of their metropolises. Mayors and their peers have the responsibility for the daily management of most of the 'global' challenges recognised in the multilateral agendas (SDGs, Paris, Sendai) that define today's global urban governance. Former New York mayor and C40 chair, Michael Bloomberg (2015), uses the rhetoric of 'nations talk – cities act' and city leadership is 'the level of government closest to the majority of the world's people' as evidence that they are 'directly responsible' for the well-being and future of millions of urban dwellers. Whether this approach leads to positive outcomes or, in fact, further splintering of urban governance is a key question observers of city leadership should ponder in future research (and policy) agendas.

#### Challenge 2: financial constraints and corruption

The second most frequently mentioned challenge for urban governance in the survey was that of financial constraints and, relatedly, corruption and its impact on urban financial autonomy. For North America and Europe, financial constraints in cities in recent years are the result of austerity measures implemented after the 2008 financial crisis. Experts from a diverse array of cities, such as Beirut (Lebanon) and Bucharest (Romania) directly linked financial constraints to many of the challenges faced by their cities, from a lack of affordable housing to insufficient infrastructure or an inability to expand transport infrastructure. New York and Chicago in the USA, both cited financial constraints as a barrier to education funding. A vulnerable tax base was also mentioned by the experts on several cities in developed countries including Osaka (Japan), Luxembourg and Kansas City (USA), who noted that a vulnerable tax base could amplify their financial challenges in the coming years.

In the face of insufficient funding, cities in a number of countries have sought out foreign investment. Minsk (Belarus), for example, has received significant investments from China and the Middle East. Globally, foreign direct investment is rising, with 765 billion dollars being invested in developing economies in 2015 alone. Given this, cities may need to develop mechanisms to better facilitate foreign direct investments, as they may be crucial to the achievement of the SDGs. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) predicts that achieving the SDGs by 2030 in developing countries alone would require an investment of between \$3.3 and \$4.5 trillion annually (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 2016).

Financial constraints were often very tightly linked to the issue of coordination between different tiers of governance and incomplete decentralisation. When discussing urban service provision and infrastructure, experts who took the survey frequently raised the advantages and disadvantages of a metropolitan tier of government. One benefit of integrated metropolitan governance is the economies of scale it offers for service provision, something that experts cited as helping overcome financial constraints. However, metropolitan government structures were not universally cited as having a positive impact on the finances of urban areas. In the metropolitan region of Lima (Peru), power is concentrated in the central metropolitan authority. Smaller municipalities have very little power or resources, making infrastructure and service provision quite difficult for them.

Greater decentralisation and devolution may also bring new challenges for urban governance. While increasing the power of local government is designed to bring government closer to the people, a number of experts pointed out that devolving power to local elites does not always result in the improvement of governance. In some cities, decentralisation may in fact represent a new opportunity for abuse of finances by government officials. In the *Urban Connections* survey, corruption and lack of transparency were cited repeatedly as important obstacles to effective governance and policy making. In Havana (Cuba), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and Minsk (Belarus), experts noted that there is very little transparency in how public resources are allocated. The political interests and political will of the administration was said to significantly influence public expenditure in cities of both developed and developing countries, such as Nairobi (Kenya), Valparaiso (Chile), Kumasi (Ghana) and Zurich (Switzerland).

This finding indicates that the problem of corruption deserves serious consideration in urban governance and city leadership, particularly when dealing with matters of finance. Corruption is one of the most pertinent and least talked about issues faced in urban governance. In an urban governance survey conducted by the London School of Economics, UN-Habitat and UCLG, the majority of city officials participating (65 per cent) rated the issue of corruption as not relevant or only somewhat relevant (LSE Cities, 2014). Yet more than 6 billion people globally live in a country with a serious corruption problem (Transparency International, 2016). Given this, it seems likely that corruption is quite common in urban government, a conclusion that the findings of the *Urban Connections* survey supports. Despite this, it has not been given a serious place in discussions on urban priorities at an international level; it has been called 'the elephant in the room in the New Urban Agenda' (Zinnbauer, 2016). Corruption was not covered in the World State of Cities Report 2016, it is only nominally mentioned in the New Urban Agenda and only one side-event was dedicated to the topic on Habitat III. It is a particularly complex issue, especially since, when it is rooted within governments, it is unlikely that those same governments will take steps to fight it, or to even acknowledge it as a problem.

Here the international dimension of city leadership, and the aspirations of global urban governance, are also performing poorly. If poverty, and to a lesser degree inequality, have been central themes of the emergence of a global focus on cities (Parnell, 2016; Revi, 2016), discussions as to the financial stability of cities have been sparse and debates on the problems of local corruption virtually non-existent. There is almost no international city network, for instance, which is geared towards tackling the issues of fraud and bribery within city leadership, and these debates tend to be relegated to a very marginal spot in favour of more pressing global agendas such as climate, resilience or health. Key international actors on this front remain for the most part in the non-governmental sphere, as is the case with Transparency International. They have only made timid moves towards efforts that, our experts tell us, are almost as central as the other challenges more commonly addressed by international urban initiatives.

#### Challenge 3: lack of citizen inclusion, participation and public accountability

Corruption often goes hand-in-hand with a poor record of civic engagement, the third most frequently cited governance challenge in our survey. It has been globally acknowledged that it is crucial for the urban governance and decision-making processes to be inclusive and to take a rights-based approach (UN-Habitat, 2016a). Inclusive planning and participation are a crucial tool for city leadership. It can offer direction and insight into how to ground decision-making in the local context rather than relying on foreign 'best practices', a common practice that has led to detached city development agendas and policies as they tend to disregard local circumstances (UN-Habitat, 2016b). Despite this, in many cities there are few opportunities for citizens and other stakeholders to engage in decision-making processes, or else participation opportunities are largely tokenistic.

The experts taking our survey flagged poor public participation as a problem in many cities across both developed and developing countries. In some cities, such as Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), Gaborone (Botswana) and Budapest (Hungary), experts reported that consultation and participatory planning exists only at a very superficial level if there is any at all. This typically means that there are consultation procedures in place but the wider audience is only given the choice to comment on already developed draft policies. In other words there is a limited opportunity to have a meaningful influence, or any real impact on the results by taking part in the process of their development. In more developed cities such as San Francisco (USA) and Stockholm (Sweden), experts framed the problem as one of 'political will', with big decisions open to only a narrow group leading to very ideologically limited debates. Another frequent observation was that decision-making processes are controlled by 'elites' in cities as diverse as Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), New York (USA) and Karachi (Pakistan). The impact has been that public investments serve limited groups: either those close to power or big developers.

These examples illustrate that citizen participation and accountability are crucial for successful urban governance, and therefore successful city leadership. It takes, however, all three 'elements' of city leadership to make this work. Having the right 'tools' and 'structures' in place, as is the case in Stockholm, where participation and public consultation are legally binding and enabled through a set of tools, does not suffice to guarantee a successful public participation process, without the 'political will' of the 'actors' that need to commit to just decision-making. Likewise, a strong city leader committed to inclusive planning would face a difficult challenge without the 'structures and institutions' that legally support a participatory process.

As meaningful participation takes place on a smaller scale, there is increasing pressure put on city leaders in local authorities to demand and enable public commitment 'to keep spaces for public consultation and planning open to the widest array of interests and opinion', ensuring the representation of a full diversity of interests (UN-Habitat, 2016a). Meaningful engagement should be strongly rooted in the context, practices and capacities of cities. It can range from a 20-person workshop with community groups when planning a slum upgrading project in Nairobi, to a 500,000-person nation-wide online survey when planning a large-scale infrastructure project in the UK. More and more avenues are opening up for inclusionary policies using IT tools, from online surveys, to e-governance systems and transparency and control mechanisms, to sharing publicly available information and enabling wide oversight.

#### Conclusions

This chapter has presented data on some of the fundamental aspects of city leadership for a large cohort of cities. While the cities included in the research vary substantially in size, culture and geography, there is some consistency in the way they are governed and led. Cities are likely to have a one-tier government structure and to be led by an elected mayor serving a limited term. Outside of Latin America, this individual is most likely to be a man. Leadership is likely to be hampered by the challenge of coordination as well as limited financial resources. When it comes to the structures of urban government, there are a variety of models but the survey found that single-tier governments were most prevalent. The data gathered on individual city leaders demonstrated a great deal of consistency across geographies and contexts, with the majority of cities having elected mayors serving terms of approximately four years.

Despite these consistencies, our findings indicate that there may not be simple, widely applicable solutions to the challenge of creating effective city leadership. For example, there was no clear correlation between the structure of city government and its perceived effectiveness. Currently, the landscape of city leadership is shifting rapidly. In many parts of the world, urbanisation and urban expansion are more rapid than ever, while in others major demographic shifts are changing the types of demands to which cities need to respond. In this context, there is a great demand for solutions to the challenges of city leadership and governance. Cities are looking to their peers, international organisations, researchers and consultants for answers.

Solutions that focus on one of the three elements of city leadership, such as structures, but neglect the others, may lead to unexpected problems. This dynamic can be seen in the current trend, in many city-regions, to create metropolitan regions and corresponding governments. While these structures offer many advantages, it is important to remember that coordination and communication between different tiers of government was the most commonly mentioned obstacle to effective governance in our survey. Introducing new government structures may require putting in place tools to ensure that they work well with other structures of urban governance, as well as mechanisms to develop good working relationships between individuals that can help overcome the challenges of coordinating a multi-tiered urban government. This could be a simple tool, like a capacity building and skills development programme for the management and coordination of these processes, or a software ensuring data and information sharing.

Faced with limitations, as we noted above, many cities' leaders have sought to bypass the governance limitations of their urban and national governance systems and 'go abroad' to see more-than-local creative solutions. As noted in this and the previous chapter, the 'internationalisation' of city leadership is, however, not purely a bottom-up reaction. In the past few years, city leaders have had to deal increasingly with transnational concerns, such as migration or climate change, often with depleted financial, commercial and economic resources. Kearns and Paddison (2000: 845), for instance, have aptly pointed out how local governments are nowadays faced with three interrelated challenges: first, 'interurban competition has become fiercer' due to the heightened interconnectedness and pervasive territoriality of the global market; second, 'homogenising' global pulls are 'accompanied by simultaneous attempts to develop a city's local distinctive culture to attract business investment'; third, 'cities have viewed national governments as less able to help them and less relevant to their fortunes'.

Yet the internationalisation of city leadership, and mounting recognition in global frameworks, does not translate too easily into success. The majority of the experts consulted for this survey had significant reservations about the effectiveness of government and leadership in their city. Given this, there is an opportunity for further investigation into the role that city leadership can play in improving how cities are governed. The most commonly reported obstacles to effective urban governance in cities, were coordination between different tiers of government, financial constraints and corruption, and lack of participation. In addition to these, experts responding to the survey also highlighted the related challenges of the lack of capacity in many local government administrations, and the failure to be strategic and prioritise the most relevant issues in cities.

While these issues might seem obvious, they do not seem to have been given enough importance in international debates and multilateral agendas, and are therefore less likely to be sufficiently funded, or effectively targeted on a national and local level. For instance, as current as they are meant to be, the three-year-old SDGs are already not keeping up with some topics that have been emerging around and after Habitat III in Quito, particularly regarding these challenges for city leadership. For instance, the Quito Implementation Plan of the New Urban Agenda does dedicate an entire section to 'building the urban governance structure', but it is mostly general and vague, with the only reference to the changing landscape of governance structures being a commitment to 'promote a metropolitan governance that is inclusive and encompasses legal frameworks … '. The document does not give any specifics about where metropolitan governance is supported, and whether it advises transforming existing city governments or forming new ones. Nor does it detail what tools should be available to support these processes. This implementation gap has now been documented widely by scholars and practitioners alike (Simon et al., 2016), who cite both the complicated nature of putting into practice the aspirations of the New Urban Agenda and the monitoring required by the SDGs. The SDGs have been criticised for their unrealistic ambitions and vague instructions, focusing on targets rather than means to achieve these targets (Easterly, 2015; *Economist*, 2015).

In this sense, the role of city leadership in addressing challenges can go well beyond their strategic governance capacity and proximity to citizens. The catalytic role of city leadership also affords the possibility to link across often divided areas of international concern. While the inclusion of an explicitly 'urban' SDG (SDG number 11) is an important step, the urban dimension of other goals must also be taken up in implementation plans for the goals as a whole and could be catalysed much more effectively at the local level than, our experts tell us, is currently the case.

Two areas where our research demonstrates a clear need to think about the urban dimension of a broader goal are gender equality and finance. Our research found that women are poorly represented in the top tier of city leadership; only 15 per cent of the leaders in cities included in the survey were women. Goal 5 of the Sustainable Development Goals is to 'achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls'. One of the targets under this goal is to 'ensure women's full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decisionmaking'. To achieve this goal, we need to conduct further research on city leadership in Latin American countries, as this was the only region where a city was as likely to be led by a woman as by a man. Given that Latin America also has more female presidents than any other world region, it is important to examine what kind of lessons can be learned about female representation in leadership from this region.

Similarly, there are several finance targets under Goal 17 (partnerships for the goals), but they do not address city and urban governance specifically. In addition, most of the goals list targets and potential tasks for city leadership without acknowledging some of the main obstacles towards reaching these targets – namely insufficient funding and corruption on local and national levels. These are challenges that cities globally will struggle with as they work towards the objectives set out in the SDGs and the New Urban Agenda. The areas where governance has performed poorly can, in turn, be seen as potential focal points where a truly catalytic action by city leadership can make a difference. Changes in the shape of city leadership, and its focus on local, national or international challenges, or indeed a mixture of these, are important steps in the right direction. However, these also need to come with an assessment of the contextual structures city leaders operate in and, perhaps, bolder steps towards addressing gender inequality and corruption.

## 4 Setting priorities: local leadership in a global world

The diversity of issues debated in the run up to Habitat III, and at the event itself in October 2016, testified to the sheer quantity and variety of challenges confronting local governments. To respond to these, contemporary city leaders play many roles, from hands-on problem solver to international diplomat. Local government leaders must navigate the everyday challenges of service delivery, often with ever-diminishing resources. Alongside this, they also have to grapple with the impacts of new and rapidly evolving issues, from cybersecurity to a complex national and international political landscape. A typical day for a city leader might include addressing waste management in a specific neighbourhood of their city, and working together with other cities through networks like the ICLEI Local Government for Sustainability network and C40 to demand international action on climate change.

In this context, for city leaders it can be difficult to decide where to start and what to prioritise. Much of the work of leadership and governance is a continual process of identifying challenges and problems, establishing priorities and, ideally, transforming challenges into opportunities for progress. Therefore, in order to explore the current state of city leadership globally, the *Urban Connections* team sought to understand what are the most common types of challenges that city leaders face and to understand what actions they are taking to respond to them. In particular, we were interested in the scale at which issues are addressed and whether the issues cities focused on differed depending on factors such as city size or location. We also sought to identify common forms in which these challenges manifest and the ways in which city leadership is (or is not) attending to them. In this sense, we were also interested in the ways in which highly contextual problems can be reconciled with the developmental aspirations of leadership. In this chapter, we present an overview of the categories of challenges most frequently mentioned by survey respondents. The next chapter reviews how these are being addressed by city strategic plans as an example of a 'tool' that cities can use to map out their short- and long-term aspirations.

To help us identify key themes and priorities, respondents to the survey were asked to list, in rank order, the three most pressing challenges that their city will face in the next 10 years. The research team used content analysis to analyse the data set and identified the 10 challenges most frequently mentioned as affecting the 202 cities studied. These can be seen in Figure 4.1. While experts often responded to the

question about city challenges with rich and contextualised descriptions of the challenges faced by their city, when the research team began to examine these a number of recurring issues emerged.

Below, we discuss the five areas most frequently mentioned as challenges by survey respondents. In doing so, our goal is to explore the ways in which governing structures confront these challenges, how they stand in between local and global pulls that define many of them and how city leaders practically respond or fail to respond to the difficulties of the contemporary urban condition. Some of the topic areas are inherently interrelated and have therefore been grouped together under broader categories in the discussion that follows. Table 4.1 summarises the five areas discussed below and the challenges respondents most frequently mentioned in relation to them.

While the precise issues reported by the experts were in many cases quite specific to their city, there was a great deal of thematic consistency, with cities large and small, rich and poor, North and South struggling

with the same types of issues. Of course, many of the challenges reported, from crime to air quality, are both local and global in their causes and solutions. Addressing them is an inherently 'glocal' (Swyngedouw, 2004) affair. Solutions must be embedded in context but cities can also benefit from cooperation with their peers and engagement in international processes. What we are trying to convey here, then, is not a comprehensive ranking of issues for city leadership or to specify the causes of these issues, which vary from one city to the next. Rather, the following discussion offers an entry point into the menu of challenges that city leadership faces around the planet.

Of course, as the previous chapter demonstrated, leadership and its underlying structure is in itself a key challenge. The single most unifying theme in all the research findings was the challenge of effective governance. From the survey and the desktop research it became evident that the issue of effective governance is not only complex and wide-ranging, but also different in nature from the other challenges, as it deals with the obstacles that governments face when tackling these problems. We therefore decided to isolate this issue and elaborate the findings regarding effective governance outside this chapter. Chapter 3, and also chapter 5 on tools of governance (strategic planning in particular), are dedicated to this issue. Here our aim is to present and explore the operational side of city leadership at the local level by reviewing the issues that survey respondents said should be at the top of leadership agendas around the world.

#### Mobility and connectivity: beyond transport?

The capacity to connect people to jobs, services and markets, move goods and link ideas, cultures and service providers is critical to the vitality of cities around the world. Unsurprisingly then, mobility was the challenge that experts mentioned most frequently in the *Urban Connections* survey. It was also a common focus of the strategic urban plans surveyed by the Lab team. Within this category, congestion and infrastructure challenges were those most frequently flagged. These problems are common across all geographical regions, with East Asia and the Pacific taking a slight lead in the number of mentions.

Congestion and its impacts is an issue for a wide cross-section of the cities surveyed, from developed cities such as Sydney (Australia) and Munich (Germany) to regional centres including Maringá (Brazil), Kumasi (Ghana) and Port of Spain (Trinidad). This issue is well-recognised by both academia and central government. For instance, a report on urban mobility, sponsored by the US Department of Transportation, highlights the impacts of traffic congestion on liveability, affordability and greenhouse gas emissions (Schrank et al., 2011). In many developing countries, mobility and accessibility are declining as increased car demand and dependency lead to high levels of congestion (Schrank et al., 2011). In the survey responses, many city experts raised the issue of insufficient public transport infrastructure. This was attributed to a variety of problems, including a lack of funding in Vancouver (Canada), transport planning in Wellington (New Zealand), overdependence on private transport in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) and Xalapa (Mexico), and a lack of an integrated transit system in Amman, Jordan. The lack of equitable mobility was specifically flagged in smaller, second-tier cities such as Xalapa (Mexico). In many cities, certain groups have limited access to transportation as a result of underlying disadvantages arising from poverty, poor health or ethnicity.

Inequality in access to transport also emerged as an issue in a oneday focus group workshop, which the *Urban Connections* team held with urban experts and city officials in Toronto (Canada) in 2014. The Toronto city-region is experiencing a number of challenges resulting from 'bottlenecks' in its structures of connectivity. Systemic patterns of disconnectedness present long-term biases in transport and infrastructure investment. This then creates 'transit deserts', or areas poorly served by public transport. Congestion, created by employment and land-use patterns, as well as bottlenecks and choke points in infrastructure that cannot often be overcome (either because of large super-infrastructures shaping the whole conurbation or because of political-economic barriers), are a problem not just in Toronto but also in many other major international cities. The mobility of residents of Sydney (Australia), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Dubai (UAE) or Hong Kong (China), also varies depending on whereabouts in the city they live.

In many cities, transport infrastructure is related to an overall dearth of effective physical planning, or indeed any physical planning at all. This is particularly the case in cities with limited financial resources, including Paramaribo (Suriname) and Port of Spain (Trinidad). In this light, many city leaders have prioritised the upgrading and maintenance of the physical infrastructure in their urban centres. Other respondents pointed to structural renewal and improved provisions of public amenities in Monrovia (Liberia) and Nicosia (Cyprus).

The question of mobility is tightly interwoven with the challenge of effective governance and, in particular, the shifts towards a city leadership that is conducted in partnership with non-governmental actors. When designing effective urban systems, the benefits and drawbacks of public and private modes of transportation need to be considered in decision-making: accessibility, affordability and convenience must be weighed alongside implications for financing and environmental impacts. As a way to optimise convenience (more typically associated with private transport) alongside cost and environmental impacts (more frequently benefits of public transport), a recent trend has occurred towards car- and bicycle-sharing schemes, particularly in Europe, North America and Australia.

However, research and feedback by experts has noted how the benefits of such schemes may be distributed unequally, with individuals and neighbourhoods that have a higher socioeconomic status gaining the greatest benefits (Ogilvie and Goodman, 2012; Ricci, 2015). These schemes may also neglect peripheral neighbourhoods. For example, in Tirana (Albania), periphery-centre access is considered a major problem that is not addressed by the initiatives focusing on the city's core.

Many cities have schemes in place to encourage active forms of transport, such as walking and cycling, and 'smart mobility' systems have been suggested as a way to increase pedestrian and bicycle route efficiency (Vishwanath et al., 2014). However, city leaders may not prioritise alternative options such as bike lanes, which several experts see as worryingly lacking in some cities.

Above all, the research findings demonstrate that mobility is often not an isolated technical problem but one that is interlinked with both social and environmental issues. City leadership should address the challenges of mobility and connectivity in an integrated, cross-sectorial manner. There are lessons to be learned from successful mobility projects, particularly with the rise of smart technologies and apps aiding city transport projects. City diplomacy could be of value for city leaders in this area, where city networks such as Polis or the Union Internationale des Transports Publics (UITP) advance development of mobility policies and knowledge exchange between cities.

#### Social change and inequality: leaders for *whom*?

Cities are diverse by nature; they attract a variety of businesses, people and cultures, generating infinite possibilities for social interaction. This brings many benefits, including economies of scale and opportunities for innovation. At the same time, research suggests that many social problems are amplified in urban centres. As the world's economic hubs, cities attract a range of skill-sets from the labour force. The concurrent demand for both very highly skilled and unskilled workers creates significant disparities in urban centres. UN-Habitat has regularly reported a trend wherein GINI Coefficients, which measure inequality rates, are often higher in cities than in national averages (López Moreno et al., 2015). In other words, in the majority of countries, city dwellers face higher inequalities than their rural counterparts. Importantly, this has increased over time. For example, researchers found a growing positive correlation between wage inequality and city size in the United States between 1979 and 2007 (Baum-Snow and Pavan, 2012).

Inequality can pose serious challenges for urban stability and cohesion. The challenge of creating and maintaining social harmony among a diverse, and often unequal, concentration of people emerged from the *Urban Connections* survey as one of the most important issues faced by city leaders globally. Cities in our survey that mentioned this challenge are both large and small and are located in both developing and developed countries. Social change and inequality are a global phenomenon. Cities around the world are deeply affected by problems of marginalisation, inequality and poverty. This raises a critical question for city leadership: for *whom* are cities led?

Though the challenges of inequality are manifested differently and to varying magnitudes between cities, a high proportion of our survey respondents (13 per cent) claimed that inequality was a primary source of social problems in their cities. The OECD has remarked that the social consequence of inequality 'is a multi-dimensional phenomenon requiring a multi-dimensional response' (OECD, 2014: 140–1). Social disparities in cities have spatial impacts, wherein economies of agglomeration incentivise 'various degrees of residential differentiation' (UN-Habitat, 2011), often leaving vulnerable populations cloistered in areas which offer little access to adequate infrastructure, basic services, jobs and social safety nets, and are often exposed to climate change-related risks and natural hazards.

The spatial dimension of social change in cities, then, becomes as critical as its economic and demographic dimensions. For instance, in Doha (Qatar) spatial segregation is a major challenge for city leadership and the growth of informal settlements discussed below is also a rising concern.

Social inequality manifests in a variety of ways. The affordability of housing (addressed later in this chapter) and food were frequently mentioned by survey respondents. Rising food prices globally, doubled with spatial segregation of populations, means that much of the world's urban poor struggle to afford and access adequate food supplies (UN-Habitat, 2011). This is reflected in the diversity of cities that specifically mentioned food inequality. These included relatively poor cities such as Bulawayo (Zimbabwe) and Antananarivo (Madagascar) but also cities in more affluent countries; Washington DC in the USA also suffers from food deserts according to our survey.

Social inequalities are also amplified by international and ethnic diversity in cities, with immigrants traditionally drawn into urban centres. At present, at least one-third of the population of many of the world's global cities, such as New York, Hong Kong, Los Angeles and London, are immigrants (Kemeny, 2013). Other cities have even higher rates of immigration, with extreme cases such as Dubai in the UAE (80 per cent immigrants) but also large and diverse metropolises like Toronto in Canada (51 per cent immigrants) or Brussels in Belgium, where 46 per cent of the population is of non-Belgian descent (Price and Benton-Short, 2007). These cities face the growth of ethnic enclaves and the challenges of social integration as different languages, religions and customs arrive and intermingle in close proximity.

In other cities, issues around integration are heightened by the intersection of diversity and the proximity to regional instabilities or civil war. Due to the rise of regional military conflicts, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, an estimated 12.4 million people were newly displaced due to conflict or persecution in 2015 alone (out of a global total of 65 million refugees and displaced people) (UNHCR, 2016). Many of these displaced people end up in cities. Survey respondents for Tripoli (Libya) and Beirut (Lebanon) cited the influx of people from countries such as Syria and Palestine as challenges. Long-lived confrontations also impinge on the effects of social change and inequality, such as the disconnect between the Chinese and Malay populations in Kuala Lumpur. As diversity is disproportionately an urban phenomenon, city leaders will find themselves closely involved in determining how immigrant populations are to be integrated into society, in tackling discrimination and in ensuring equitable access to services and opportunities.

In addition to growing diversity, other aspects of demographic change were cited by survey recipients. Population growth was reported as a challenge in many cities, such as Kumasi (Ghana), Beirut (Lebanon) and Lyon (France). Other cities reported the hard-to-manage issue of overpopulation, including Astana (Kazakhstan), Bangkok (Thailand) and Malé (Maldives). Some cities are experiencing 'youth bulges', and struggle to integrate large numbers of young people into labour markets that are already largely saturated (KPMG, 2016). In other cities, a declining birth rate is contributing to a larger proportion of elderly people. Respondents in our survey that referenced elderly care and pension provision as major social challenges included a variety of cases such as Calgary (Canada), Changwon (South Korea) and Amsterdam (the Netherlands). In these places, city leaders are increasingly being asked to answer to the health and social stability concerns of a larger-thanever proportion of elderly populations globally. Population growth and increased life expectancies around the world will likely continue to exaggerate existing inequalities if adequate intervention from city leaders is not pursued. Creating opportunities for the old and young to engage in urban life and gain dignity for creating their own livelihoods will continue to be important objectives for city leaders.

#### Planning and housing: managing urban change

Forty per cent of survey respondents mentioned spatial planning-related issues as one of the top three challenges in their city. Spatial planning challenges are somewhat unique in that they effectively cut across all the other challenges described in this chapter. The organisation and management of space and urban form affects and is affected by all of the other challenges discussed in this chapter and throughout this book.

Managing and directing the use of urban land is one of the central tasks of city leadership. This task will only become more critical in the coming years. Recent research has found that, while the world's urban population is expected to double in 43 years, the urban land cover will double in only 19 years (Angel et al., 2011). The management of urban land will have to be done with careful consideration for another, closely related issue – how to provide urban residents with an adequate supply of good quality affordable housing options. Twenty-three per cent of survey respondents mentioned a lack of affordable housing as a top challenge for their city.

While survey respondents mentioned spatial planning and affordable housing as separate issues, in this section we discuss them together in the light of an increasing awareness of the strong relationship between them. Recent research has drawn attention to the fact that problems with affordable housing and housing supply in many places have been linked to spatial planning and planning-system regulations and constraints (Gurran and Bramley, 2017). The tendency of local and national leadership to isolate housing and planning into separate policies and departments has been recognised as part of the problem, with emerging global strategies, such as the UN-Habitat 'Housing for All', proposing an integrated vision of housing within national urban development frameworks (UN-Habitat, 2016b). The 'urban' SDG also addresses urbanisation and housing under the common umbrella of sustainable, safe and resilient cities.

Increasing rates of urbanisation have already outpaced that of many cities' capacity to plan for urban growth. In fact, one of the most common problems for city leaders, according to our survey, is managing urban growth. Experts mentioned this topic as an issue in Adelaide (Australia), Kumasi (Ghana), Nairobi (Kenya), Portland (USA), Stockholm (Sweden), Tripoli (Lebanon) and Zanzibar City (Tanzania) among others. One of the most urgent tasks for city leadership is to effectively use urban planning to prepare for urban growth and plan for urban expansion (UN-Habitat, 2014). Survey respondents stressed the need for 'more effective planning in general terms' (Abu Dhabi (UAE)), which largely means developing 'effective planning means and tools' (Nicosia (Cyprus)) and developing the capacity to implement and enforce land management and planning (Caracas (Venezuela), Amman (Jordan)).

The challenges related to population growth discussed above aggravate, in many cities, challenges related to land distribution and management, with experts reporting on 'lack of free space' (Huancayo (Peru)) and 'unbalanced land use' (Baguio (Philippines)) as a result. The failure to predict and plan for urban expansion and for housing supply in an integrated manner has, in turn, been driving the growth of typically very dense and poorly serviced informal settlements. While housing accounts for more than 70 per cent of land use in most cities, it has not been central to national agendas over the past 20 years (UN-Habitat, 2015). With an increasing reliance on the private sector, there has been a global tendency to 'enable' middle-class formal home-ownership, while 'disabling' access to adequate and affordable housing for the urban poor (UN-Habitat, 2016a).

Affordable housing is not just a problem for poor slum dwellers. Indeed, housing affordability stands on its own as one of the leading global problems for city leadership according to our survey. A lack of affordable housing was cited as a challenge by survey respondents from 27 cities across all continents (including Amsterdam (the Netherlands), Bangkok (Thailand), Beirut (Lebanon), Dhaka (Bangladesh), Leuven (Belgium), Maputo (Mozambique), Maringá (Brazil), Quingdao (China), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and Seattle (USA)). In addition, as previously discussed, high living costs and poverty were mentioned as a key challenge by 28 per cent of respondents. Statistics have shown that high costs of living, particularly in metropolitan areas, mostly come down to high costs of housing (Florida, 2014).

Informal settlements in particular, as an extreme urban symptom of the lack of affordable housing, emerged as a common challenge for city leaders in less-developed countries. In our survey, respondents from cities in many countries, including Algiers (Algeria), Bangalore (India), Kumasi (Ghana), Jeddah (Saudi Arabia), Ibadan (Nigeria) and Delhi (India) cited informal settlements as a key challenge. Global and local efforts have been directed towards improving the living conditions in informal settlements, particularly since the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) created a target, in 2000, of improving the lives of 100 million of the world's slum dwellers. By 2014, 320 million people had gained access to more-durable or less-crowded housing and improved water or sanitation. While this surpassed the initial target, the population growth rates mean that the absolute number of informal settlement dwellers has risen to 880 million today, compared to the 792 million reported in 2000 (United Nations, 2015). Tackling this issue will require city leaders to coordinate with non-governmental actors, such as community-led organisations like Slum Dwellers International. City leaders have to step up to address informal settlements comprehensively and on a city-wide scale, including efforts to plan them in relation to the broader city economies, utilise innovative financing options and recognise the informal forms of livelihood and employment (UN-Habitat, 2016a).

Another common outcome of ineffective planning is urban sprawl, increasingly acknowledged globally as a problem for cities. Low-density development patterns are associated with higher infrastructure and service-provision costs, and have negative environmental impacts as well (Clark and Moir, 2015; Henshilwood and Cullinan, 2012). While sprawling urban development is particularly common in North America and Australia, experts on cities across all continents mentioned urban sprawl as a key challenge. Problems with managing sprawl were mentioned by survey respondents referring to Baku (Azerbaijan), Brussels (Belgium), Warsaw (Poland), Calgary (Canada), Maringá (Brazil), Melbourne (Australia) and Kisumu (Kenya) among others cities.

Experts commented on the need to 'transition towards a sustainable urban form' (Brisbane (Australia)) or to 'redefine the urban development model' (Milan (Italy)). City leaders have a suite of policy options to make these changes, including encouraging transit-oriented development and increased density. However, the conflicting interests of decision-makers (planners, developers and government officials), as well as the reluctance of the general public to accept policy changes that affect long-standing living patterns such as low-density housing, can limit the effectiveness of these changes (Downs, 2005).

 The responsible regeneration of out-dated city centres was also reported as an imperative for respondents from Berlin (Germany), Busan (South Korea), Bologna (Italy) and Barcelona (Spain), while in Minsk (Belarus) the expert cited the need to renovate former industrial areas. These responses highlight the main purposes of urban regeneration: to revive and attract investment to a declining city centre, or to regenerate or repurpose land formerly used for industrial purposes. Urban renewal is also often linked to refreshing city branding and identity. Experts on Aberdeen (UK), Portland (USA) and Gaborone (Botswana) also all mentioned the need to focus on place making.

Sometimes the 'image of the city' is less linked to its form and historical significance and more to its current state, particularly in the light of recent natural or man-made disasters. For example, the expert on Christchurch (New Zealand) reported that, following a series of major earthquakes in 2010 and 2011, repairing not just the city itself but also its image was a major challenge. The task of renewal is particularly delicate in cities where leaders must maintain parts of the built environment that are socially and culturally significant. Respondents from Jerusalem (Israel), Florence (Italy) and Istanbul (Turkey) all cited the fiscal and social challenges of preserving valuable quarters of their historic cities.

Spatial planning-related issues present a complex array of challenges for city leaders. The need to plan the use of land and the provision of affordable housing in private-market led systems is emerging as one of the challenges that city leaders will need to address in coming years. However, effective urban planning, as we will discuss in the next chapter, can also be an important tool of city leadership precisely because it cuts across so many issues, from housing, to environmental quality, to preservation. Strategic planning, we will argue, can help leaders develop solutions that tackle the many challenges outlined in this chapter. The role of planning is discussed in the next chapter about strategic urban plans (SUPs) as a tool of city leadership.

#### Ensuring economic vitality

Cities are the economic powerhouses of the globe. While urban centres are home to half of the world's population, they generate more than 80 per cent of global GDP (Dobbs et al., 2011). Increasing urbanisation has coincided with a growth in global economic interconnectivity in the last half century. Global trade has increased fivefold since 1980, with cities playing a central role in this globalised economy (Papageorgiou, 2009). In this context, the economic performance of cities has an impact that is not just local, but also national and international.

An essential part of city leadership is steering and supporting the urban economy. Ensuring economic 'vitality' (a term that we prefer to prosperity and profit) is a cornerstone of city leadership and one that presents myriad challenges. The *Urban Connections* survey found that the economic issues that city leadership has to confront range from the challenge of managing public finances, to the question of how to modernise and diversify city economies.

Many of the experts responding to the *Urban Connections* survey reported that their city was struggling with the challenge of restructuring their economy to keep pace with the changes that have come from economic globalisation. For example, experts on Busan (South Korea) and Valencia (Spain) mentioned difficulties in overcoming the industrial decline in their cities. Similarly, respondents from Detroit (USA) remarked that the decline of the manufacturing industry and the city's subsequent bankruptcy has been their primary economic challenge.

The challenge of diversifying an economy in order to make it more resilient to change was also reported by a large number of cities. The cities of Yellowknife (Canada) and Perth (Australia) have challenges resulting from their traditional dependence on successful mineral industries. The expert on Macau (China), responded that its economy is too reliant on the gambling sector. Respondents for Taipei (Taiwan) and Florence (Italy) mentioned that the strength of their tourism industries has prevented them from properly diversifying their economies strategically towards more sustainable growth sectors.

National economic issues, and the role that a city takes within the national economy, are also linked to the economic challenges faced by many cities. Survey responses indicate that the capital cities of smaller countries carry much of the burden for national economic management. For example, the respondent on Luxembourg remarked on the struggles of managing the city's tax base, as a large portion of its labour comes from beyond the national border. Overcoming the problems of a high level of international debt was reported as a significant economic challenge in Kingston (Jamaica). Similarly, the struggles of managing urban development in one of the world's fastest growing national economies (World Bank, 2017) was reported as a municipal challenge for the respondent in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic).

Unemployment is also a major economic challenge faced by many city leaders. Respondents for cities in both developed and developing economies cited this issue, including Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Atlanta (USA), Turin (Italy), Bulawayo (Zimbabwe) and Port-au-Prince (Haiti). Not only does unemployment pose a major obstacle to social and economic stability, it also presents a challenge for the stability of a state's welfare system. Reduced income tax collection and increased demand for social services pose major challenges for city leaders. Though most municipal governments lack the mandate to control national tax rates and unemployment benefits, they are still held accountable for the issues these create for their local populations. Similarly, although labour market programmes are often national priorities, responses to these challenges call for relevant and informed local input, given that most labour markets are localised. Among the cities that cited job creation as a priority were cases such as New Orleans (USA) and Bucharest (Romania), which emphasised that disadvantaged youth are the most affected by the lack of job opportunities.

#### Environmental sustainability: a truly 'glocal' issue?

Cities are engines of social and economic development but also use resources and generate waste at a higher rate than rural areas, particularly as urban populations continue to grow and concentrate. The impacts of human activity on the natural environment are highly evident in cities. Issues such as pollution, congestion, waste, energy and resource use, sprawling urbanisation, informal settlements, overcrowding and sanitation all pose challenges for the urban environment. This was confirmed by the *Urban Connections* survey, where a substantial number of experts (22 per cent) listed environmental concerns as one of the most important issues facing city leadership over the next 10 years.

While many environmental problems are global in scope, the wheels of the international diplomatic processes designed to collectively address these issues move slowly. In the meantime, cities have asserted a growing role in tackling environmental challenges. This can be seen in the growth of city networks (such as ICLEI or the C40 Climate Leadership Group) that campaign for greater global public attention to be given to the importance and capacity of city leaders to tackle environmental challenges, as opposed to international environmental frameworks. Research conducted by the Lab team, both within *Urban Connections* but also more specifically on city networks, confirms that cities play a key role in addressing the challenge of global sustainability (Acuto and Rayner, 2016).

However, city leaders do not always choose, or have the capacity, to *prioritise* environmental problems. 'Failures of governance' and the inability to 'implement preventive measures to reduce environmental problems or their impacts' (Hardoy et al, 1992: 23) have been cited as a root cause of many urban environmental problems today. These failures were evident in *Urban Connections* survey responses. A lack of infrastructure provision was cited as the cause of insufficient waste and sanitation management in cities like Maputo (Mozambique) and Zanzibar (Tanzania). Yet, on the other hand, city leadership can be a powerful force for addressing environmental challenges when supported by effective urban governance. Cases of forward-looking environmental leadership included examples like Vancouver (Canada) with its 'Greenest City 2020' strategy or Stockholm (Sweden) and its 'The Walkable City' focus. Scandinavian cases like Stockholm or Copenhagen have emerged as prominent examples of environmentally focused urban planning, with sustainability as a key thread running through all aspects of planning.

A shortage of drinking water was the most widely flagged environmental issue in our survey, with instances occurring in cities across all regions. Survey respondents related this challenge not only to insufficient infrastructure and to pollution, but also to a lack of provision resulting from various issues including development pressures. South and Central Asia had the highest relative number of survey responses related to the environment, with 75 per cent of the respondents including at least one reference to environmental problems. Water pollution, especially from a lack of sanitation infrastructure, was reported as especially problematic in this region, as well as in Sub-Saharan Africa. Waste management was also frequently cited as an issue in these regions.

Experts on cities from a variety of geographic regions mentioned climate change-related issues as important challenges, although the term 'climate change' was mostly used in reference to cities in Europe and North America. The most frequently cited urban challenges posed by climate change were increased instances of flooding and rising sea levels. These were referenced across all regions aside from Sub-Saharan Africa (examples include Alexandria (Egypt), Bangkok (Thailand), Miami (USA) and Paramaribo (Suriname)).

There is a close relationship between many of the environmental challenges mentioned by survey respondents and those discussed above in the sections on social issues and urban planning. For some cities, respondents linked environmental problems with social problems. These included environmental impacts on health in New York (USA), and equity and environmental justice in Washington DC (USA). Environmental problems often have the greatest adverse effects on the poorest groups in cities. This is particularly the case in cities with poor and insufficient planning, where infrastructure and service provision do not extend across informal settlements. This is a problem for the majority of bigger cities in the Global South, such as Cape Town (South Africa), where a challenge for city leadership is that informal settlers lack access to basic public services including water and sanitation.

The sprawl and rapid urban growth discussed earlier in this chapter has important spill-over effects affecting the environment. Experts on rapidly growing cities in the Global South, including Huancayo (Peru), Amman (Jordan) and Islamabad (Pakistan) cited the reduction of green, open spaces and the loss of agricultural land as major challenges. Other cities are prioritising the environmental aspects of urban planning, such as the maintenance of green space, in the form of parks and tree-lined streets, along with the preservation of natural habitat and biodiversity. In cities such as Brisbane and Adelaide in Australia, Vancouver in Canada and Leuven in Belgium, sustainability and environmental protection have become strategic priorities.

#### Conclusions

The findings from the *Urban Connections* research on the challenges for city leadership highlight that, despite varied contexts, there is a great deal of consistency in the issues faced by cities around the world. Many of the challenges discussed above are confronting almost all cities regardless of their context. Of course, these matters are not new yet it does not mean that they are homogenous, or steady. While the categories of problems faced by city leadership may remain consistent, the nature of the challenges themselves, and the means to address them, have evolved. Some issues have become more urgent. For instance, the impacts of climate change on cities become more evident as the frequency of climate-related natural disasters increases. In other areas, new solutions have emerged, such as the recent explosion in bicycle and car-sharing schemes as a mobility solution in cities around the world.

Given this context, city leadership must keep up both with the development of issues on the ground in their cities, as well as with advancements in governance and leadership approaches. Leadership must also adopt a strategic and joined-up approach to tackling challenges because the issues, as discussed in this chapter, are all inevitably complex and intertwined with other concerns. Global agendas, like the Sustainable Development Goals, have made the case for taking an international approach to identifying some of the issues and priorities discussed here. But city leadership is still a fundamentally local and contextualised process. This raises a set of questions on the dialogue between the different governance contexts in which city leadership plays out. How is the dialogue between these global realities and the localised processes of planning and governing shaping the catalytic process of leadership? How do both the growth in international processes and debates on urban issues influence leadership and governance at a local level? What are the ways in which city leaders are seeking to make sense of this global-local dialogue and what are their priorities? Whether it is urban planning and affordable housing, or living costs and inequality, addressing urban challenges in an integrated and strategic manner will be one of the biggest challenges for city leaders. To explore how this is done, we turn our focus in the next chapter to the third element of city leadership: tools. We do this through a review of the role of strategic urban planning in city leadership.

## 5 Setting directions: leadership and strategic urban plans

In chapter 2 of the book we proposed a practical theory of city leadership that frames leadership as a catalytic process, bringing together multiple elements to identify and act on governance priorities. These elements include three categories: actors; structures and institutions; and tools. Much of the existing work on city leadership focuses on the first two categories. While actors, structures and institutions are quite durable elements of leadership, often established through legislation, tools are more flexible and open. Tools can vary both in format and in impact and can take a variety of shapes but, broadly, they are used to agree, codify and implement governance priorities. Tools of leadership offer a tangible example of the catalytic role of city leadership. Examples of tools include plans, policies, forums, consultations, online platforms and apps. All of these offer a chance for the actors and structures of leadership to come together to take action in their cities. This chapter focuses on the role that tools play in leadership processes. It examines how city leadership is translated into strategic interventions in cities and how these interventions address the types of challenges to effective leadership and governance discussed in the last two sections of the book.

To do so, we focus on one type of tool of city leadership – the strategic urban plan (SUP). Strategic plans are a popular tool for setting longterm priorities for cities (Albrechts et al., 2003; Albrechts, 2004; Healey, 2007). We chose to focus on strategic urban plans in part because SUPs are also one of the most easily identifiable and readily available expressions of city leadership. They are relatively straightforward to access, review and compare, making them a good focus for a large international study of this type. In addition, SUPs are a useful focus for this study because they are not subject-specific. They usually aim to consolidate a city's priorities, strategies and targets for a wide array of subject areas, such as housing, transport and economic development, into a single document. Moreover, what sets them apart from other smaller-scale tools that focus on specific topics or shorter-term outputs, is that the delivery of SUPs is a long-term task requiring joint efforts and coordination between a variety of actors, structures and institutions in a city.

We hypothesised that strategic plans are a commonly used tool in cities around the world, something that the *Urban Connections* survey confirmed. Strategic urban plans are used by cities around the world to establish leadership priorities and set out what a city and its leaders aim to achieve in a certain time span. They connect leaders to structures and institutions, and aim to catalyse action. The process of developing a SUP can bring actors together to set out governance priorities. The plans themselves, when complete and adopted by a city, set out an approach to achieve these priorities. In this way, the process of strategic planning and the resulting strategic plan document, as tools, complement the work of actors and institutions in the leadership of cities, and provide a platform for bridging silos and building coalitions.

To study the role of SUPs as tools of city leadership, we first reviewed literature on strategic urban planning in order to establish the origins and role of strategic planning in city leadership, exploring the existing debates around the concept, which then framed our deeper 'dive' into the challenges and trends that have emerged thus far in *Urban Connections*. We then conducted two different pieces of analysis. The first was a landscape review of strategic planning practices. Using a combination of surveys and desktop research, we were able to obtain data on strategic planning in 143 of the 202 cities studied for this research. The second piece of analysis was a more in-depth review of 29 strategic urban plans for 26 cities and metropolitan areas. This chapter presents our findings on how strategic plans are used as tools of city leadership in a diverse cross-section of cities around the world.

#### A key tool for city leadership

Strategic planning is an approach to setting and achieving objectives that originated in military planning, and was adopted by the private sector in the 1950s. It involves 'general policy and direction setting, situation assessments, strategic issue identification, strategy development, decision making, action, and evaluation' (Bryson and Roering, 1987: 14). In the 1970s and 80s, government leaders became interested in using strategic planning as a way to help plan for an uncertain future (Albrechts, 2004). Rather than a homogenous or prescriptive tool, strategic planning is 'a set of concepts, procedures and tools that may be used selectively for different purposes in different situations (Bryson, 2001, 2003, cited in Friedmann, 2004). Strategic planning focuses on decision-making and implementation, as well as monitoring the impact of implementation (Parnreiter, 2011). The strategic planning process that is commonly applied in business and organisation management often produces a suite of outputs that may include a vision, a set of objectives, an implementation plan, or a strategy for achieving the established objective, and an agreed process for monitoring and reviewing those objectives.

While strategic planning has a wide range of applications, the type of strategic planning that occurs in cities is often referred to as strategic *spatial* planning (Albrechts et al., 2003; Friedmann, 2004; Healey, 2007; Newman, 2008). Here, the word spatial comes from the fact that strategic planning is often a tool used by spatial planners, and strategic plans for cities often have a spatial dimension. Strategic planning in cities is usually used as an alternative to detailed land-use planning, and focuses on higher-level objective setting. Strategic plans set out priorities and principles, not detailed policy or spatial design (Albrechts, 2004, 2006; Mastop and Faludi, 1997; Newman and Thornley, 2011; UN-Habitat, 2009). Strategic plans for cities do, however, retain a focus on a specific place or geographical area (Albrechts, 2004; Newman and Thornley, 2011). The practice of applying strategic planning in the urban context has its roots in Europe but has spread to cities in Africa, Asia and Latin America (Carmona, 2009; Parnreiter, 2011; Steinberg, 2005; UN-Habitat, 2009).

While the practice of creating a SUP is relatively widespread, strategic urban planning is still a relatively recent concept. Few cities and few countries have established norms for the processes and tools of strategic urban planning (Steinberg, 2005) and approaches vary both within and between countries and regions. For the purposes of our research, we define strategic urban plans as city or region-wide strategic vision documents outlining the development trajectory of an urban area, with a focus on the priority areas in that context. This is intended to be a broad and inclusive definition, incorporating plans that cover both cities and metropolitan regions, and plans that retain elements of a more spatially-oriented approach. SUPs may vary in their level of detail but usually strike a balance between a high-level 'vision' setting out a city's aspirations, and detailed plans for implementing specific projects, policies or programmes. They are usually developed through a process that involves some degree of collaboration between the various actors involved in a city's leadership. This, combined with the authority of the institutions that produce them, give them legitimacy as statements of a city's visions, agendas and priorities.

Strategic planning is primarily a locally-driven process but other levels of government can also play a role. As scholars of the impact of multi-level governance on urban policy in Europe have noted, the European Union has shaped the way in which key issues are interpreted and acted upon (Bulkeley and Betsill, 2005; Marshall, 2004). As with the other dimensions of city leadership, other types of non-governmental international actors can influence strategic urban planning. International city networks, such as Eurocities in Europe and United Cities and Local Governments internationally, can also influence strategic urban planning processes. Forums that act as platforms for knowledge exchange between cities, or joint initiatives and research, may feed, usually indirectly, into strategic planning processes. City networks and their supporters may also intervene more directly, as is the case with the Rockefeller Foundation's 100 Resilient Cities programme. This philanthropic project has supported 100 cities to hire a Chief Resilience Officer and prepare a city resilience strategy.

Multilateral organisations such as the World Bank and UN-Habitat also play a role in the strategic planning of some cities, particularly in the Global South. For example, throughout the 1990s and 2000s, the Cities Alliance, a partnership focused on helping cities tackle poverty through grants and knowledge sharing, has supported dozens of cities to prepare City Development Strategies. Their approach included a guide that contains both recommendations on which themes to cover, and a methodology for developing a strategy (Cities Alliance, 2006).

As a process allowing for a focus in leadership priorities and orientation, strategic planning can lead to change (building and promoting a new agenda for a city) or increase the stability of governance (Healey, 2007). In this sense, strategic planning fits well within the complex, networked nature of contemporary urban governance. Drawing on the literature on strategic planning with the theory of city leadership adopted in this book, we argue that SUPs as tools of leadership can do several things.

#### 1 – Coordinate actors and institutions

The strategic planning process can bring together the many different public, private and civil society actors and groups with a stake in a city, and encourage them to work together (Healey, 2007). The process can provide an arena for playing out conflicts between different interest groups who wish to influence urban politics, such as public agencies, international businesses or civil society groups (Newman and Thornley, 2011). Strategic planning can build links, both upwards with other levels of government, as well as laterally with other key actors involved in leading a city (Albrechts, 2004; Hambleton and Howard, 2013).

#### 2 – Broaden participation in city leadership

Closely related to its coordinating role, strategic planning can make urban leadership and governance processes more inclusive and participative. The strategic planning process is often initiated by local government, but involves a range of actors from the public, private, educational and notfor-profit sectors (Albrechts, 2004, 2006; Carmona, 2009; Healey, 2007; Mastop and Faludi, 1997). It should adopt a participatory approach that takes the whole city into consideration, with particular attention paid to vulnerable, poor and marginalised groups (e.g. UN-Habitat, 2016b). In this way, strategic planning supports efforts 'to break away from the functional/sectoral organisation typical of many national and regional/local governments, and to widen governance relations to incorporate in new ways significant economic and local community stakeholders' (Albrechts et al., 2003: 114).

#### 3 – Establish durable governance priorities

Strategic plans set out priorities for city leaders to pursue. Being strategic requires being selective, so SUPs commonly set out a limited number of objectives and priorities and focus on these (Albrechts, 2004, 2006; UN-Habitat, 2009). Plans should also be forward thinking, setting out a vision for the future development of the city capable of mobilising stakeholders to engage and invest (Albrechts, 2004, 2006; Cities Alliance, 2006). Plans can help cities prepare for a range of possible future scenarios (Cities Alliance, 2006). If the plan-making process involves a broad coalition of actors and institutions, SUPs may withstand changes in government, allowing them to address issues that may take longer than a political cycle to address. However, one of the main factors for the success of the strategic planning process is that it has the support of city leadership, as implementation depends on the political will of mayors and other local authorities (Steinberg, 2005; Cities Alliance, 2006).

#### 4 – Focus attention on implementation

Its focus on priority issues makes strategic planning a good tool for integrating spatial, social, economic and environmental issues into strategic directions. In a context in which local government cannot simply steer development, strategic planning can focus the attention of the actors and institutions involved in leading a city on particular issues (Healey, 2007). Strategic planning is action and outcome-oriented, focusing on decisions, actions, results and implementation (Albrechts, 2004, 2006). Strategies should be connected to tasks and there should be a clear commitment to implement the strategies. There should also be a monitoring and evaluation plan in place to ensure that the strategies are followed. Strategic urban plans should direct investment towards priority areas and cost-effectively allocate resources to strategic areas (Cities Alliance, 2006). Clear role descriptions for planning and monitoring should be established and the plan management should be 'institutionalised' (Steinberg, 2005).

While SUPs are an opportunity to tackle the challenges set out in chapter 4 (poor participation, uncoordinated governance, insufficient funding) – they are not immune to them. They are required to be selective in what they address, focusing on a limited set of issues. The process by which these issues are selected, in particular who is involved and how, is of course deeply political (Healey, 2007). As with all planning documents developed by local or national governments, legitimacy of SUPs can also be an issue. Ideally, SUPs should be developed through an open and consultative process (giving them input-based legitimacy), while the plan itself and the objectives and priorities it sets should be widely accepted by stakeholders (giving it output-based legitimacy). However, in practice, this can be difficult to achieve. Even if plans are accepted as legitimate, this can quickly change. If legitimacy is not something that is gained and held, but rather a continuous process (Bénit-Gbaffou and Katsaura, 2014; Suchman, 1995), SUPs are likely to need regular revisions. There is also an inherent conflict between the long-term ambitions of many strategic plans (which, as we will demonstrate below, often look forward 10 years or more) and the short-term nature of the political cycle in many cities. Plans can lack longevity and are sometimes abandoned with a change in political leadership (UN-Habitat, 2009; Wu and Zhang, 2007). In addition, even if the legitimacy of strategic plans is well-established, their practical delivery is carried out by many structures and institutions, which creates potential for the inter-institutional conflicts and political agendas. This also means that it is not only the change of political leadership that poses a risk to the delivery of SUPs but also changes among the other actors and organisations involved in their delivery.

To a great extent then, strategic plans as a tool for city leadership are reliant on the actors and institutions of city leadership, which shape the quality and eventual effectiveness of the SUP that emerges. Studying SUPs and the way they are developed offers a window into the process of city leadership. However, there is currently very little international comparative work on strategic urban planning. That which does exist draws conclusions from practices in particular regions of the world (Healey, 2007; Steinberg, 2005). With this in mind, the *Urban Connections* project reviewed the international landscape of strategic planning in cities. Our objective was to, through our survey, learn more about the nature of strategic planning practices across the diverse range of cities included in the *Urban Connections* research project and how these are used as tools of city leadership.

#### The international landscape of SUPs

Strategic planning is a commonly used tool in cities around the world. Out of the 143 surveyed cities for which we obtained data on planning, a substantial majority (82 per cent) either had some form of SUP or were in the process of developing one (see Figure 5.1), while a percentage of cities don't currently have a SUP, but have had one previously.

There was also minimal variation in these findings between regions. South and Central Asia were slightly more likely to have a SUP in place. Sub-Saharan African cities were less likely to have a SUP in place but many cities were currently in the process of preparing one.

SUPs are varied in their style, focus and depth. Some plans closely followed the approach to strategic planning used by many businesses, in which leaders set out a vision, strategic objectives, actions and an approach to monitoring and evaluation. Others took on only some elements of this approach, with a stronger focus on the objectives but less on the implementation and evaluation. Some cities' plans resembled traditional land-use plans and elaborated a long list of objectives encompassing almost all thematic areas, while some focused on a set of priority themes. There were some regional trends in the type of plan and what it was called. In Africa and Southeast Asia, many cities still describe their strategic plans as a masterplan or development plan, or have in fact master plans that have evolved to become strategic plans – with the variations in vocabulary and legal frameworks in each city, it can be difficult

**Figure 5.1** Status of SUPs by region.

Source: authors

to draw a firm defining line. In the other regions, SUPs were more likely to be called a city strategy, strategic plan or vision.

SUPs are also different in their temporal horizons. We considered this characteristic to be particularly relevant, as it speaks of the ability of these SUPs to deliver on one of the purported advantages of strategic planning for cities: a long-range vision (Albrechts, 2004, 2006; Cities Alliance, 2006). To evaluate plans' timeframes, we collected data on the start and end year of each plan and calculated the average duration of SUPs in the cities included in the survey that currently have a SUP. The average length of plans overall was 15 years, the median 14 years. The longest was Calgary's 100-year strategic plan. There was no significant correlation between the nature of a leader's mandate (appointed or elected) and the length of a city's SUP.

In the *Urban Connections* survey, we asked the respondents in cities that have a SUP to rate the effectiveness of that plan in tackling the major challenges facing the city and to comment in more detail on the reasons for the rating. Overall the response was more positive than that to a similar question about the effectiveness of a government structure. Seventy-one per cent of respondents replied that the plan was partly,

**Figure 5.2** Strategic urban plan effectiveness. Source: authors

almost entirely, or entirely effective, as compared with 58 per cent for the effectiveness of government structure (see Figure 5.2). This finding may imply that there is some degree of faith in the capacity of strategic planning or that it is perceived as a more articulated tool for city leadership.

We also examined the extent to which the objectives set out in SUPs were aligned to those challenges the expert for that city identified in the survey. Overall there was a great deal of overlap, with nearly all plans very or partially aligned with the key challenges for their city. This is of course only a very preliminary way to assess how well a plan addresses the challenges faced in a city, because it does not identify how comprehensively the challenges are discussed in a SUP or whether the issue is being addressed effectively. However, this analysis does indicate that SUPs do attempt to address some of the critical issues for their cities. In the next section, we take a more in-depth look at how strategic plans work in practice.

### A tool for city leadership

To effectively analyse SUPs as a leadership tool required looking more deeply into the nature of strategic plans in a range of contexts. In order to obtain a representative picture of the strategic planning practice around the world, the diverse characteristics of strategic urban plans and their role in city leadership, the team reviewed the plans from 26 cities, which were selected to represent a cross-section of cities by region of the world, country, size and level of economic development.

The cities and plans examined are set out in Table 5.1. We attempted to gather an equal number of plans per region but this was not always possible as plans for some cities were not easily accessible. The majority of the plans selected address the city only. Some cities did not have a city-scale SUP but did have one for the metropolitan region. For three cities (Adelaide (Australia), Vancouver (Canada) and Manchester (UK)) there were both urban and metropolitan-scale plans available, as these

**Table 5.1** Documents reviewed for this research

**Table 5.1** (Continued)

cities have both a city government and a metropolitan governance body. In these cases, the team analysed both plans. Table 5.1 lists the documents reviewed and the scale they address. The one outlier was Lagos, which is a state rather than a city. As the Lagos SUP is at the state level, it could be considered to be a metropolitan plan. However, there is some disagreement about whether the state boundaries encompass the metropolitan area.

The research team reviewed the data on SUPs gathered in the review of the plans above in order to explore if and how they support city leadership in the four ways identified from the literature review: establishing durable governance priorities, coordinating actors and institutions, broadening participation in city leadership and focusing attention on implementation.

#### Establishing durable governance priorities

SUPs can help consolidate longer-range visions for a city around which the citizens and different stakeholders can unite, setting the governance priorities and the path forward that the city leadership aims to set. These priorities are often articulated and summarised into vision statements and strategic objectives. Therefore, to analyse how truly 'strategic' SUPs were, the team checked each plan to see if it had a clear vision statement and set of strategic objectives. We then reviewed the topics covered by the objectives. Almost all plans (90 per cent) had vision statements and all of them had some form of strategic objectives.

The majority of SUPs reviewed were structured into strategic objectives, although these were referred to with different names throughout (themes, pillars, strategies, objectives). The 29 SUPs had between four and 20 objectives with themes that often converged. The most frequently covered theme was economic development, followed closely by environmental issues (see Figure 5.3). In some cases, these two objectives overlapped – for example, Vancouver's Greenest City 2020 Action Plan includes a strategic objective of achieving a 'green economy'. Other frequently mentioned topics were transport and mobility. The issue of liveability is addressed through the next three most frequently mentioned topics, all of which are related to quality of life: education, living environment and community needs.

SUPs should be tools of city leadership conceived broadly and not by individual political leaders. They should set longer-range agendas that transcend political cycles and bring together different political sides around a common vision. But how resistant to political change are SUPs? To test this, we evaluated whether SUPs can withstand a change in government. For the 29 plans selected for detailed analysis, we evaluated whether each plan had survived a change in government since 2000. A large percentage of these plans (45 per cent) had endured at least one change in executive leadership – that is, they were not withdrawn, changed or deemed invalid. In addition, changes in a SUP do not appear to be linked to a change in government. Some cities have planning cycles of a standard length. For example, Singapore's concept plan is reviewed every 10 years . While it appears that SUPs can often survive a change in leadership, it is more difficult to understand whether the change affected the extent to which the plan was implemented.

**Figure 5.3** Most frequently mentioned themes in SUP objectives. Source: authors

### Coordinating actors and institutions

One of the most pressing challenges of urban governance is fragmentation or the poor level of coordination between the many different institutions and groups of people who play a role in cities. Our literature review pointed out that strategic urban plans have the potential to address this issue by uniting and consolidating these various players around a common agenda. This points to the importance of tools as a dimension of city leadership – they are the mechanism through which actors and structures are brought together to establish and work towards common goals. Leadership tools like SUPs can build links, both within different government sectors and between higher and lower government tiers as well as laterally with other actors involved in leading a city. For example, having a strategic plan at the metropolitan scale can help overcome fragmentation between local government jurisdictions and encourage a joined-up approach to managing urban change. To explore this coordinating role further, we reviewed plans for evidence of connections with other levels of government. While we cannot glean from the plan documents how collaborative the planning process was, we could investigate the links and references to higher tier plans and documents in the SUPs. Integrating a plan into existing higher tier plans suggests some level of communication and collaboration with actors in the higher tiers of government.

We began by simply looking for evidence in SUPs of intentions for the city to coordinate with higher tiers of government (e.g. regional, state, national). Most SUPs referred to other levels of government. Most of these had some evidence of coordination, meaning there were mentions of other levels of government (see Figure 5.4). For example, there are references to national strategies in the Kigali Master Plan Report but no details on how the plan aligns with these. The remaining plans were split evenly, meaning they identified other plans as well as how these plans aligned; for example, Hong Kong: 2030 Planning Vision and Strategy has a chapter on the national dimension of the plan but no evidence of coordination. An interesting focus for an in-depth case study of SUPs would be to analyse the levels of coordination and collaboration between actors and institutions in the – potentially decades long – practical delivery of strategic urban plans.

A SUP is rarely the only planning document in a city. In many cities, SUPs form part of a suite of plans. Often the SUP is the highest-level plan, with additional more sector-specific subsidiary plans and/or action plans sitting underneath it. SUPs can also be affected by higher tier plans, regional strategies, etc. In cities under the jurisdiction of a metropolitan tier of government, the city's plan may be positioned underneath or alongside a metropolitan plan. In some cases, national policy also establishes the context or environment in which a SUP is developed and operates. Relevant plans may also be developed by non-governmental actors.

Therefore, as another way to evaluate how strategic SUPs are in building links, the team also looked for evidence that SUPs linked to other plans or strategies – both links upwards to strategies and plans developed

Source: authors

by higher levels of government (for example, if examining a city plan, then any regional or national plans) and links downwards (a plan for a particular topic, such as transport, or for a specific district of a city). The SUPs reviewed had very few links upwards (see Figure 5.5). Only three cities, Christchurch, Bogotá and Adelaide explicitly referenced plans and strategies from a higher level of government. By contrast, a substantial majority of plans (23 out of 29) referred to other plans or strategies being implemented from a city government level.

Finally, another relevant aspect of SUPs that determines their capacity as a tool to overcome fragmentation is how embedded they are in the system of structures and institutions, i.e. what is the legal format of strategic urban plans. Our research showed that while masterplans/ land-use plans are commonly statutory, prescriptive and required by law, strategic plans are still more likely to be voluntary, i.e. not defined by legislation. Of our sample 29, 66 per cent were developed voluntarily, and 34 per cent were statutory. While a voluntary format has the advantage of deeming the SUP a more flexible tool that can be directed and adjusted by the local government actors, the potential drawback is that being outside of the structures, not backed up by any law or statute, it is often not clear how they are to be implemented, particularly when they are divergent from the existing statutory land-use plan. This lack

#### **Figure 5.5** SUP links to other plans. Source: authors

of formal institutional approval and authority may limit the impact SUPs have as tools of leadership, and it would be interesting to further investigate how the balance between flexibility and innovation can be achieved for SUPs, and whether statutory support would help establish SUPs as stronger tools to counterbalance fragmentation.

### Broadening participation in city leadership

One of the challenges of governance for local leadership found in the *Urban Connections* survey is participation and public accountability in the planning and decision-making processes. We hypothesised that SUPs are a tool that can contribute to broadening participation, because they should encompass a wide range of issues and provide an opportunity to give input in deciding which are the priorities that city leadership should focus on. The process of strategic planning is not straightforward to analyse and evaluate using a methodology in which the focus of inquiry was the end project of the planning process (the SUPs) rather than the process itself or the people involved in it. Accepting this limitation, we developed

a number of proxy indicators that could be used to give a baseline assessment of how participative the planning process was. We focused on who was involved in the process of strategic planning, as this information was either in the plans or fairly easy to obtain.

We began by identifying the primary organisations who initiated and drove the plan development process, leading on researching and writing the plan. Our findings indicate that strategic planning is a public-sector-led activity but involves a number of other partners. The vast majority of the plans (27, or 92 per cent) were driven by the relevant local government authority. However, in many cases, local governments worked with a partner organisation to develop their plans (see Figure 5.6). This was a mixture of consultants, multilateral organisations (such as the World Bank or UN-Habitat) and other levels of government. As can be seen in Figure 5.7, for the majority of plans at least one partner was included in the development process. These cases demonstrate how other levels of government and even international actors can play a role in shaping a SUP, making them more than just a local city leadership tool. While,

**Figure 5.7** Partners in SUP processes. Source: authors

overall, we found that all the SUPs we reviewed were largely focused on tackling local issues in the city they focused on, deeper analysis would doubtless reveal the way the agendas of these non-local actors shaped the tool that resulted.

We also reviewed the number and types of other organisations who, while not leading the process, were actively engaged and included in the development process through different participatory mechanisms. For 24 of the 29 plans reviewed there was evidence that other organisations participated in the plan development process. The most common development partners mentioned in plans were the local community and community groups, other levels of government and the private sector. The local community or community groups were listed as partners in strategic urban plans where community participation had a relevant role in the process. One such example is Bogotá's strategic plan for 2012–2016, titled 'Human Bogotá'. On its front page, the plan states that it is the product of a participatory process fostering direct democracy that consisted of around 300 meetings attended by 230,000 citizens.

Finally, we wished to understand how partner engagement actually fed through to the implementation of the plan. To study this, the research team reviewed whether the SUPs, in their action and implementation plans, mentioned projects and initiatives led by other actors involved in city leadership. The majority of SUPs (23, or 79 per cent) did do so. Most of the projects mentioned are being implemented by other levels of government, though some were led by the private sector as well. However, interestingly, even though community groups were the most common 'partner' in the process, the City of Adelaide Strategic Plan 2012–2016 was the only plan to include community-led projects. Adelaide, which promotes itself as having a strong sense of community, mentions activities such as a community events calendar, gardens, centres and clubs. It

**Figure 5.8** Organisations involved in the plan development process and project implementation. Source: authors

appears that, in this sample of plans at least, involvement in the planning process does not automatically lead to direct involvement in the activities that emerge from the plan (see Figure 5.8).

This exploration of different aspects of participation in the process of strategic urban planning provides only a limited glance at the issue. To be truly effective as tools of leadership, SUPs would ideally be developed through a broad, transparent, inclusive process, adjusted to each context and circumstance – something that is best assessed through detailed case study research.

#### Focusing attention on implementation

To be true tools of city leadership, SUPs should do more than set out priorities for directing action and investment. However, the majority of plans – 66 per cent – were voluntary, meaning there was no statutory, legally binding imperative to implement them. The research team therefore looked for evidence of implementation plans or mechanisms that a city could use to take action on the objectives in the plan.

For the majority of plans, 72 per cent, there was substantial evidence of some form of an implementation plan; either a description of specific policies and mechanisms, or clear links to who would carry out actions included in the plan. For another 17 per cent of plans, there was only some evidence that an implementation plan was in place. These plans referenced implementation policies or implementing bodies but without detailed explanation, at times referring to additional documents that still needed to be developed. Approaches to implementation planning vary. In some cases, cities created new documents setting out how to take action on strategic plan objectives. Other cities aligned the strategic plan with other existing documents, plans and policies. Some plans were specific about who was responsible for taking actions, others left things more open.

The final element of SUPs that the research team analysed was their adaptability. Conditions in cities can change rapidly and city leadership needs to adapt and evolve. With an average length of 15 years, SUPs risk becoming out of date very quickly. Regular monitoring and evaluation (M&E) can mitigate this. For the majority of SUPs (72 per cent) we found some evidence or substantial evidence of M&E taking place, indicating that this important element of strategic planning has been embraced by many cities. Some plans specifically recognise the role of M&E in maintaining the flexibility and adaptability of the plan. For example, the Aberdeen City and Shire Strategic Development Plan identifies monitoring methods for each objective. It states that, even though the plan is to be revised every four years, monitoring must be continuous in order to ensure that the objectives are met considering the significant changes in society, economy, environment and population that will inevitably take place.

Our findings on implementation simply reinforce the strength of evidence that some form of implementation or M&E mechanisms existed. We recognise that successfully implementing a plan is far more complex than putting something on paper, and studying it requires more comprehensive research examining everything from coordination of roles and responsibilities within government, to financing mechanisms and competent staff. However, this initial desktop review does indicate that cities that develop strategic plans understand the importance of translating the plan into an action plan and monitoring it over time. Ultimately, however, the power of SUPs as city leadership tools depends largely on how they are embedded into the functioning of actors, structures and institutions.

#### Conclusions

The importance of strategic planning as a key driver to delivering successful urban development has echoed loudly across the statements of Habitat III and the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. While this research demonstrates that strategic planning is a popular tool in a wide range of cities, this review of the plans, their development processes and implementation, reveals substantial variations – in the plans themselves as well as in the process by which they are developed and implemented. Cities clearly see value in connecting this tool with other elements of city leadership. In almost all the plans we reviewed, while the city government led the planning process they included at least one development partner, and often more. The same is true for implementation, with many plans attempting to link the strategy to existing actors and institutions. Reviewing strategic plans in this way reveals the interrelatedness of the three elements of city leadership. It also demonstrates that the value of strategic planning as a tool may be in large part its ability to bring together many actors and institutions to work towards mutually agreed objectives.

A next step that could be of great use to city leadership would be to measure and evaluate the impact of strategic urban plans, and identify where SUPs have aided city leaders to advance their agendas and achieve positive change. This monitoring function is likely to be even more critical as other elements of city leadership evolve. For example, the number of newly formed metropolitan governments seems to be growing, reshaping the institutional landscape of city leadership.

While the pervasiveness of SUPs demonstrates that strategic urban planning is globally considered to be an important tool for city leadership, this is not visibly acknowledged on an international scale. For instance, strategic urban plans are not mentioned in recent multilateral agreements, such as the Sustainable Development Goals or the New Urban Agenda, and are rarely the object of international initiatives. The Quito Implementation Plan for the New Urban Agenda makes a series of commitments towards an 'urban paradigm shift grounded in the integrated and indivisible dimension of sustainable development: social, economic, and environmental'. However, it does not provide any specific planning instruments for implementation but rather generally mentions 'urban policies, strategies and plans', encouraging UN agencies, stakeholders and member states to 'generate evidence-based and practical guidance' for implementation. Strategic urban plans might be one such example of a planning instrument worthy of further exploration as a city leadership tool that could assist cities towards the implementation of the New Urban Agenda. However, their potential and effectiveness should be studied based on case-studies of current and past strategic urban plans, alongside other alternative city leadership tools.

## 6 Conclusion: a search for better city leadership

As city leaders begin to take a greater role on the national and international stage, so too should the practice and study of city leadership. This book has attempted to contribute to this emerging field by mapping the current landscape of leadership in cities around the world. Our approach was grounded in two principles: first, that studies of city leadership must go beyond a focus on individual leaders and, second, that they must take into account the experiences of all types of cities. Drawing on a study of leadership in a diverse array of over 200 cities, we have presented both a theoretical approach to unpacking and analysing city leadership and a broad evidence base about what it currently looks like around the world. We hope that this study will inform future work, by both scholars and practitioners, to better understand and improve city leadership practices around the globe.

#### Leadership, not leaders

In this book, we have argued that it is time to expand the definition of city leadership beyond individual leaders. Leaders are, without question, central to city leadership. However, a blinkered focus on individuals when studying city leadership risks overlooking the broader assemblage of multiple and interconnected elements that shape the way the process of leadership operates in cities. Effective leadership is not just something created by an individual. City leadership includes not just the efforts of visionary individuals but the structures and plans that are essential to turning an individual's vision into reality.

Therefore, we have suggested widening the focus of inquiry when considering how cities are led by thinking about *leadership* of cities, not just leaders. Building on data from a large sample of cities, we have attempted to demonstrate the value, for urban policy and politics, of an approach to studying leadership that considers the actors, structures and tools that form city leadership. All cities face leadership challenges, and studying leadership as a multi-faceted concept helps reveal them more quickly than looking at leaders alone.

In chapter 3 we reviewed the current characteristics of the actors and governance structures that formally make up city leadership in over 200 cities around the world. The overall perception of the experts who contributed to this research was largely negative. Leaders and structures, they noted, face significant challenges including coordination, finance and lack of engagement and accountability. The review of an important tool of city leadership, strategic urban plans, in chapter 5, allowed us to explore how cities are tackling both these challenges and the thematic challenges described in chapter 4. The process of leadership plays out through the development and implementation of these plans, whereby objectives and priorities are established.

#### One size does not fit all

Our research found that there is no template, model or one-size-fitsall approach to city leadership. Centralised, one-tiered, forms of urban governance were the most common system in the cities we studied. In addition, the cities did commonly have certain features, such as having a mayor, and some form of a strategic urban plan. However, there were no clear patterns or categories based on the type of city being studied. For example, it was not the case that widely known 'global' cities such as London and Tokyo took one approach and smaller cities, such as Nicosia or Recife, another.

In addition, as discussed in chapter 3, there are also no evident correlations between the form and characteristics of urban government and leadership, and its performance. While mayors are often visible on a national and global stage, a centralised, one-tier system of city government with a strong mayor in charge is not a silver bullet for creating effective city leadership. Democracy is an important factor but, again, city-wide elections are not a solution on their own. Overall there was a great deal of discontent with the performance of local government. In close to half of the cities we surveyed, experts said that the structure of urban governance is either partly or entirely ineffective in addressing local challenges. This dissatisfaction with the structural set-up of city leadership cut across cities with one-tiered, two-tiered and pluralised systems.

This, to us, hints at the need to tailor city governance to local needs and local dynamics, rather than simply searching for an ideal 'model' of leadership. The exact mix of actors, structures and tools that will create effective leadership in a city will vary. The key to success is not in a formula, or model, but a locally tailored combination that balances these three elements. The key to effective city leadership, then, is not about the right mayor, the perfect plan, the reformed city council, but about the way all the elements of city leadership come together, interact and create something that is greater than the sum of its parts.

#### City leadership is embedded in a globalised world

Traditional outlooks on urban leadership and governance tend to focus on the city, or the urban region, as the primary geographical unit of analysis. Challenges and solutions are taken as being largely local in nature. Yet as chapter 4 highlighted, the challenges facing cities, and the capacity of urban leadership and governance to address these, are shaped by more than local issues. Cities, even smaller ones, are often influenced by national, regional and trans-national drivers, from macroeconomic trends, to political conflicts and environmental change. Poverty and inequality, environmental sustainability and effective governance were all cited as key challenges for the cities we studied. While local factors certainly play an important role in creating these challenges, clearly these are not just local concerns. The 2008 global financial crisis, for example, has had a profound impact on city leadership and governance, in particular on the fiscal health of cities.

At the macro-level, the twin drivers of urbanisation and globalisation are reshaping the geography of world politics and global markets. Cities are increasingly embedded in regional and global flows of capital, people and ideas. This has been combined with a relative decline, in many locations, of the welfare state's control of many aspects of social life. At the same time, from a 'micro' level, civil society and individual non-governmental initiatives have progressively risen to the forefront as key drivers of everyday economics and politics. As Denters and Rose (2005: 2) put it in an early-2000s review of city politics in the twentieth century, cities have been faced with substantial shifts in both 'their external socio-economic and broader political environments' while also being 'confronted with changes in the nature of their local communities'. Local governments have to respond to the challenges that arise from growing interconnectedness.

This is not to say that cities are at the mercy of exogenous, external forces. The way challenges manifest in cities is the result of the complex interplay between localised dynamics and global pressures. Solutions, then, need to be both locally embedded but also informed by practices elsewhere. To this end, cities are increasingly seeking to capitalise on this growing international connectivity by advocating for themselves and developing solutions at an international level. The growing number of national and international city networks focusing on issues from climate change to health attests to this (Acuto, 2016). City networks enable city leaders to learn from one another and plan jointly through the institutionalisation of forums and the promotion of policy mobility (McCann, 2011) via events, campaigns and joint projects. As studies (e.g. Bulkeley et al., 2003) have shown, networks have an effective impact on policy formulation and implementation, and play an important role in connecting leaders and accelerating local (and increasingly international) change. Practitioners in international planning have already recognised, perhaps even more explicitly than scholars, how city-to-city cooperation is an extremely important tool for city leadership. This cooperation allows them to share technical know-how and develop tools and structures beyond those normally available to local government to implement their plans (Keiner and Kim, 2007).

Despite the growth in city-to-city networking and international trans-urban outreach, our research found that the tools that cities use are still very local in nature. Our review of strategic urban plans, which we demonstrated are one of the most common tools of city leadership, found that while links downward to more localised plans were common, links upward to national and international agendas were not. Similarly, our review of the actors taking part in SUPs found that this tended to be a very localised group of people. This approach needs to be updated to ensure that SUPs, as a tool of city leadership, account for the profound impact that national and transnational events, flows and actors have on cities.

#### The future of city leadership: a need for reflection

This book has argued for a multi-dimensional, global approach to studying the process of city leadership. It is natural for a broad, comparative study such as this to raise more questions than it answers and we recognise that there is much more work to be done. Our aim has been to encourage greater reflection on city leadership, in terms of what it is, how it operates and how it can respond to the diverse and complex challenges faced by cities around the world.

Going forward, both practitioners and scholars must work to reflect on and assess the experience of city leadership, and the lessons that can be learned, by drawing on a broad range of cities. City leaders and the other elements of city leadership often embrace ambitious visions and plans. Unfortunately, all too often these plans are not completed and become the victim of resource shortages, bureaucratic inefficiencies, corruption and the constraints that a short political cycle places on achieving long-term objectives. As with any level of government, a legacy of promises that are not delivered upon weakens city leadership. However, failures of leadership can be more immediately evident and catastrophic at the city level than at other levels because of the role of local government in delivering the services that people rely on in their everyday lives.

Despite the crucial role of city leadership in the well-being of the majority of the world's population, it is surprising that city leadership and how it can be improved are not 'hot topics' in scholarship on urban issues. Neither the New Urban Agenda, for instance, nor the Sustainable Development Goals, focus on the evaluation of old and new governance structures or tools. Since Habitat III, there has been a great deal of debate on the interface between science and policy, or academics and local governments. Evaluating current models of leadership and governance, and developing evidence-based suggestions for improving these, are one of the more significant contributions that academia and research institutions could make to support cities to achieve the SDGs.

Evidence-based assessments, both comparative as we have tried to do here and more localised studies, will be fundamental to understand the current state of city leadership around the world and how to improve it. From a methodological standpoint, one challenge will be to balance the need for comparative work while still providing localised and policy-relevant insights. A core component of future scholarship must be a recognition that ideas and solutions will come from many different places. Knowledge sharing follows many trajectories and scholars must take care not to make assumptions about where the ideas worth sharing come from. In our research, no clear distinctions emerged about the better 'performers', in terms of leadership, between the Global North and South. In fact, certain regions that might be traditionally thought of as 'developing' might have much to teach the Global North. For example, our research found that the Latin America and Caribbean region has a much higher proportion of women in leadership roles.

This leads us to advocate, even more firmly than at the outset of the project and the book, for greater global attention to the dynamics of urban governance. The role of leadership in creating urban policy, directing urban development and reconciling everyday urban needs with global aspirations must be better appreciated by scholars and practitioners alike.

## Appendices Appendix 1: List of cities that were included in the survey

## Appendix 2: List of Strategic Urban Plans reviewed in-depth

### References

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Bolden R and Kirk P, 2006, 'From leaders to leadership', *Effective Executive* 8(10): 27–33

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Conley D T and Goldman P, 1994, 'Facilitative leadership: How principals lead without dominating', *OSSC Bulletin* 37(9), http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED379728

Northouse P G, 2012, *Leadership: Theory and Practice*. 6th ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

### Index

**Bold** page numbers indicate figures, *italic* numbers indicate tables. 100 Resilient Cities project 31 Aberdeen 70 Abu Dhabi 45, 68 academic study of city leadership, challenges of 4 *see also* research project accountability to constituencies 35 *see also* public accountability and participation actors in city leadership 29, 30–1, 44–7, **46, 47, 48** challenges re. structures 48–55 coordination with institutions 79–80, 88–91, **90, 91** strategic urban plans (SUPs) 79–80 Addis Ababa 72 Addis Ababa Action Agenda 2, 24 Adelaide 68, 74, 93 affordable housing 67–9 age-friendly cities 49, 66–7 agencies/tiers, coordination between 48–51 Algiers 69 Amman 68, 74 Amsterdam 49, 67 Antananarivo 66 appointment of leaders 45, 47 Astana 66 Atlanta 72 Baguio 68 Baku 69 Bangalore 69 Bangkok 66 Barcelona 70 Bass, B.M. 14 Beirut 52, 66 Belfast 45, 47 Berlin 40, 70 bicycle-sharing schemes 64 Bloomberg, Michael 2, 32, 51 Bogota 93 Bologna 70 Brasília 45 Bremmer, Ian 3 bribery in city leadership 52–4 Brisbane 69, 74 Brussels 66, 69

Budapest 54 Bulawayo 49, 66, 72 Busan 70, 71 Cairo 40 Calgary 67, 69 Cape Town 74 car-sharing schemes 64 Caracas 68 catalyst, leadership as 29, 57 challenges for city leadership connectivity 62–4 consistency in 74

Bucharest 50, 52, 72

diversity of city populations 64–7 durability of governance priorities 80, 87 economic vitality 70–2 effective governance as unifying theme 62 environmental sustainability 72–4 housing 67–9 inequality 65–6 as local and global 62 mobility 62–4 research aims 59 spatial planning 67–70 survey most frequent mentions **60** sustainability 72–4 top categories 61, *61* transport infrastructure 63–4 unemployment 72 Changwon 67 Chicago 52 Christchurch 70 cities age-friendly 49, 66–7 diversity of ix future, leadership of x as global force x–xi increased visibility of 1 shapes and sizes of x strategic planning for x Cities Alliance 79 citizen inclusion 43, 54–5 strategic urban plans (SUPs) 80, 91–4, **92, 93, 94** city leadership actors in 29, 44–7, **46, 47, 48** challenges between actors and structures 48–55 complexity of, increase in 17 consistencies across cities 55 context of, importance of 35

effectiveness of structures in 42–4, **43,** 55–6, 56–7 evolution of, need for 21 facilitative leadership 27–8 financial constraints 51–2 future cities x future for 100–2 gender of city leaders 45, **46,** 58 global agendas of 1–3 global urban governance and 22–5, **23,** 99–100 governance, importance to 48 governance models and ixv from government to governance 17–19 increased visibility of 1 individuals as leaders 44, 97–8 institutions in 31–2 interactions of ix–x international importance of 3 lack of definition and knowledge about 3 leadership not leaders 97–8 length of term served 47 local links 3 mandate of leaders 45, 47, **47** multi-disciplinary perspectives 25 partnerships in 18 place, focus on 25–7 research into 27 structures and institutions of 29, 31–2, 36–42, **37, 40, 41** studying, challenges of 4 tailored to local needs 98–9 theories of 27–9, 27–34, **29** theories of leadership and 25–6 three elements of **29,** 29–33 titles of city leaders 45 tools of 30, 32–3 typology of city government structures 38 variety of roles in 59 *see also* challenges for city leadership; theories of leadership city-regions 20 city-states 36–7 civic engagement 43, 54–5 civil society movements 23 climate change 1, 2, 3, 9, 24, 33, 44, 56, 59, 61, 65, 73, 74, 100 Climate Leadership Group (C40) 23, 36, 42, 51, 59, 72 community-based organisations 31 complexity leadership 29 structures in city leadership 42–3 Complexity Leadership Theory (CLT) 16–17 congestion 62–3 connectivity as challenge for city leadership 62–4 consultation, public 54–5 context of city leadership, importance of 35 contingency model 14 cooperative arrangements 39 coordination actors and institutions 79–80, 88–91, **90, 91** between tiers/agencies 48–51 corruption 52–4, 58 crowdsourcing web platforms 33

D'Alessandro, C. 26 data gathering for research project 6–8 debt, international 71 decentralisation of governance 21, 35, 44, 49, 52–3 Delhi 69 demographic changes 66–7 Detroit 71 Dinh, J.E. 12, 14 disasters 1, 2, 24, 44, 70, 74 distributed leadership 16, 21, 28 diversity ix city populations 64–7 government structures 39–40 Dubai 43, 63, 66 durability governance priorities 80, 87 leadership structures and institutions 32 economic vitality of cities 70–2 elderly, needs of 49, 66–7 election of leaders 45 entity perspectives 15 environmental sustainability as challenge for city leadership 72–4 ethnic diversity in cities 66 facilitative leadership 27–8 federal countries 36–7 federal districts 37 Fiedler, F.E. 14 finance in SDGs 58 financial constraints in city leadership 51–2 fiscal autonomy 37 FixMyStreet 33 Florence 70, 71 food inequality 66 foreign investment 52 formality of leadership structures and institutions 32, 38–9 fraud in city leadership 52–4 future cities, leadership of x Gaborone 54, 70 gender of city leaders 45, **46,** 58 geographies of governance 19–20 Germany 36–7 global cities 6, 9, 66 global urban governance agendas of city leaders 1–3, 56 city leadership and 22–5, **23,** 35, 99–100 coordination between city tiers/agencies 51 economics, city 71 global force, cities as x–xi international dimension of city leadership 22–5 'scale jumping' 51 strategic urban plans (SUPs) 96 global urbanisation, promise of ix governance as challenge 36, **37** challenges effecting city leadership 48–55 consistencies across citiies 55 coordination between tiers/agencies 48–51 corruption 52–4 decentralisation 48

durability of priorities 80 effective as challenge for city leadership 62 financial constraints 51–2 geographies of 19–20 global urban, city leadership and 22–5, **23** importance to city leadership 48 inclusiveness 43, 54–5 jurisdiction, institutional 50 leadership in context of 21–2 metropolitan tiers of government 50–1 mobility and 63–4 models, leadership and ix moves towards in city leadership 17–19 national/local complexities 49 tailored to local needs 98–9 typology of city government structures 38 governor as title of city leaders 45 Graen, G.B. 13 Greasley, S. 28 Habitat III 2, 3 Hambleton, R. 21, 25-7, 28-9, 80 Havana 53 Hidalgo, Anne 1–2 Hong Kong 63, 66, 89 housing 67–9 Huancayo 68, 74 Ibadan 69 ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability 59, 72 image of the city 70 immigrants 66 inclusiveness of governance systems 43, 54–5 strategic urban plans (SUPs) 80, 91–4, **92, 93, 94** individuals 44 length of term 47 mandate of leaders 45, 47, **47** as not leaders 97–8 titles of city leaders 45 inequality access to transport 63 in cities 65–6 environmental issues and 73–4 informal settlements 69 information technology as tool for city leadership 33 institutional reforms 21–2 institutions in city leadership 29, 31–2, 36–42, **37, 40, 41** coordination with actors 79–80, 88–91, **90** jurisdiction 50 strategic urban plans (SUPs) 79–80 instruments of city leadership *see* strategic urban plans (SUPs); tools of city leadership integration in cities 66 interactions between leaders and others 13 international dimension of city leadership 22–5 *see also* global urban governance Islamabad 74 issues for city leadership *see* challenges for city leadership Istanbul 70

Jeddah 69 Jerusalem 70 jurisdiction, institutional 50 Kansas City 52 Karachi 54 Kearns, A. 56 Kigali Master Plan Report 89 Kingston 71 Kisumu 69 Kuala Lumpur 63 Kumasi 53, 62, 66, 68, 69 Lagos 40 land distribution and management 68 language as issue in research project 9–10 leader-based approaches to leadership 14–15 Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) theory 15 leadership in context of governance 21–2 leader-based approaches 14–15 not leaders 97–8 scholarly approaches to 11

transactional/transformational 14 *see also* city leadership; theories of leadership Léautier, F. 26 legitimacy in local government 21–2, 31–2 strategic urban plans (SUPs) 81–2 Leuven 74 Lima 52 local authorities as international partners 24 local leadership, focus on 21 London 39, 66, 98 Los Angeles 66 Luxembourg 52, 71

Lyon 66

Macau 71 Male 66 mandate of leaders 45, 47, **47** Manila 39–40 Maputo 73 Maringá 62, 69 mayors 44 as international actors 3 as title of city leaders 45 mechanisms of city leadership *see* tools of city leadership Melbourne 69 methodological challenges of research project 9–10 metropolitan government approach 20 metropolitan regions 19 metropolitan tiers of government 50–1, 52 Milan 69 military conflicts 66 Medellin 33 Minsk 52, 53, 70 mobility as challenge for city leadership 62–4 Monrovia 63 Munich 62

Nairobi 53, 68 nation states as urban actors 24–5 national context, city status in 40

national economy, cities and 71 national/local complexities 49 networks city **23,** 24, 36, 40, **41,** 42, 100 environmental sustainability 72–3 regional/international 22–5 role of 18–19 New Orleans 72 New Urban Agenda 57, 96 New York 52, 54, 66, 74 Nicosia 63, 68 non-linearity of leadership 29 older people, needs of 49, 66–7 100 Resilient Cities project 31 one-tier systems 38, 39 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reports 20 Osaka 50, 52 Paddison, R. 56 Panama City 43 Paramaribo 63 Paris 50 Paris Conference on Climate Change 3, 24 Parnell, S. 2, 23, 53 participation in city leadership *see* public accountability and participation partnerships in city leadership 18 Perth 71 philanthropy, growth of globally 24 physical planning, lack of 63 place-based leadership 25–7 research into 27 *see also* city leadership planning physical, lack of 63 spatial, as challenge for city leadership 67–70 urban growth 68 pluralised systems 38, 39 polycentric perspective 20 population changes 66–7 Port-au-Prince 72 Port of Spain 62, 63 Portland 68, 70 private investment, growth of globally 24 process, leadership as a 13, 15–17, 28, 30 property, leadership as a 12–13, 14–15 public accountability and participation 43, 54–5 strategic urban plans (SUPs) 80, 91–4, **92, 93, 94** public transport 63–4 Purdue, D. 27 Quito Implementation Plan of the New Urban Agenda 57, 96

reforms, institutional 21–2 regeneration of city centres 70 regime theory 21 regional military conflicts 66 regional scale 19–20 government structure 39, **40** relationship-based approaches to leadership 15–17 research project