Taken together, this year’s GCI and GCO results clarify the enduring and changing requirements of resilience for global cities. It is to these changes and imperatives they imply for city leaders that we now turn.

Toward global recovery and urban well-being

The pandemic and the stunningly rapid advance of virtual interaction in response to it have brought into question the relevance of cities and the agglomeration economies on which their traditional value proposition is founded. For global cities, the challenge has been even existential as the perceived risks of global connectivity came to overshadow the benefits in the eyes of many. The impact of the pandemic varied across cities, across factors such as timing of the pandemic’s hit, the strength of existing social safety nets, pre-existing structure of local economies, public policy decisions, and even individual behaviors. However, by several measures, global cities were among the first and the hardest hit.

In July of 2020, while the nation-wide rate of unemployment in the United States was already recovering (if still shockingly high) at 10.2 percent, New York City continued to suffer a 19.8 percent unemployment rate. The strict lockdown measures and movement restrictions imposed by cities for the sake of public safety caused many residents to reconsider the value of living in a city at all. If one couldn’t go out and enjoy all that a city had traditionally offered, was it worth the high rent, cramped apartment living, and limited access to green space? The meteoric rise of remote working and explosion of the digital economy allowed some—particularly those who already worked in the high-earning creative and knowledge economies— to imagine a future in which living outside the city was more viable, made possible by a less frequent need to commute. And of course, the attractiveness of a life outside the city limits only grew as cities also suffered several non-COVID-related crises, from extreme weather events to continued egregious acts of social injustice.

Yet, just as they led the medical response to COVID-19, cities are now on the front lines in leading the global recovery from the pandemic, rebuilding individual lives and communities in the process. As the economic and social hubs of the world, global cities have the opportunity to lead in creating what’s next, by addressing issues of economic resilience and systemic inequalities to create greater prosperity for all. While leaders around the world are struggling to address many difficult issues, in addition to a pandemic that is unfortunately as of this writing still very much under way, city leaders are facing three fundamental challenges that most clearly characterize the current moment:

Economic recession. The pandemic sent an unprecedented shock wave through the global economy, with an estimated GDP contraction of 3.5 percent. Across the globe, we saw record highs in unemployment, idiosyncratic supply chain bottlenecks and disruptions from plummeting oil prices to microchip shortages, and large-scale emergency government spending to prop up economies. Now, as nations and cities look to recover economically, the enduring scars of this disruption have begun to show. How will cities reconstruct local and regional economies in the face of large-scale labor market disruption, changed composition of the global economy, and perhaps fundamentally altered human behavior?
Climate change and extreme weather. Though the pandemic-induced slowdown of the global flow of goods and people contributed to a 2 billion ton decrease of gas emissions (about 6 percent) in 2020, the good news for the climate was short-lived. A strong global economic rebound at the end of 2020 saw December emissions exceed those of the previous year, and the newest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states with high confidence that global warming is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate. Slowing this and limiting warming beyond that point will require radical change at all levels of society and across the globe. In the meantime, extreme temperatures and weather disasters will become more common and devastating—the most recent example: within two weeks, storms Henri and Ida set and then broke new records for rainfall in New York City. The human-driven climate crisis is well under way. For global cities, the challenge is two-pronged: how can they both address their own contributions to the problem, lowering emissions generated by their own activity, while also investing in resilience to withstand the disasters and changes that are already upon them?
Threats to individual well-being. The worry, fear, and loss that swept the globe as the coronavirus spread took a serious toll on individual well-being, especially mental health. The virus and the measures implemented to “flatten the curve” heightened conditions that can contribute to poor mental health. Many people experienced financial insecurity and fear of unemployment, but nearly all also experienced isolation, lack of a daily routine, and limited access to physical exercise. Just as economic scars have begun to show, so too have the enduring mental and emotional scars of this experience. For healthcare workers in particular, the lingering effects are stark. One study of nurses exposed to COVID-19 in China found a posttraumatic stress disorder incidence of 16.83 percent. And while the global experience with COVID-19 has heightened awareness of the reality of mental health issues, it has also highlighted the severe underfunding and neglect that many mental health services worldwide have faced for years, as well as the myriad ways in which city living can be detrimental to mental health—especially for the poor. As cities continue to grow, tipping the world’s population ever-more toward the urban, how can they do so in ways that not only drive economic growth, innovation, and cultural creativity, but also advance human well-being?

Global cities as drivers of a global recovery

In the face of these daunting challenges, cities are and will remain our most important centers of economic activity, while providing more economic opportunities and a better quality of life to individuals. Even with the explosion of the digital economy, cities continue to offer unique benefits that drive increased productivity and economic growth. The labor market pooling, input sharing, and knowledge spillovers that occur with co-location simply cannot be replicated without physical proximity. Further, the supposed benefits of working from home (WFH) have increasingly come into question. Though early-pandemic news headlines celebrated the greater flexibility offered by WFH arrangements and employers proclaimed a likely increase in productivity, a July study from the Becker Freidman Institute at the University of Chicago found that WFH during the pandemic has merely served to increase the hours worked, with an estimated productivity decline of 8 to 19 percent. Additionally, multiple studies have shown that permanent telework, even if feasible, is not preferable. Most have found the complete transition to working from home to be isolating and a recipe for loneliness. Given this wealth of evidence, even as we expect some form of remote work to persist into a so-called new normal, the productivity of companies, happiness of employees, and growth of the global economy will still depend on most employees going into the office at least a few times a week. Therefore, even if it perhaps bleeds a bit more into the suburbs, the city will persist. The question is, in this new environment, what must cities now do to not just survive, but to thrive?

Despite the outsized impacts of the pandemic on global cities, we see evidence that they are uniquely well-positioned to drive global recovery. This is thanks to the very same global connections and nature that, in some cases, served as sources of vulnerability during the height of the pandemic. The diversity of their economic composition provides a more complex and multifaceted base upon which a more resilient economy can be constructed. With large-scale infrastructure, large and diverse pools of talent, and digital and physical links to the rest of the planet, global cities can facilitate the needs of businesses large and small. As several sectors continue to struggle with the lasting effects of the pandemic, well-positioned global cities have already been able to show increased economic activity driven by other strengths. For example, even as it suffers from the ramifications of enduring WFH and a still-closed Broadway (and the implications for tourism), New York City has seen a spike in economic activity in recent months, including pre-pandemic levels of business formation, greater-than-expected tax revenue, and near pre-pandemic levels of domestic migration. Meanwhile, less-connected cities, particularly those relying on one or two industries to drive a recovery, are expected to struggle.

Nevertheless, and despite the good news about rising business activity from many cities with high vaccination rates, global cities find themselves with the herculean task of driving global recovery at a time when many are under severe fiscal constraints. Initial estimates indicate that cities will have to navigate a 25 percent drop in tax revenue, with African cities facing an even worse reality of 30 to 65 percent less revenue. This will put even more pressure on municipal services, public programs, social safety nets, and city budgets that are already under strain from unexpected pandemic demands. All this amounts to the reality that city leaders need innovative tools, strategies, and approaches to generate accelerated impact in economic and urban recovery—and they need them on a shoestring budget.

Five strategic imperatives for city leaders

As global cities continue to grapple with both the ongoing pandemic and a shift toward recovery, we outline five strategic imperatives for city leaders and identify a range of specific examples of the ways in which city leaders around the world are driving public policy and designing new programs to address the challenges global cities share. For all cities, economic recovery will be a function of their comparative advantage—which, for many, may have been deeply disrupted or even permanently altered in the past 18 months. Those that have traditionally relied on the movement of people, particularly in the leisure and tourism industries, have been hit hardest by the coronavirus recession. Las Vegas, for example, saw unemployment grow by 8 percent in November 2020, five percentage points above the US national average. Meanwhile, tech hubs have fared relatively well. During the same period, Seattle saw unemployment grow by only 2 percent. These unequal impacts are expected to have long-term consequences for sectoral performance. Given this reality, some global cities may be faced with the daunting challenge of redefining and reconstructing their sources of comparative advantage, ensuring they are making the most of their cities’ unique resources and offerings. Nevertheless, the imperatives discussed below apply to all global cities—as we see a set of disruptions, rising trends, and new opportunities upon which they all must capitalize if they are to thrive. We offer these as ways to both leverage and enhance the global connectivity of global cities—as these connections are both assets for and requirements in rebuilding. In offering local citizens global benefits, cities can not only drive an economic recovery, but also lead toward a next-generation realization of urban living, centered on well-being and defined by resilience.

1. Win in the competition for global talent

Human capital is the driving force behind a city’s economic activity—and its competitiveness. As the urban studies theorist Richard Florida puts it, “What drives innovation and startup entrepreneurship is not the density of jobs or offices but the density of talent.” Crucially, for global cities in particular, this talent must be globally sourced. One detailed study using US county data over 35 years showed a positive correlation between immigration and local innovation, economic dynamism, and wages. In fact, half of all engineering and technology start-ups in Silicon Valley are headed by immigrants. Yet the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged the ability of cities to source global talent like never before. The number of new visas and residence permits issued in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries fell by 46 percent in the first half of 2020, largely because of border restrictions. At the same time, cities around the world showed ugly occurrences of anti-immigrant and xenophobic prejudice, with distressing and violent instances of COVID-related racism reported across the globe. Meanwhile, a renewed emphasis on the livability of cities—and attention paid during the pandemic to somewhat idyllic small and mid-size cities—has expanded the playing field in the competition for talent.

Even as they lack the centralized power to manipulate several of the policy levers most associated with sourcing global talent—namely, immigration policy and the issuance of visas—global cities still have a powerful ability to influence immigration and draw talent. Particularly in today’s competitive environment, cities that can build and project a brand as immigrant- friendly, with high quality of life in addition to economic opportunities, are those that will win out.

Around the world, we see several ways in which global cities are specifically addressing this competition and aiming to get ahead:

Offering trial periods to skilled would-be immigrants. While San Francisco is recognized the world over as the preeminent tech epicenter, it is of course by no means the only city where tech innovation thrives. The city of Helsinki recently ran a campaign to show that the city not only has a thriving tech sector, but also offers excellent amenities and a high quality of life—for Finns and expats alike. The city’s 90 Day Finn campaign offered foreign tech professionals and their families the opportunity to live in the city for three months to help them decide whether they want to relocate there permanently. Although the campaign selected only 14 applicants (out of more than 5,000), the city hopes the publicity helps attract more people to fill the local talent gap and has created a database of the candidate profiles for local executives to access.
Supporting immigrant integration. While attracting residents may be the first major hurdle for global cities in talent development, retaining and effectively integrating individuals into a city is crucial for ensuring longevity of the benefits they bring. In New York City, leaders recognize that the successful integration of immigrants and protection of their rights are essential for maintaining the city’s vibrancy. As such, New York has one of the most extensive city-based programs in the United States to support immigrant integration through the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA). One of the successful initiatives provided by MOIA is We Speak NYC, an English language learning program that help immigrants learn about city services. Informational flyers and videos are also available in multiple languages to ensure accessibility to the wide range of nationalities in the city.
Incentivizing “brain circulation.” In contrast to the oft-discussed phenomenon of brain drain, brain circulation refers to the luring back of residents who have gone abroad and acquired education, knowledge, and skills in the meantime. The city of Shenzhen’s Peacock Talent Program, established in 2011, attracts overseas talent, including Chinese nationals and foreign citizens, and has helped to turn the city into China’s Silicon Valley. The three-tier, high talent-attraction initiative includes financial incentives for globally recognized intellectuals, executives, and athletes and aims to draw professors who taught at world-renowned universities to help grow the local education and innovation ecosystem. Buoyed by its reputation as a city with a welcoming and tolerant city culture, Shenzhen’s attraction program drew 1,219 highly skilled individuals in its first five years, only 74 of whom were not Chinese nationals.

For individuals, a job alone is no longer reason enough to move to a new city. As economic competition intensifies and more cities develop into hubs of fast-moving and high-earning industries, potential employees will continue to enjoy a wider range of choice when it comes to city living. Therefore, global cities must center their identities and economic growth plans on the human individuals who they want to attract and retain as residents, offering an improved city-living experience.

2. Embrace the rapidly growing global digital economy

An undisputed permanent change brought on by the pandemic has been the explosion of the global digital economy. Internet traffic is up, online shopping is the new norm, and our own recent study of the transatlantic economy show that trade in digital services was responsible for 78 percent of the United States’ service exports to Europe. This dramatic expansion of the digital economy has direct implications for cities—from the heightened importance of quality digital infrastructure to the potential for loss of city tax revenue accompanying a decline in brick-and-mortar shopping. While many cite the rise of the digital economy as a reason for distress in urban centers, some cities are recognizing it as a means by which to accelerate economic growth and drive recovery.

Tapping into the global digital economy as a channel for economic growth will require much more than simply ensuring fast Wi-Fi connections and the availability of smart services. These amenities can be found in any advanced city (and at this point, many remote corners of the world). Instead, what cities must focus on is creating and providing unique, location-specific resources with respect to engagement in the global digital economy. We see evidence of this already under way in some enterprising cities, with investments in digital talent and resources that seek to take greatest advantage of the global shift online. Moving forward, cities that thrive will be those in which the digital economy is not merely a component of the economy, but a central driving force of economic growth and development.

Global cities getting a jump on the digital economy are focusing on people, public–private partnerships, and long-term planning:

Inclusively preparing for the digital future of work. To propel its status as an economic powerhouse into the future, the city–state of Singapore is investing in the skills of residents, with an eye toward fully capitalizing on the digital economy. A central program in this effort is called Skills Ignition SG—a partnership between Google and three Singapore government agencies: the Economic Development Board, Infocomm & Media Development Authority, and SkillsFuture Singapore. The program offers two training tracks to permanent residents: an upskilling program for mid-career professionals and a training and job placement program for fresh grads. Job placements happen at Google, which has had its Southeast Asia headquarters in Singapore since 2007, as well as at other large multinationals. For private companies, the program offers direct access to talent; many participants in the program are offered full-time jobs after their training is complete. For the city, the partnership with the private sector helps improve skills matching, employment outcomes, and innovation—helping employers meet the exact skills needed to capitalize on the constantly emerging opportunities of the digital economy.
Building win–win data partnerships. As part of its sweeping COVID-19 economic recovery plan, London is piloting a new citywide data partnership to both democratize access to data and better support evidence-based policymaking. The High Streets Data Service and Partnership functions through a subscription model, in which the Greater London Authority uses its collective purchasing power to buy large data sets from private-sector companies, including Mastercard and O2/ Telefonica, and then provides access to a range of actors involved in the city’s economic recovery. Partners in the data service include London boroughs, business improvement districts, and ex officio partners such as the London Office of Technology and Innovation and industry representatives. Through this partnership, the city is tapping into one of the greatest resources generated by the digital economy—data—to fuel recovery on high streets and beyond.
Harnessing digital as a resilient engine of economic growth. In line with its stated objective of transforming itself into an international technology hub with world-class digital infrastructure, Dubai has recently doubled down on its commitment to centering economic growth in the digital economy with the establishment of the Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy. In coordination with the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and the Dubai International Chamber, the Chamber of Digital Economy will focus on developing and implementing a digital-centric comprehensive economic growth plan that includes priorities such as attracting investments into e-commerce and emerging digital technologies, ensuring adequate digital infrastructure is in place to enable developments, incentivizing global talent and entrepreneurs, proposing digital economy friendly policies and legislation, and accelerating technology adoption.

The global digital economy is undoubtedly changing the calculus of location for individuals and businesses alike. While it threatens to contribute to an emptying of cities and relocation of business headquarters, it can also be a key differentiator and strength for cities that embrace it. Offering a range of new tools and opportunities, the global digital economy need not be feared—if, that is, cities can harness its benefits to drive enhanced quality of life and accelerated forms of economic growth.

3. Ensure economic resilience by balancing global and local resources

Economic resilience is defined by a city or region’s ability to avoid, endure, and quickly recover from major economic shocks. The pandemic has highlighted the fragility of our global economy and the vulnerability of key economic sectors as cross-border trade has faced severe disruption. While many of the world’s transnational supply chains have been on the mend over the past year, there have been lasting changes to the global flows of goods and services. In the face of several pressure factors—rising economic competition between the great powers of China and the United States in key strategic sectors, increasingly emphatic consumer voice and activism for greener and more transparent production, and heightened awareness of the benefits of self-sufficiency after high-profile shortages of goods in major developed economies—global trade may never look the same as it did pre-pandemic.

While the fragility of global trade may point toward the benefits of a strategy based on localization, cities and countries must also consider the risks of remaining too insular. As the slew of recent climate disasters in populated areas around the world has shown all too well, betting on self-sufficiency has its own perils. Thus, cities find themselves seeking a balance between globally sourcing the goods and services their citizens desire and remaining resilient to global trade shocks and local disasters. Global connectivity in trade and economic relationships is a cornerstone of the economic success of global cities and will remain so even as cities must become more innovative in building and balancing those global connections.

Though trade policy is set at a national level and global supply chains manipulated largely by private-sector choices, cities have several ways to steer toward resilience across the broad range of uncertainties we face today:

Building global economic alliances. In 2014, Auckland, Los Angeles, and Guangzhou established the mayoral-driven Tripartite Economic Alliance to boost economic, trade, and investment opportunities between the three global cities. An annual summit provides a platform for businesses and investors in key sectors to engage in and take advantage of potential commercial opportunities. Through this, city leaders have entered into trilateral agreements to enhance cooperation between ports, share best practices on Pacific Rim emergency preparedness, and develop and share expertise in advancing sustainability measures through urban design and technology. The alliance has facilitated deals worth millions of dollars and provided a mechanism for the cities to collaborate for mutual benefit.
Growing national competitiveness through city networks. In New Zealand, local governments recognized that the relatively small size of many of the nation’s cities, their isolated geographic locations, and an unintegrated approach to trade were undermining national resilience and creating inefficiencies for each city individually. To support better development at both the city and national levels, the capital city of Wellington and nine other cities across the small country established the New Zealand Core Cities Network. The partnership set out to facilitate collaboration in areas of trade, information sharing, tourism, and economic development and in doing so demonstrated the power of city governments to drive national resilience and better economic outcomes.
Regionalizing resilience. The severe shortages of medical equipment, food, and everyday goods that accompanied the COVID-induced global supply chain disruption awakened many cities to the value of developing relations with their immediate neighbors. As such, the mega-region has begun to emerge as particularly advantageous. Particularly in the United States, sub-national governments formed small-group alliances to share protective equipment and vital supplies at the height of the pandemic. While this occurred at the state level in this instance—for example, one multi-state compact was comprised of seven midwestern states surrounding Chicago—the logic of a regionalized approach to resilience applies just as well at the city level. Further, by establishing such relations before a crisis rather than in the thick of it, cities across regions can be better prepared to respond more quickly and more comprehensively to disruptions at the global and local levels.

The events of the past 18 months have caused many of globalization’s most ardent proponents to reconsider the risks of a hyper-globalized world. The linkages that have given us greater access to globally sourced goods at better prices in shorter time spans have also, at times, weakened our connections with our own neighbors. Thus, moving forward, while cities must remain globally engaged, benefiting from the best the world has to offer, they must also make a concerted effort to balance those global connections with ones closer to home.

4. Adapt in the face of climate change

Climate change is a twofold issue for cities. First, cities are physically, economically, and socially vulnerable to the ravages of climate disasters because of their high density and common locations in places that are at higher risk, such as islands or coastlines. As reported by the IPCC, the impact of climate change-induced natural disasters is continuing to grow more severe as storms and weather events rise in frequency and unpredictability. Second, cities must grapple with the ways in which they themselves contribute to climate change— and urgently act to curb emissions and increase efficiency. The UN estimates that cities consume more than 75 percent of the world’s energy and are responsible for more than 60 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions despite making up only 2 percent of the Earth’s surface.

While the statistics, science, and lived reality can be overwhelming—and the IPCC report indicates that climate change is inevitable—there remains hope for our ability to limit its impact. Given the unassailable evidence that CO2 emissions are the main driver of climate change, it is still within global cities’ collective power to slow global warming through strong, rapid, and sustained reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. In the meantime, cities must also take on a range of actions in climate adaptation to protect themselves from unavoidable climate risks such as much hotter temperatures, rising sea levels, intense rainfall and flooding, and more frequent droughts.

Around the world, cities are leading in the green revolution, with the cooperation of citizens, businesses, and neighbors:

Going circular. The ultimate way that cities can cut their emissions and contribute to a dramatic slowing of the pace of climate change is by applying the concept of a circular economy at the scale of a municipality. Circular cities are those that, to the greatest extent possible, decouple resource use and economic activity—stretching the value and utility of materials to their full capacity, and then efficiently reusing and recycling to generate new materials. The aim of a circular economy is to become a self-sufficient, closed loop of generation and use. The European Commission’s New Circular Economy Action Plan is a cornerstone of the EU’s Green Deal, but cities were innovating in circular economics long before the plan was adopted in 2020. Copenhagen, for example, embarked on a mission in 2009 to become the world’s first carbon neutral city by 2025. Circular Copenhagen, an initiative of the Copenhagen Solutions Lab, has a key role in contributing to this goal, with links to the city’s ambitious waste and resource management plan, the Climate Action Plan. The platform focuses on developing cross-cutting partnerships between the city government, academia, and industry to solve specific challenges and move toward a circular economy. More cities around the world are following suit, many in cooperative and collaborative groups such as CityLoops, sharing best practices, piloting programs, and innovating to address shared challenges.
Building resilient systems. Adapting a city’s built environment to reinforce it against the impact of climate change is essential. One city that has already been doing this out of necessity is Rotterdam. The city is mostly below sea level and, as such, has developed a robust system to defend against inland and coastal flooding: by turning itself “into a sponge.” The city has turned every possible area into water storage, from underground parking garages to a recreational public square that stores rainwater, developed more green areas that help in absorbing rainwater runoff, and built floating neighborhoods and offices. It also makes use of a series of dikes along the rivers, permanent sandbags along the coast, and a flexible storm surge barrier to help protect it.
Collaborating for regional preparation. The two small cities of Oakland Park and Wilton Manors in coastal Florida have combined their resources to jointly plan for a shared future. Together, the cities published the Two Cities, One Sustainable Future Climate Action Plan in 2019, citing their shared water infrastructure and transportation systems as resources to face the threat of sea level rise in particular. The bilateral planning effort made efficient use of the cities’ municipal budgets and offered a new template for cooperation to neighboring and regional cities facing the same climate challenges.

Climate change is without a doubt the existential challenge of our time. Fortunately, cities around the world are rolling out inspiring and revolutionary programs and innovations that aim to make cities better—directly benefiting their residents and the global population. Having any sort of viable future, however, will require all cities to commit to the sort of radical action we see in cities leading the sustainability charge around the world. Particularly in the absence of globally unified leadership on the topic, global cities can—and must—lead the way toward a greener future.

5. Invest in individual and community well-being

Finally, it is no exaggeration to say we are in a state of crisis with respect to human well-being—particularly in urban centers. The World Health Organization defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity,” where “well-being” refers to a positive, rather than neutral state. The immediate symptoms of the virus aside, the fear it instilled across the globe, the restrictive measures implemented to combat its spread, and the near collapse of health systems in cities around the world have all contributed to a stark absence of well-being. Further, the uneven distribution of this condition, particularly within cities, has been exacerbated and highlighted by the pandemic. Now, a focus on inequality in urban centers has come to the forefront. The impacts of the lived environment on quality of life—and even lifespan—have been empirically proven; one study of 97 of the most populous US cities found that in more than three-quarters of those cities, lower-income neighborhoods are hotter—with higher temperatures linked to a greater prevalence of chronic health conditions.

If we consider once again that the driving force of a city’s economic activity is its human capital, then a central requirement for cities is that they be places people like to live. The experience with COVID-19 has shown so many that a job alone is no reason to live in a city. We require safe and clean living conditions, access to green space, and the social support of a community. At the same time, the economic devastation of COVID-19 has, in many places, carved out elements that form the unique character of a place. Many of the small restaurants, shops, and events that together comprise the unique buzz of a city or neighborhood have permanently closed— local news sites are even keeping running lists of restaurant closures. Yet it is these uniquely local but globally diverse components of cities that define them as microcosms of the world. Without them, cities lose their allure. In this context, as city leaders seek to rebuild so much of what was lost during the pandemic, they must do so with citizens and communities at the core. Moving forward, global cities that are able to demonstrate a high quality of life for a wide diversity of residents will be the ones to thrive.

Prioritizing quality of life will take many forms in the diverse global cities we study, but central components across all will be environment, community, and culture:

Rebuilding the natural environment. Los Angeles is one of the many cities globally that have committed to growing their urban forest to lower city temperatures, particularly in the hottest and most vulnerable neighborhoods. In addition to helping reduce peak temperatures by providing shade and via evapotranspiration, green space and vegetation have been proven to boost mental and physical health. The city has hired a city forest officer to oversee the planting of more than 90,000 trees by the end of 2021, and Los Angeles is also piloting Google’s new AI-powered Tree Canopy Lab technology. The tool uses AI and aerial imagery to assess the tree canopy coverage at a neighborhood level, which will provide insights into where tree planting should take place to have the greatest impact in the places of greatest need.
Connecting communities. London’s COVID-19 recovery program is oriented around nine recovery “missions,” including one explicitly focused on Building Strong Communities. Under this mission, the program aims to provide all Londoners with access to a community hub by 2025, where they can “volunteer, get support, and build strong community networks.” By providing support to mutual aid, faith, and grassroots groups and by promoting the implementation of community-led solutions, the city aims to decrease loneliness and social isolation and build greater feelings of belonging. The program places specific emphasis on communities that have been disproportionately impacted by COVID and people who have historically been marginalized.
Supporting unique global–local cultures. Finally, it is vital that cities support the re-emergence of what could be referred to as global–local cultures, by bolstering the diverse components that together form the microcosm that fundamentally makes them global cities. At the level of individuals, across neighborhoods, and even across the globe, cities are finding and making ways to supplant what may otherwise be a catastrophic loss of local cultures built on global diversity. For example, the city of Pavlograd, Ukraine has brought the gastronomic diversity of a global city into family kitchens, launching the “Intercultural Cuisine on-line” which hosts step-by-step videos and recipes of dishes from different cultures. Other cities have sought to foster continued artistic events and dialogues that contribute to their global-local culture, even in the absence of in-person exchange. For example, in the Cuidad(es) Cultura program, Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Bogota, Lima, and Lisbon have come together to share a range of cultural and creative activities and events online.

In these cases and so many more, cities are centering their recoveries on the well-being of their populations. This choice recognizes that cities are not autonomous entities, but collections of individual human beings who choose to come together in a specific space. Still, citizen-centric policymaking is no handout or soft approach to difficult choices. Rather, it is an investment in the future of a city—in which a diversity of healthy individuals can support one another, drive innovation, and contribute to economic vibrancy.

Conclusion

The task at hand for global cities is daunting. Battles with the pandemic seem long from over, but people around the world have collectively shown their desire to return to some form of a normal life. How cities navigate this shifting landscape and drive toward recovery requires a set of choices that have grave consequences if outcomes are not as desired or expected. Yet, around the world we see hope for global cities—not just in recovering from the pandemic, but also as testing grounds for policy and innovation that can address some of the world’s greatest challenges. We look forward to watching these cities as they continue to create new approaches and solutions to our shared challenges and move forward in the uncertain context in which we all find ourselves.

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