Many of cities’ most urgent challenges, from public safety to education to housing, are also among the most divisive. However, as a growing body of evidence underscores, effective collaboration in cities isn’t necessarily about corralling the loudest voices. It's, instead, about strategically identifying critical partners inside and outside government, tapping their insights and resources at pivotal moments, and using initial successes to generate momentum, broaden support, and cement trust.
The most formidable coalitions often involve a wide array of institutions, community groups, residents, and even former skeptics who become credible champions for city hall initiatives. “If you get the right people engaged on a topic in a community, you can actually drive targeted reform pretty quickly,” explains Luke McGowan, who works on the Government Innovation team at Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Here’s a closer look at how two cities—Atlanta and Austin, Texas—are doing just that when it comes to the sometimes polarizing issue of housing, offering insights cities can use to take on any number of contentious challenges.
Using mayoral vision as an anchor.
Even before he became mayor of Atlanta in 2022, Andre Dickens understood that traditional efforts wouldn’t be enough to address one of his city’s top concerns: housing. That’s why, as a candidate, he announced a bold goal of building or preserving 20,000 affordable housing units within eight years.
By stating that figure early and often, Dickens created a concrete, shared objective to rally around—one that connected directly to the well-being of neighborhoods, families, schools, and transit systems. Building a lot of new housing is almost always controversial, especially when it’s geared at lower-income residents or unhoused populations. So rather than dance around the controversy, the mayor made it clear that he was serious about change.
“The biggest marker of our success is that our mayor was very audacious with what he wanted,” explains Chatiqua Ellison, director of special projects on the mayor’s housing team. “It starts off with that political will.”
Forging tangible connections with partners across government.
Because Mayor Dickens and his team understood that meeting their goal would require steps that would be both expensive and politically contested, they decided early on that their coalition would need to go well beyond the familiar cast of characters. And that started with gathering a diverse array of partners inside government.
That’s where the Affordable Housing Strike Force comes in. Formed by the mayor, the group includes city officials one might expect to be involved in a housing initiative, such as policy advisors. But it also includes representatives from local institutions beyond Dickens’ direct control, such the school and transit systems, where leadership is selected directly by voters and by regional leaders, respectively.
As Josh Humphries, the mayor’s senior advisor on housing, explained, “We clearly identified the crisis at hand, established a discrete goal, and communicated clearly why everyone’s contribution was necessary.”
Critically, the city has engaged these stakeholders in targeted ways directly connected to their institutional priorities. For example, transit officials were shown how housing development could boost ridership, while school officials understood that new affordable housing units could reverse declining student enrollments. These tangible connections highlighted mutual interests. And that, in turn, has unlocked new possibilities for the city, such as tapping unused land owned by the school system to develop new housing projects.
“You have to assign people certain things, [but specifically] assign them things that are within their expertise or capacity,” Humphries says of this sort of coalition work.
Knowing when to let allies tap their own networks.
Of course, not every coalition effort needs to be entirely mayor-led. That’s especially the case when a partner is in position to champion a technically complex reform in an area where they already have a strong network. Those networks, in turn, can help reach key stakeholders who might otherwise block progress.
That’s what recently played out in Austin, where building more housing has been a years-long priority for Mayor Kirk Watson because of his commitment to making the city more affordable for residents. But when Council Member José “Chito” Vela and his partners in the local architecture community began a concerted push for so-called “single-stair” reform, which allows construction of taller buildings with just one stairwell, the mayor’s team decided to play more of a peripheral role. “We recognized that Vela has a very strong connection with our urbanists in Austin,” explains Alexis Garcia, an advisor to Mayor Watson. “We saw that he had that strength.”
Local fire-safety officials were initially strongly opposed to single-stair, in part because of concerns over evacuation routes. But ultimately, Council Member Vela’s allies had the technical expertise to soften that opposition before the measure’s passage this spring. Both the councilman and the mayor’s team specifically cited a local architect partner who worked closely with Vela’s office and who engaged the fire-safety community (including by attending their convention) as a critical asset.
The biggest takeaway? Creating space for allies to drive change can pay dividends, too.
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Easing polarization by showing how government can deliver.
If tapping allies outside the mayor’s office to reach skeptics is one way to overcome obstacles to change, another is to deliver on quick, impactful projects and adjacent services, which can help expand a coalition and generate momentum for the future.
A signature win for Mayor Dickens’ housing coalition in Atlanta is called the Melody. A community of 40 homes constructed from shipping containers that’s intended to rapidly combat homelessness, it’s one of the inaugural ideas in the Bloomberg Cities Idea Exchange, which helps spread proven and promising solutions from one city to others around the world. But like many projects geared at unhoused residents, it initially faced hesitation and resistance, including from community members such as the owners of nearby parking lots and businesses who were concerned about public safety.
However, by swiftly delivering on the project, including wraparound social services and dedicated case management, the city has successfully transformed some of those same skeptics into vocal supporters. As Ellison notes, it wasn't until the city had its grand opening of the Melody that some residents who were on the fence came to see it as a valued part of their community. “That’s when we realized we had our real win,” she says.
And it’s not just proving the city can build something new. According to Humphries, conversations with residents about the mayor’s housing agenda and the need to rezone neighborhoods have sometimes led to break-off discussions about smaller, more immediate local needs, such as improved trash pick-up. And showing that the city can be responsive to a deficit like that one can help increase support for a coalition's primary objective.
“Every time that we do that, it builds a little bit of trust on the rezoning conversation, even though those things are not technically connected,” he says.
Sustaining momentum by capitalizing on spillover effects.
That may be the greatest promise of smart coalition building work. Beyond the success of any given initiative, cities are finding that when they build strong coalitions, they generate faith in government that can be effective in taking on all sorts of challenges.
In Atlanta, for instance, the Melody project hasn’t just been a win for the city’s housing agenda. It’s been concrete evidence that the city can aim high and deliver. And that creates space for Mayor Dickens and his successors to address other priorities with ambitious new solutions in the future.
“We proved that government can go fast, can be efficient, and can work across different agencies and fields,” explains Humphries, who notes that, three years into the Dickens administration, the city is already 60 percent of the way toward its goal of 20,000 housing units. “Demonstrating that isn’t only inspiring, it builds momentum for all that’s to come.”
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