From AI to trust: What CityLab 2026 uncovered about the future of local government

Photos courtesy of Bloomberg Philanthropies

May 14, 2026

When 1,000 mayors, policymakers, innovators, and creatives came together in Madrid last month for Bloomberg CityLab, they demonstrated the power and promise of urban connections in a time when national and global alliances are fraying. But more than that, they also surfaced breakthrough solutions and spotlighted a shift in how cities are putting those ideas into action: moving from adopting new technologies to shaping them, from engaging residents to partnering with them, and from delivering results behind the scenes to showing their work in real time.

As James Anderson, who leads the Government Innovation program at Bloomberg Philanthropies explained in Madrid, “Elected officials have to show their work in new and different ways today to close the gap between city hall and the street—to make their government more legible to people in their everyday lives.”

From getting ahead of the next wave of AI transformations to taking meaningful action in the face of climate change, housing, transportation, and more, here are some of the standout moments and conversations from this year’s preeminent global cities summit that point to the future of governing in cities.

Forging the future of artificial intelligence.

For years, Bloomberg Philanthropies has supported mayors and their teams in finding creative ways to put artificial intelligence to work for residents. But at this year’s CityLab, Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg L.P. and Bloomberg Philanthropies and three-term mayor of New York City, unveiled something new: The Mayors AI Forum. This first-of-its-kind initiative, delivered in partnership with the Bloomberg Center for Government Excellence at Johns Hopkins University, brings together city leaders from across the globe to shape the future of the technology and how it hits city halls and city streets. That includes grappling with how AI will affect local workforces, reshape energy systems, and influence young people’s lives and futures. It also means recognizing that no city can navigate these shifts alone. As Bloomberg explained, “Nobody knows what the future holds, but the better prepared cities are, the better they can seize opportunities and avoid dangers.” (Watch the video.)

Just as importantly, the Forum signals a broader shift in how cities respond to these shared challenges. As founding members Mayor Sadiq Khan of London and Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones of San Antonio emphasized, cities are beginning to move from purchasing AI to actively guiding its evolution, learning from one another as they go. “This network will ensure we’re shaping how AI is developed and deployed rather than allowing it to shape us,” Khan said. (Watch the video.)

Finding fresh inspiration to lead entire nations forward.

Further plenary address at CityLab 2026.

CityLab is all about local leaders working together across borders, not just to solve problems but to also set the pace for broader global progress. In Madrid, that spirit was underscored by Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who spoke ambitiously, expansively, and from a national perspective as he centered cities as pivotal players in solving the world’s greatest challenges, from climate crises to housing to demographic change. “If our planet were a human body, our cities would be its vital organs,” he explained. “They not only keep us alive, but they define what kind of beings we are and want to be.” (Watch the video.)

Seeing up close what it takes to guide residents through conflict.

A woman in a white sweater and jeans stands next to a tall man in a blue plaid shirt who has his hand thoughtfully on his chin. They are viewing a charcoal portrait sketch displayed on a wooden easel.

CityLab’s focus on building deeper connections—between cities, between city halls and the people they serve, and between residents themselves—came to life when Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko and artist and Bloomberg Philanthropies board member Es Devlin came on stage. They were there to discuss a portrait session earlier in the day, in which Devlin drew Klitschko before the two exchanged a word. As Devlin explained, the exercise is about presence, about learning to truly see one another. It’s an idea that carries profound weight for Klitschko, who said that “presence” as mayor of Kyiv has meant building and maintaining trust by guiding and protecting residents through four years of war. “I’m very thankful for the trust citizens have in me,” he said. “It’s the greatest value I have as mayor.” (Watch the video.)

Looking under the hood of a city transformed.

Two people seated in white upholstered armchairs on a stage during a Bloomberg Philanthropies event. A man in a light gray suit with glasses sits on the left, while a woman with brown hair in a navy blazer and pants gestures while speaking on the right.

When Anne Hidalgo completed her second term as mayor of Paris earlier this year, she left behind more than a list of policies. She helped reshape how the city works and feels on a daily basis. From surpassing 900 miles of bike lanes to reclaiming stretches of the Seine and even making the river swimmable for the first time in a century, Paris has undergone a visible transformation that also has driven down emissions. At CityLab and in a mayors-only Mayors Innovation Studio alongside architect Sir Norman Foster, Hidalgo reflected on how that change happened: Design isn’t just for architects or planners, she explained. It’s also a powerful tool that city leaders can use to move the needle on key social outcomes. And while Hidalgo credited her success to everything from marshaling air pollution data to coalition building, she emphasized that lasting change starts with vision and a willingness to act on it. “I told my team, ‘We have to be very strong and put our foot down with the direction we have to take,’” she said. (Watch the video.)

Embracing the power of public space to build connection.

Two women in conversation on stage at CityLab 2026 On the left, a woman with long dark hair wearing a red blazer over a white top gestures while speaking. On the right, a woman with curly dark hair in a dark brown blazer over a blue blouse listens while holding a red program.

If mayors are increasingly using design as a leadership tool to deliver results, one of the most important outcomes is to build social cohesion, and at CityLab attendees heard a variety of perspectives on how to get there. Those included a presentation from Carlo Ratti, planning director at the MIT Senseable City Lab, who explained how AI can map shifts in people’s use of public space and how that insight can inform cities’ efforts to bring residents together. There were local case studies, such as those spotlighted by José Luis Infanzón, a Madrid official who explained how playground design can intentionally connect children of different backgrounds and, in doing so, strengthen civic ties. And then there was broader context offered by Hahrie Han, a 2025 MacArthur fellow and director of the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, grounded in her research on polarization. Improving social connection in cities, she explained, means not just creating opportunities for residents to interact, but opportunities for them to build real relationships. “The real challenge in a lot of these third spaces is to figure out: how do we move from encounter to commitment,” she explained. “In a pluralistic democracy, the currency of value is the commitment to work with each other.” (Watch the video.)

Tripling down on the shift from engaging youth to truly partnering with them.

Patricia Harris, CEO of Bloomberg Philanthropies

For more than two years, the Bloomberg Philanthropies Youth Climate Action Fund has helped mayors move beyond engaging young people to partnering with them in designing and delivering climate solutions. To date, the initiative has already helped cities collaborate with 300,000 young people to plant 235,000 trees, create 268 composting stations, collect 400,000 pounds of trash, and much more. And at CityLab, Bloomberg Philanthropies CEO Patricia Harris announced the initiative’s expansion to 300 new cities. As she emphasized, its impact goes beyond project delivery. It builds trust in government by showing young people how their ideas can translate into real, visible change. Now, as she noted, “We’re going to triple the number of cities we work with—and triple our impact.” (Watch the video.)

Trumpeting the progress cities and mayors make when they learn together.

A wide shot of an ornate theater during a Bloomberg CityLab presentation. Several people stand and sit on stage with instruments including a saxophone and guitars. A large screen displays images and "Thessaloniki" text. An orange podium sits stage left. The audience fills the theater, with gilded architectural details visible along the walls and deep red curtains framing the stage.

Last year, Bloomberg Philanthropies welcomed the inaugural class of the Bloomberg LSE European City Leadership Initiative, a pioneering effort to equip local governments across the continent with the skills they need to drive results in the face of today’s challenges. And at CityLab, two scholars leading the new program—Ricky Burdett of the London School of Economics and Political Science and Andrea Römmele of the Hertie School in Berlin—took an inventive approach at spotlighting how the program is strengthening city leadership.

Accompanied by a live orchestra, Burdett and Römmele described how a Bloomberg Philanthropies investment that began in the United States with the global Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership initiative in 2017 and then expanded with the African Mayoral Leadership Initiative and the Bloomberg Sagol Center for City Leadership in Israel is now reaching a new “crescendo” with the LSE program, which is now training 390 European city leaders a year. As they explained, that crescendo extends beyond formal training to the peer networks these programs foster, where mayors continue to learn from one another and improve together. These programs and networks help ensure “cities [are] learning from each other and building solutions that no single city could deliver alone,” Römmele said. (Watch the video.)

Taking a radically new approach to managing risk.

A man with a gray beard wearing a dark blue turban and black shirt speaks into a handheld microphone at a Bloomberg CityLab event. He gestures with one hand while standing next to an orange branded podium.

The sheer scale of today’s heat crises means that no one solution will ever be an adequate response. After all, it’s not just higher temperatures cities are confronting, but also the cascading effects, from hits to economic wellbeing to increased rates of domestic violence. And at CityLab, Indy Johar, co-founder of Dark Matter Labs, argued that the sheer volume of volatility presented by heat calls for local leaders to think differently about how they finance projects, how they build coalitions, and how they shape local supply chains. The good news? If complex challenges like heat have ripple effects, cities stepping up to meet them can have spillover effects, too. As Johar explained, “This opens up a new form of capability, a capability that cities around the world will need to build to be able to address the scale of risk that we’re starting to face.” (Watch the video.)

Charting dynamic capabilities cities need to respond.

Three panelists seated on stage. From left: a woman with short hair in a dark blazer and burgundy pants smiling; a man with glasses in a dark suit speaking; and a man in a light blue shirt holding a red program. A living green wall and geometric red designs frame the orange branded backdrop. Audience members are visible in the foreground.

As local leaders tackle the hard work of adapting to constant and compounding challenges, it is critical that their colleagues across the globe can learn from what works. That is the premise behind the Public Sector Capabilities Index, a Bloomberg Philanthropies-supported effort to create the first global measure of local government responsiveness. The Index identifies and tracks the core capabilities that enable cities to respond effectively, from spotting early signals of change and adapting priorities accordingly to building new coalitions, experimenting, and reconfiguring how they deliver. In doing so, it creates a framework that national governments and other funders can use to help inform their investments in cities. As University College London Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value Mariana Mazzucato explained in a CityLab conversation with Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister Carlos Cuerpo Caballero, “We’re looking at all those capabilities,” because, for too long, “we’ve undervalued the public sector.” (Watch the video.)

Attacking housing supply from every angle.

Three men seated on stage during a Bloomberg CityLab panel discussion. A Black man with short hair and a beard, wearing a blue suit and white sneakers, gestures while speaking from the left chair. Two other men in gray and dark suits listen attentively. An orange Bloomberg CityLab podium stands to the left, with red Bloomberg Philanthropies banners and dark burgundy curtains in the background.

Managing housing supply remains one of the most universal and complex challenges cities face, and at CityLab, attendees heard how several mayors are responding. In Baltimore, as Mayor Brandon Scott detailed, that means using innovation to not only rehabilitate thousands of homes but, importantly, to work upstream toward preventing future vacancies. In Barcelona, Mayor Jaume Collboni told attendees, it means advancing their city’s Mayors Challenge-winning effort to offer rehabilitation as a service, where the city makes home upgrades more affordable and accessible by providing financing, removing technical and regulatory barriers, and helping people build consensus with their neighbors. And as Mayor Tatsuo Igarashi of Tsukuba, Japan, explained, it’s one thing to bolster general housing supply, and another to provide a very specific type—single-room occupancy units—that align with demographic trends. That’s why he’s using regulatory incentives and new technologies to nudge developers and landlords to provide for people who live alone. (Watch here and here.)

Governing out loud.

A Bloomberg CityLab event featuring a virtual speaker on a large screen and an in-person presenter at an orange podium. The screen shows a man with glasses in front of a bookshelf. A man in a gray blazer speaks from the podium on the right. A living green wall, geometric structures, and "Bloomberg CityLab" signage decorate the stage. An audience is seated in the foreground.

If strengthening connection was a central theme at CityLab, so was rebuilding trust in public institutions. And Bloomberg Philanthropies' James Anderson challenged attendees to think differently about the everyday work of governing—by “governing out loud.” By that, he means not just doing the hard work of delivering services, but making that effort visible: showing progress in real time, being candid about setbacks and tradeoffs, and bringing residents inside the process of governing so they can see that government belongs to them—and is working on their behalf. To demonstrate what governing out loud looks like in practice, Anderson closed the 2026 program in conversation with San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie.

As Lurie told attendees from his city nearly 6,000 miles away, San Francisco is grappling every day with drug use, homeless encampments, violent crime, and more. But his approval numbers are high, and residents believe their city is on the right track. A key reason for that? An ambitious social-media strategy that ensures residents see Lurie getting a close look at those problems at street level, while also delivering what he described as “little wins,” such as reduced car break-ins and faster permitting. He’s showing his work, and it’s resonating.

It’s a style of governance mayors everywhere can learn from, which is why, as Lurie revealed to attendees in Madrid, San Francisco will be hosting CityLab 2027. “If we as mayors do the basics,” he concluded, residents will do the rest. (Watch the video.)