Inside Bloomberg’s Plan To Spread The Gospel Of Urban Innovation

Since leaving New York’s City Hall, Michael Bloomberg has made it his main business to give away his wealth. His foundation's mission is rooted in his famous faith that city governments are the key to solving social issues that are local, national, and even global in scope. In that light, the foundation's most important work might be its government innovation program, which focuses not on any particular issue, but on helping cities increase their capacity to tackle the big issues themselves. "The imperative for local leaders to generate new ideas is huge and growing," says Jim Anderson, director of Bloomberg's government innovation program. "Governments need the dedicated capacity, the space, the risk capital, and the permission to generate bigger bolder solutions to public problems, to test those solutions, and to scale up those that work."