Bruce Katz, CityLab

Bruce Katz

CityLab

Washington, DC, United States

Contact Bruce

Discover and connect with journalists and influencers around the world, save time on email research, monitor the news, and more.

Start free trial

Recent:
  • Unknown
Past:
  • CityLab
  • Brookings
  • Fortune
  • POLITICO

Past articles by Bruce:

Cities Can't Just Wait For a Less Hostile Federal Government

Even after the current occupant of the White House moves on, the federal government will be severely limited in its ability to deal with the nation’s most pressing problems. → Read More

Cities Aren't Broke. But They Need New Ways to Raise Money.

Local governments are far from broke—if they can tap their enormous market power. → Read More

The Complex Interplay of Cities, Corporations and Climate

Across the world, cities are grappling with climate change. While half of the world’s population now lives in cities, more than 70 percent of carbon emissions originate in cities. The 2015 Paris Cl… → Read More

Why Mayors Need to Lead Beyond the Limits of Their Formal Powers

U.S. mayors are on the front lines of major global and societal change. Yet the climate around them is at best hostile and at most indifferent to pressing urban priorities. → Read More

The Global Refugee Crisis is Now an Urban Problem

World leaders are negotiating a global compact on refugees. Urban leaders need a seat at that table. → Read More

Explaining the Rise of Pittsburgh's Innovation Economy

The city’s rise as a global innovation city reflects decades of investment in emerging technology, a new Brookings report says. → Read More

Investing in the next generation: A bottom-up approach to creating better outcomes for children and youth

The American dream is built on the promise of upward social mobility. In the middle of the 20th century, rates of upward mobility improved across the socioeconomic spectrum. But over the course of the past 30 years, the vast majority of our population has seen mobility rates stagnate. → Read More

Cities Can Do a Better Job Managing Public Assets

Compared to counterparts overseas, cities in the U.S. are terrible at managing their public assets, a new book argues. → Read More

The 3 Big Metro Challenges For France's Macron

From inequality to immigration pressure to economic anxiety, France has its own set of urban crises to deal with. Here's what its new president now faces. → Read More

Connect to compete: Philadelphia’s University City-Center City innovation district

Philadelphia’s innovation economy is strong, but city leaders can do more with its existing assets to compete globally and benefit local communities, according to a new report from the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Initiative on Innovation and Placemaking at the Brookings Institution. → Read More

Make way for mayors: Why the UK’s biggest power shift may not be the June 8 general election

United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May’s call for a snap general election on June 8 has threatened to overshadow another important vote that could reshape the landscape of urban leadership in En… → Read More

The reality of main street

Louis Hyman’s recent piece in The New York Times Sunday Review, The Myth of Main Street, presents a bleak choice for rural and rust-belt America: persist in hopeless efforts to rebuild your downtow… → Read More

The Case for a National Metropolitan Party

Neither Democrat nor Republican, the Metro Party would be a bipartisan force for political sanity. → Read More

Red States, Blue Cities, and the Fight Over Federalism

Today’s reality begs for a more comprehensive understanding of the relations between states and localities. → Read More

The 5 kinds of cities we’ll see in the populist era

Last summer, as Donald Trump was pledging to Make America Great Again through tariffs and a “great wall” along the United States’ southern border, the Leave campaign in the United Kingdom urged Bri… → Read More

What’s next for Rio?

This weekend, the final curtain will be drawn on the 2016 Summer Olympics, and life in Rio de Janeiro will begin to return to normal. Athletes, fans, and support staff will return to their home cou… → Read More

Embracing radical localism

“Decentralization offers the ability to deliver public services more effectively than the central state. Its greater capacity to ‘join-up’ public services beyond departmental silos gives the local state a crucial innovative edge in tackling the complexities of modern social injustice. → Read More

The "smartest places on earth" come to

Read a recap of Antoine van Agtmael's April 6 presentation at Brookings, where he and "The Smartest Places on Earth: Why Rustbelts Are the Emerging Hotspots of Global Innovation" co-author Fred Bakker discussed why once-mighty industrial cities, decimated by their manufacturers' flight to cheap labor, are leveraging their knowledge assets to thrive as newly emerging "brainbelts." → Read More

Innovation districts: ‘Spaces to think,’ and the key to more of them

Our understanding of London's innovative activity has taken a leap forward with the publication of a new report by the Centre for London called Spaces to Think. Even for a paragon of innovation, a critique such as this is imperative if the city desires to maximize its assets while continuing to grow in a sustainable and inclusive manner. → Read More

Are cities the cure for short-termism?

We are hearing a lot about short-termism this political season. Washington assessments of the forces driving short-termism tend, not surprisingly, to lead to federal proposals to curb the practices of short-term actors. Bruce Katz suggests another approach: provide more support for the places—cities and metropolitan areas—that are already thinking and acting for the long term. → Read More