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Stephen Goldsmith

Contributor

Stephen Goldsmith is the Derek Bok Professor of the Practice of Urban Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and director of Data-Smart City Solutions at the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University. The former deputy mayor for operations for New York City, he previously served two terms as mayor of Indianapolis.

Goldsmith served as the chief domestic policy advisor to the George W. Bush campaign in 2000, as chair of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and, from 1979 to 1990, as the district attorney for Marion County, Ind.

His most recent book is Growing Fairly: How to Build Opportunity and Equity in Workforce Development, co-authored with Kate Markin Coleman.  He also is the author or co-author of A New City O/S: The Power of Open, Collaborative, and Distributed Governance; The Responsive City: Engaging Communities Through Data-Smart Governance; The Power of Social Innovation; Governing by Network: the New Shape of the Public Sector; Putting Faith in Neighborhoods: Making Cities Work through Grassroots Citizenship; and The Twenty-First Century City: Resurrecting Urban America.

Goldsmith can be reached at stephen_goldsmith@harvard.edu.

When the coronavirus pandemic begins to subside, communities should use a nuanced, calibrated approach to allowing businesses to reopen and residents to return to work and school.
Yesterday's reporting and compliance mechanisms aren't dynamic enough. Today's evolving transportation marketplace calls for nuanced, citizen-centric control driven by actionable real-time data.
As they deal with an emergency like the novel coronavirus, mayors and county executives need to be ready to ask their residents to sacrifice, break bureaucratic rules, and move quickly and decisively.
Our cities' transportation landscape is being dramatically altered. But a focus on small disputes overlooks the larger value questions that need to be addressed.
It was a big improvement for permitting and other forms of service delivery, but it's already outdated. The new goal should be no-stop government.
In expanding its program that lets residents vote on public spending, New York City is enlivening democracy and engaging the electorate.
An innovative apprenticeship program is working to bring some of Los Angeles' neediest residents into the city's workforce.
Protecting providers from competition is the enemy of efficiency and integrated mobility. It's an issue that New York City's congestion pricing will address.
In codifying its innovative operation into law, New York City has provided a useful guide for other localities.
The lesson from New York City's experience with Amazon: There are smarter ways to attract businesses than just dangling tax breaks.