How Mayors and City Leaders Are Reshaping Foreign Policy

The Cities Summit of the Americas showcases three recent developments in subnational diplomacy.Cities—with a little help from their friends—are taking over the diplomatic calendar.Next week, the U.S. State Department and partners will convene approximately 250 mayors and city leaders from almost every country in the hemisphere for the first Cities Summit of the Americas in Denver. By their very nature, cities concentrate global and regional challenges and opportunities—especially in the Americas, where 80 percent of the population resides in urban areas and more than sixty cities are home to more than a million residents. The summit’s themes will touch on several pressing issues, including housing, climate adaptation and mitigation, governance, and digital inclusion, and the policy priorities reflect challenges that, while often revealing themselves at the local level, require solutions delivered at all levels of governance.