Cambridge, Massachusetts (January 9, 2026)—Cities are confronting new, interconnected challenges—from climate adaptation and data stewardship to mental health and mobility—yet many public institutions responsible for these issues are built for a different era. That gap was the focus of Next Level Urban Problem-Solving: Institutional Innovation in Cities, a virtual public event hosted by the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University.

 The event marked the opening session of a convening focused on urban governance and innovation, bringing together practitioners, scholars, and civic innovators at the Center to examine how cities can redesign their institutional architecture to meet the demands of the 2030s and beyond.

Moderated by Jorrit de Jong, director of the Center and the Emma Bloomberg Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Management at Harvard Kennedy School, the discussion explored how cities can redesign their institutional architecture to better anticipate change, deliver integrated services, and draw on the collective intelligence of residents, civic organizations, and businesses to improve outcomes for their communities.

Building for Strength Without Weight

Sir Geoff Mulgan, Professor at University College London and Co-Founder of The Institutional Architecture Lab, began the session by presenting a working paper co-authored with Caio Werneck, The City as a Mesh: Options for Handling Cross-cutting Tasks in City Governments. He argued that while cities have historically created new institutions to meet emerging needs—such as public health systems or sanitation—many current structures no longer align with the tasks cities face today.

He pointed to the persistence of traditional organizational charts and departmental silos, noting that while such structures remain effective for some functions, they are ill-suited for problems that require coordination across systems. Mulgan described an emerging set of institutional tools—shared budgets, cross-cutting teams, data platforms, and partnerships—that allow cities to operate horizontally as well as vertically.

Mulgan said, “Most issues cut across those silos, and so there’s a new sort of language of tools, of how you create shared budgets, or targets, or appointments, or data, or teams.”

Cities as Integrators of Fragmented Systems

De Jong asked panelists to connect their work to the needs of practice. “If frictionless service, orchestrated intelligence, fluidity and speed, and new horizontal models of governance are part of the solution, or required for solutions, what are the problems that are calling for these new forms of institutional innovation?”

The panel, which also featured Bruce Katz of New Localism Advisors and The London School of Economics and Beth Simone Noveck of Northeastern University and The Governance Lab, delved into a practical, far-reaching discussion.

Bruce Katz focused on the role cities play in integrating fragmented policy domains and investment streams. He argued that while national governments often define priorities and allocate funding in sector-specific ways, cities are left to do the integrative work.

“Only the city and metropolitan level can look across all these dimensions and bring some order out of chaos and realize the full potential of their position,” Katz said. He emphasized that cities function not only as governments but as networks, drawing on businesses, universities, labor organizations, philanthropy, and civic groups.

Beth Simone Noveck highlighted the work of diagnosis and execution, arguing that many urban problems persist because they are poorly understood at the point of implementation. She cautioned against jumping prematurely to solutions—particularly technological ones—without examining how services actually function in practice. “It’s easy for policymakers… in their silo of vertical expertise, to talk about issuing a policy, but the implementation and execution… is what’s so crucial,” she said.

Throughout the discussion, panelists returned to the question of silos—when they help and when they hinder. De Jong underscored this tension by referencing a phrase attributed to Harvard Business School colleague Mitch Weiss: “You know what would happen without silos. There would be corn everywhere.”

Tensions Between Diagnosis and Delivery

Questions from the audience reflected many of the same tensions discussed by the panel. Several participants asked how city leaders can shift attention from rushing to solutions toward first understanding the nature of a problem—especially in political environments that reward speed and visible action.

Panelists largely rejected the idea that cities must choose between diagnosis and delivery. Katz argued that cities often need to move on both fronts at once, beginning implementation while refining their understanding of local conditions.

Preparing for the Future

The discussion concluded with reflections on what city leaders can do today to prepare for future challenges. While panelists emphasized different aspects—organizational form, networks, skills, or authority—they converged on the idea that institutional design and problem-solving capacity deserve sustained attention.

As Mulgan said, “Sometimes you’ll best solve a problem with a program or a policy or a law, but sometimes an institution may be the best way of solving it and leaving a legacy.”