Be Like Mike: How Bloomberg Became the World's 'Mentor'

In one month, New York City voters will pick a new mayor. On the left, Bill de Blasio has campaigned as the anti-Bloomberg, promising to change current policies on schools and policing. On the right, Joe Lhota has alternately praised and criticized the current mayor, expressing support of certain policies while at the same time trying to distance himself from the current administration's middling approval rates. No matter who gets elected, New York’s next mayor will run a city that has changed a lot in the last 12 years. While Michael Bloomberg’s successor might be able to rewrite certain policies, many of the mayor’s efforts will have a lasting effect on the city.

But there are higher stakes for Bloomberg’s legacy beyond the five boroughs. Looking ahead to CityLab, The Atlantic’s summit on local-level innovation to be held in New York City from October 6-8, it seems important to ask whether this is even possible: Can one city’s experiments affect the way cities are run across the world?* A growing number of scholars and theorists seem to think so.