European and American Mayors Worry About Very Different Things

U.S. cities worry a lot about government efficiency and customer service. European cities, on the other hand, fret more about unemployment and cutting energy waste. That, at least, is the picture drawn from new data supplied to The Atlantic Cities by Bloomberg Philanthropies' Mayors Challenge.

This year, the challenge has taken its brief to "inspire cities to generate innovative ideas that solve major challenges and improve city life" across the Atlantic to Europe. In doing so, it has highlighted some fascinating differences in priorities among applicants, which are all city governments, on the two continents. We'll be covering the 21 finalists announced last week in more depth in the near future. In the meantime, take a look at the table below, which breaks down the percentage of Mayors Challenge applicants both last year (which was open only to U.S. cities) and this year (only European cities), by problem area type: