New Report Explores How Cities and 'Anchor Institutions' Can Collaborate

NYU Wagner Innovation Labs' Director Neil Kleiman is the lead author of a new report released Sept. 29, "Striking a Local (Grand) Bargain: How cities and anchor institutions can work together to drive growth and prosperity."

Published by the National Resource Network and supported by the Ford Foundation, the comprehensive report begins: "Cities need partners. At a time when local governments are confronting challenges on multiple fronts ranging from rising inequality to fast-moving global economic tides and reduced state and federal support, collaboration has never been so important... In 2015 it is 'anchor institutions'—universities, medical centers and hospitals—that are the obvious partner for city leadership."

"We are recommending something wholly different: a grand bargain for anchor institutions and cities," the report goes on to state. "This approach is not predicated on discrete transactions, but instead is based on identifying shared interests, and on co-creating ambitious goals and working together to achieve them. High-impact partnerships between cities and institutions will only work when the actors at the municipal level come together as equals and chart a long-term course forward that is transparent, ambitious, and holds itself accountable."

The report, whose other authors are researchers from the Urban Institute, describes exactly how to make this grand bargain happen.

The Atlantic's CityLab dicussed the findings in an article.