Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto is attending a three-day boot camp this week, but he’s not doing calisthenics or running obstacle courses.
Peduto's attending the first ever Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, a boot camp in New York for 40 mayors from around the world to learn about best practices in city government. According to Peduto, it consists of three 12-hour days of classes led by experts from Bloomberg Philanthropies and Harvard’s School of Business and Kennedy School of Government.
“I’ll be there with those other mayors and they’re the same ones I’ll see competing for the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities. They’re the same mayors I’ll see competing for Bloomberg’s $5 million," as well as other federal grants, Peduto said.
Conference organizers said local government leaders are grappling with growing challenges and mayors “must find new ways to use limited resources and deliver a wide range of services for growing populations.”
Peduto said that he and his colleagues are learning about best practices in municipal government.
“There’s a handful of cities that do this and compete and there are others that are left behind," Peduto said. "Fortunately for Pittsburgh, we’re not only back on the global stage we’re back with a really compelling story that people want to be a part of."
In late June and early July, Peduto told Pittsburgh’s story in London to executives from Mercedes, Jaguar, Rolls-Royce, BMW, Ford, Volvo, Samsung and Shell -- and at an urban leadership conference in France.
According to the mayor’s office, expenses for the mayors boot camp are being covered by the organizers.
