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North America Regional Hub: Building and Maintaining Cohesive and Connected Cities in Times of Crisis and Division

Publication Date:

05/08/2026

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Event Reports

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community safetyMayoral LeadershipPittsburghSocial CohesionUS Mayoral Retreat

Summary

From 5 – 7 August 2026, the Strong Cities Network’s North America Regional Hub convened more than 40 mayors, city council members, city officials, community-based organisations and other non-governmental partners in Pittsburgh for its third annual US Mayoral Retreat, Building and Maintaining Cohesive and Connected Cities in Times of Crisis and Division. Co-hosted by the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and the City of Pittsburgh, the retreat focused on how local leaders can strengthen trust, social cohesion and civic resilience amid rising polarisation, threats to public officials, hate-fuelled violence, misinformation and global crises with local impacts. 
 
Across three days, participants examined the evolving US threat landscape, including the ways online harms, AI-enabled influence operations and grievance-based narratives can inspire offline violence and undermine trust. They also shared practical approaches for building relationships before crises occur, supporting women local leaders targeted by gendered hate and harassment, engaging faith communities and community foundations as long-term civic partners and coordinating whole-of-city prevention and response. A central conclusion emerged across the retreat: cities are strongest when local governments invest deliberately in civic infrastructure — the relationships, institutions, partnerships and norms that allow communities to remain connected and resilient during periods of crisis and division.

Key Findings

Several cross-cutting lessons emerged from the retreat: 

• Invest in civic infrastructure before crisis hits. Trust, relationships and clear channels of communication cannot be built in the middle of a crisis. Cities need sustained partnerships with neighbourhoods, faith communities, philanthropy, schools, service providers and public safety agencies before tensions escalate. 
• Treat threats against women local leaders as a democratic resilience issue. Gendered hate, harassment and intimidation undermine public safety, representation and the functioning of local democracy; effective responses require institutional policies, peer support, digital safety, security planning and engagement from men as allies. 
• Engage community foundations as strategic partners, not only funders. Foundations can convene across sectors, interpret local data, mobilise resources and help communities align around shared priorities, especially when public trust and public funding are under strain. 
• Build whole-of-city prevention and response systems. Threats to social cohesion are interconnected and require coordinated action across local government, law enforcement, community organisations, faith leaders, philanthropy, mental health providers and residents. 

Key Themes

1. Addressing Polarisation, Strengthening Social Ccohesion and Advancing Civic Health Through Community Partnerships and Investment

Corey O’Connor, Mayor of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania, USA) welcomed participants to Pittsburgh and highlighted the value of bringing local leaders together to address pressing challenges facing communities across the country. He pointed to his administration’s focus on public safety and neighbourhood outreach, including the hiring of a new police chief, public safety director and five violence prevention specialists, all of whom participated in the retreat. Through a new partnership with the Richard King Mellon Foundation and enhanced collaboration with local businesses, Mayor O’Connor announced the expansion of the city’s Learn & Earn youth programme to a year-round model, providing young people with opportunities for mentorship, professional development and skills development. 

In her keynote address, Sara Innamorato, County Executive, Allegheny County (Pennsylvania, USA), emphasised that community resilience depends not only on physical infrastructure and economic strength, but also on trust, belonging, relationships and collective problem-solving. Drawing on Allegheny County’s experience, she described how meaningful community engagement and cross-sector partnerships can help local governments address interconnected challenges such as housing, economic development, climate resilience and public safety. The county’s All in Allegheny initiative engaged more than 19,000 residents to help turn community priorities into regional and local policies, supported by partnerships with universities, philanthropy, health care systems, businesses and others. Her remarks reinforced a core theme of the retreat: because local government touches residents’ everyday lives, it has a unique opportunity to rebuild trust and strengthen belonging. 

A panel on whole-of-city prevention and response showed how cities are turning partnership into operational capacity. Randy Duque, Deputy Director of the Commission on Human Relations, City of Philadelphia (Pennsylvania, USA), described how Philadelphia’s interagency civil rights task force brings together local, state and federal law enforcement and community organisation partners to respond to hate-fuelled violence, intergroup tensions and civil rights concerns. During the FIFA World Cup, the task force and its rapid response team supported the city’s human rights action plan through prevention efforts, awareness campaigns, training and on-the-ground support.

Dr. Amarah Khan, Director of the Office of the Employee Ombud, City of Seattle (Washington, USA), similarly described how more than 300 cross-agency and multi-sector partners helped Seattle deliver a safe global sporting event while creating relationships that can support future citywide efforts.  

Following an attack on the San Diego Islamic Center in May 2026, Fatima Maciel, Community Representative, Office of Mayor Todd Gloria, City of San Diego (California, USA) shared that although the city had a leading role to play in the immediate safety response to the incident, its role shifted to one of support for community and faith leaders and existing coalitions like OneSD working to combat hate and rising social division. She shared that the city is in the initial stages of working with OneSD and other partners to develop a rapid response network for each of the city’s constituencies and communities in times of crisis. Additional city support has included federal advocacy around hate prevention campaigns and connecting local organisations and faith institutions to government agencies for funding and other support.

She explained that following the murder of George Floyd, the San Diego Police Department (SDPD) made deliberate efforts to rebuild trust across the community, including with faith leaders and institutions, relationships that the city was subsequently able to draw on in its immediate and longer-term response to the Islamic Center attack. As part of its continued efforts to build community connections, the SDPD developed the United in Trust programme, bringing together community leaders, residents and local organisations to better understand issues affecting the community and law enforcement’s response to them. This trust-building has been especially important as the city experiences rising community fear around federal immigration enforcement activities.

When she first entered office, Elise Partin, Mayor of Cayce (South Carolina, USA), focused on her role as a convener, meeting and bringing together neighbourhood leaders, artists, pastors and other community leaders to build connections and relationships across the community. Emphasising that “disaster meets you where you are”, she underlined the importance of building and fostering a connected community that can respond more quickly and effectively and be more resilient during times of crisis.

As part of their whole-of-city approaches to prevention, speakers also shared how their cities are strengthening community safety through collaborations between mental health services and law enforcement. Randy Duque shared Philadelphia’s focus on violence prevention through the police department’s Behavioral Health Unit, which provides crisis intervention and diversion services, and programmes run by the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services. Dr. Khan described the City of Seattle’s ‘third public safety department’, the Community Assisted Response & Engagement (CARE) department, which offers alternative response services to residents in need. Fatima Maciel discussed Mayor Gloria’s focus on expanding support services to unhoused residents experiencing mental health crises.  

In her keynote address, Mindy O’Neall, Mayor of Fairbanks (Alaska, USA), used Pittsburgh’s many bridges as a metaphor for civic infrastructure. Just as physical infrastructure enables a city to function, she argued, relationships, trust, communication and transparency enable communities to remain resilient during periods of crisis and division. Her remarks underscored that mayors must invest in relationships with neighbourhoods, institutions, faith communities and other partners before a crisis occurs, so those trusted networks can be activated when challenges arise.

As mayors, people often think we’re chief executives. Or chief budget officers. Or chief emergency managers. Increasingly, I think we’re something else. We are Chief Civic Infrastructure Officers. We build confidence. We build relationships. We build partnerships. We build the conditions under which people continue believing in one another

Mindy O’Neall, Mayor of Fairbanks (Alaska, USA)

Michael Batchelor, President, Pennsylvania Community Foundation Association, and Phil Koch, Vice President, Policy & Community Impact, The Pittsburgh Foundation, encouraged local governments to engage community foundations as strategic partners in strengthening social cohesion, addressing polarisation and responding to emerging community needs. 
 
They emphasised that community foundations offer much more than financial resources. As nonpartisan, locally rooted institutions, foundations can convene donors, community-based organisations, businesses, civic leaders and other partners; collect and interpret data; translate findings into collective action; and respond flexibly when communities face disruptions from funding cuts or policy changes. The strongest partnerships, they noted, begin with relationship-building and a shared understanding of community priorities — not with one-time requests for funding.

2. Preventing and Responding to Rising Threats, Hate and Harassment Targeting Women Local Elected Leaders 

Caroline Wade, Digital Research Analyst, Strong Cities Network and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), provided an overview of the evolving threat environment facing local elected officials, with particular attention to intensifying gendered threats targeting women local officials. Drawing on ISD’s research from 2021 to 2025, she shared that violent rhetoric targeting US public officials increased 300% over that period, with a 5% monthly rise. These threats included online harassment, doxing and physical violence, and often spiked following major political events, with hyper-local grievances driving many incidents. 
 
For local elected officials, gender is a critical and compounding factor within this threat landscape. Presenting research from the Mayor’s Innovation Project, she explained that women mayors report experiencing harassment at much higher levels than their male counterparts and are significantly more likely to report harassment extending to family members, including spouses and children. Women local leaders and candidates for office also experience more persistent, personalised and identity-based abuse, including sexualised abuse, misogynistic slurs and appearance-based attacks. These forms of harassment go beyond policy critique and are used to question legitimacy, competence and authority in public life. 

These threats include verbal or telecommunicated abuse, threats and harassment, often in the form of swatting, bomb threats, doxing, property destruction and, increasingly for women, nonconsensual synthetic intimate imagery. Caroline explained that public requests for gendered deepfakes are increasingly being used as a form of misogynistic harassment, forcing officials into cycles of defensive communication that affect how and where they communicate. 

In a follow-on panel discussion, speakers shared their experiences as mayors and city officials being targeted by gendered threats, harassment and intimidation, tools and resources they use to address these issues and what more can be done to better prevent and respond to them.

Moderator Betsy Hodges, former Mayor of Minneapolis (Minnesota, USA), described the cumulative effect of gendered hostility as a “slow burn sabotage” of women’s leadership. Speakers described environments in which microaggressions, lack of respect and reduced mayoral responsibilities became normalised, creating conditions in which threats and intimidation could escalate. Nancy Rotering, Mayor of Highland Park (Illinois, USA), shared that harassment across her four terms evolved from online abuse to in-person incidents at City Council meetings and other public settings, eventually prompting the installation of bulletproof barriers under the dais at City Hall. Theresa Rich, Mayor of Farmington Hills (Michigan, USA), described spending half of her first mayoral salary on home and office security upgrades after receiving threats, while receiving little institutional support beyond advice to cancel public events. 

If you can’t serve in your full leadership capacity, if you can’t communicate in your full capacity, you’re not representing, and that’s what democracy is all about

Nancy Rotering, Mayor, City of Highland Park (Illinois, USA)

Speakers shared strategies and tools that help them cope, including counselling, establishing boundaries to prioritise wellbeing, joining peer and mentorship networks and scheduling regular check-ins with colleagues and staff. However, they stressed that more needs to be done. They emphasised that these challenges are systemic and require responses that extend beyond individual resilience. They emphasised that gendered hate and harassment represent a systemic threat to democratic participation and local governance, requiring collective, institutional and upstream responses as well as the engagement of male colleagues as allies. Additional steps advocated by speakers included local government support for security assessments, digital training, trauma-informed support and the development of clear policies for responding to harassment. More widely, they should take steps to foster workplaces where sexism, racism and intimidation are never normalised and rebuild civic trust by addressing the drivers of polarisation and division.  

In an interactive session of the retreat focused on capturing additional insights and recommendations to address these issues, participants underlined the need for systemic responses at the individual, municipal and community levels. These responses should include engaging allies, including men, to co-create solutions; training for municipal staff and law enforcement; mental health support for mayors and staff; and stronger peer and mentorship networks.  

In response to these intensifying issues, Strong Cities Network has launched a broader initiative to Safeguard and Elevate Women Local Leaders in Building and Maintaining Strong Cities. Building on the Strong Cities Women’s Caucus, launched in 2024, the initiative seeks to strengthen understanding of the threats facing women local leaders and co-create practical tools and responses to support them, their teams, municipal governments and communities. Through 2026, Strong Cities is convening regional consultations with elected women local leaders to discuss threats, share experiences and identify practical tools, guidance and multi-level responses to address these challenges and improve women local leaders’ ability to carry out their roles visibly and safely. These convenings will inform the design and development of the new Strong Cities global toolkit as well as programming on women’s local leadership at the Seventh Strong Cities Global Summit in Rabat, Morocco in early 2027.

3. The State of Incivility, Hate and Other Threats to Social Cohesion

Katherine Keneally, Director of Threat Analysis and Prevention at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue-US (ISD), which hosts Strong Cities, provided an overview of the current threat landscape for US cities, including the impact of online threats on offline activities. ISD identified 74 violent attacks and disrupted plots in 2025 linked to extremist movements, online radicalisation and grievance-based violence. This represented a 27% year-on-year increase compared with 2024. Attacks in 2025 represented a 316% increase in deaths and a 350% increase in injuries. Trends included violence as a service (paying individuals to perpetrate attacks), the use of AI to spread misinformation and influence offline activities, as well as foreign interference and state-backed hybrid warfare from actors such as Russia, Israel and Iran.  
 
ISD has observed an increase in state actors using AI to impersonate local officials or journalists to spread inaccurate information and target young people on Snapchat or Telegram to carry out attacks, frequently targeting infrastructure and Jewish communities. State and domestic actors are also taking advantage of natural disasters and domestic issues such as immigration to push narratives, sow discord across local communities and negatively impact a city’s social cohesion. These actors also leverage domestic issues to recruit and radicalise individuals, particularly targeting youth. ISD has noted a concerning level of youth-driven and youth-involved plots and attacks. Online networks and fandoms like 764 and the True Crime Community (TCC) are increasingly influencing youth to engage in nihilistically motivated violence, frequently targeting schools. The May 2026 attack perpetrated by two teenagers on the Islamic Center of San Diego is an example of a broader pattern of ideological extremism increasingly intersecting with nihilistic violent subcultures.  
 
In a panel focused on threats to social cohesion, speakers echoed challenges highlighted in Katherine’s presentation, including increased concern about the spread of misinformation online, rising community unrest around perceived threats from flock cameras and data centres and the local impact of federal immigration enforcement activities.

Mike Schadek, Director of International Affairs and Regional Partnerships, City of Columbus (Ohio, USA), shared that over the past ten years, one in three new residents of Columbus were born outside the United States. Federal immigration enforcement activities through US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in cities across the United States have created significant fear within the city’s immigrant community, resulting in residents self-isolating, fearful they could be targeted by enforcement agents. To address these issues of community wellbeing, the city partnered with trusted community messengers, including faith leaders, to share educational materials like Know Your Rights pamphlets to keep communities informed and supported.  
 
Remarking on the challenges that increased polarisation and division pose to communities, Steve Patterson, Mayor, City of Athens (Ohio, USA), promoted the National League of Cities Civility Pledge aimed at supporting local governments as they work to improve civic discourse and public engagement, and foster respect and empathy across their communities. He also shared the Dignity Index intended to measure and improve public discourse, ease divisions and prevent violence. Katrina Thompson, Mayor of the Village of Broadview (Illinois, USA), shared her community’s ongoing challenges related to federal immigration enforcement activities, including the ICE processing centre that has continuously drawn protesters and police response and posed substantial financial and logistical challenges to local governance. Aiming to move her community beyond these challenges, Mayor Thompson asked Congress to shut down the federal immigration facility and donate the land back to the community. In partnership with Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, the Village is reimagining the industrial corridor as the Broadview Justice Corridor, a new place for civic engagement, economic opportunity and healing. She advised city leaders to advocate for and represent their communities, especially in times of crisis and division.

Bob Dandoy, Mayor of Butler (Pennsylvania, USA), echoed Mayor Thompson’s calls for local leaders to represent and promote their communities. Following the assassination attempt on President Donald Trump outside of Butler (Pennsylvania) in 2024, the small community experienced a slew of misinformation and negative press, challenging Mayor Dandoy to effectively promote the good work happening in his community. Since the incident, Mayor Dandoy has renewed efforts to highlight and promote success stories in his community and strategically reshape perceptions about his city.

In her keynote address, Sara Carlson, Board Member, Eradicate Hate, emphasised that hate-fuelled violence can affect any community and does not emerge suddenly, but often begins with isolation, dehumanisation, anger, missed warning signs and opportunities for intervention. She shared that local leaders are uniquely positioned to prevent violence by serving as conveners and partners with schools, community-based organisations, health care providers, public safety agencies, faith communities and others to help foster social cohesion. She highlighted the importance of building local prevention capacity, empowering young people and peers to recognise warning signs and act as ‘upstanders’ by taking proactive steps to help ensure community safety and wellbeing. She argued that prevention is a shared responsibility and encouraged local leaders to engage with and support intervention and support services, youth-focused programmes, cross-sector working groups and existing resources and networks, like the Prevention Practitioners Network, so that they can be leveraged in times of crisis. 

4. Human Security as the Foundation for Effective R&R

A panel examined the role faith communities can play in prevention and how local governments can better engage with them. Speakers emphasised that faith communities often want to contribute to community solutions and are rooted in shared values, including justice, compassion and care for neighbours. They also bring deep local knowledge, volunteer capacity, trusted relationships and, in some cases, financial resources that cities can draw on as part of whole-of-city approaches to prevention and response.

The discussion highlighted examples of effective local government-faith partnerships. In Colorado Springs, after a group of faith leaders met with the mayor and inquired about the challenges he most wanted to address, a group of 80 churches raised $1.2 million for the city to help complete the Springs Rescue Mission, which significantly improved the city’s ability to address homelessness. The local government continues to collaborate with COSILoveYou, an organisation that rallies churches across Colorado Springs to address community needs through partnership and service.

To sustain these partnerships, speakers advised cities not to build relationships around a single mayor or faith leader. Instead, they encouraged local governments to cultivate connections across congregations, city departments and civic institutions so that partnerships and programmes can survive changes in leadership. 
 

Practical Lessons for Cities 

• Build trust before it is needed. Map trusted messengers and maintain regular engagement with community partners before crises occur. 
• Create rapid-response partnerships. Formalise coordination among local government, public safety, civil rights agencies, faith leaders and community organisations so roles are clear when incidents arise. 
• Support local leaders targeted by harassment. Provide digital safety guidance, security assessments, trauma-informed support and clear workplace policies. 
• Use convening power strategically. Mayors and city officials can bring together institutions that may not otherwise collaborate and help align them around shared community priorities. 
• Translate examples into sustained systems. Promising pilots and crisis responses should be converted into repeatable practices, standing partnerships and institutional memory. 

Next Steps 

• Share tools generated through the Women Local Leaders initiative, including practical guidance on prevention, response, safety and institutional support. 
• Deepen city-to-city learning on faith-civic and philanthropic partnerships that strengthen social cohesion before crises occur. 
• Document effective rapid-response models that help cities coordinate across local government, civil society, public safety, philanthropy and community partners. 
• Help cities translate retreat lessons into local prevention frameworks and sustained civic infrastructure. For more information, see the Strong Cities Resource Hub, which includes practical guides for local leaders. 

Donors & Partners

Additional Resources

• A Guide for Mayors: Preventing and Responding to Hate, Extremism & Polarisation, Strong Cities Network 
• A Guide For City-Led Response, Strong Cities Network 
• A Guide For Cities: Preventing Hate, Extremism & Polarisation, Strong Cities Network 
• A Toolkit for Cities: Building a Multi-Actor Local Prevention Framework, Strong Cities Network 
• Understanding AI-Driven Threats to Local Governments and Social Cohesion, Strong Cities Network, July 2026 
• Women Mayors on the Frontlines: Gender-Based Hate, Harassment and Democratic Resilience in European Cities, Strong Cities Network, June 2026 
• Addressing Anti-Government Hate and Harassment in Times of Crisis — A Federation of Canadian Municipalities Workshop, June 2026 
• Women Mayors on the Frontlines: Closing the Gaps in Responses to Gender-Based Hate, Harassment and Intimidation, Strong Cities Network, June 2026 
• Guest Article: Harassment of Women Mayors Erodes Local Democracy — Addressing it is a Shared Responsibility, Strong Cities Network, June 2026 
• Addressing the Intersection of Misogyny, Targeted Hate and Violent Extremism, Institute for Strategic Dialogue, May 2026 
• Collaborating for Cohesion — Optimising Faith-Civic Partnerships, Strong Cities Network, May 2026 
• Safeguarding and Elevating Women Local Leaders in Building and Maintaining Strong Cities, Strong Cities Network, April 2026 
• ‘Tick tock traitor:’ The rise of violent rhetoric targeting US public officials, Institute for Strategic Dialogue, February 2026 
• City Leadership in Partnering with Local Communities for Social Cohesion: Ten Considerations for Mayors and Local Governments, Strong Cities Network, updated February 2026 
• Digital Safety Guide: How to Prevent and Respond to Swattings and Threats, Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2026 
• Enhancing Local Efforts to Address Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence (TFGBV) and Misogyny as Drivers of Social Polarisation and Violence, December 2025 
• City Leadership in the Face of Rising Incivility and Polarisation: Ten Considerations for Mayors and Local Governments, Strong Cities Network, December 2025 
• A Toolkit for Manitoba Municipalities: Addressing Anti-Government Hate and Harassment, Strong Cities Network, December 2025 
• The ‘Cost of Doing Politics’? Gendered Abuse and Digital Platforms’ Role in Undermining Democracy, Institute for Strategic Dialogue, May 2025 
• Countering Hate Speech in Times of Crisis: Considerations for Mayors and Local Governments, Strong Cities Network, December 2024 
• City-Led Prevention of Hate, Extremism and Polarisation: Leveraging Local Youth Councils, Strong Cities Network, December 2024 
• Global Crises, Local Impacts: Key Findings & Recommendations to Date, Strong Cities Network, Strong Cities Network, April 2024 
• Managing Migration: City-Led Approaches for Being an Inclusive, Welcoming and Socially-Cohesive City, Strong Cities Network, December 2024 
• Creating Safe, Cohesive and Resilient Cities through Urban Planning & Design: Ten Considerations for Mayors and Local Governments, Strong Cities Network, December 2024 
• Global Crises, Local Impacts Initiative – with links to event reports from previous webinars, Strong Cities Network 

Contact Information

For more information on this event and the Strong Cities Network North America Regional Hub, please contact our team at [email protected] 

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