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Transatlantic Dialogue Initiative: Community Safety and Well-Being Amidst Consecutive Global Crises — The Role of Mayors and Local Governments

Publication Date:

20/03/2025

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Event Reports

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community safetyGlobal CrisesManchesterTransatlantic Dialogue Initiative

This report provides a summary of discussions during the event and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Strong Cities Network Management Unit, Strong Cities members, event sponsors or participants.

Summary

On 26-27 February 2025, Strong Cities Network convened over 90 representatives of cities, civil society and national governments from Europe and North America, with over 35 cities represented from 15 countries. The convening, which was co-hosted by Mayor Andy Burnham of Greater Manchester Combined Authority, took place under the auspices of the Strong Cities Transatlantic Dialogue Initiative, which seeks to strengthen city-city transatlantic cooperation, recognising that cities across Europe and North America share similar challenges and have much to learn from one another when it comes to the prevention of hate, extremism and other harms to social cohesion.

Several key findings emerged from the discussions:

• Local governments continue to grapple with the significant impacts of cascading national and global crises, with the most pressing challenge remaining the conflict in the Middle East.
• The spread and potential for online harms, such as mis- and disinformation, to have offline impacts is also of significant concern, particularly as city officials feel they have a lack of in-house capacity and resources to understand the scale of online harms and mount a proportionate response.
• From small grants programmes and other funding schemes to citizen advisory committees, there are multiple ways local governments can work with residents and community-based organisations to prevent hate and extremism.
• Local governments are increasingly embracing the concept of “co-governance” to ensure residents feel their needs and priorities are reflected in local policies, programmes and public service delivery.
• The private sector remains a largely untapped partner in prevention, despite a) most large corporations having corporate social responsibility departments that may be interested in supporting efforts to strengthen social cohesion, which can contribute to a reduction in hate and polarisation, and b) local businesses having a clear stake in the safety and well-being of communities.
• Local governments are also taking (or seeking to take) a more strategic approach towards urban planning and design, recognising that a city’s “built” environment can impede or foster interaction and social cohesion, soft target protection and safety overall.
• Small/mid-sized and/or rural cities and towns must be considered and supported with prevention: while they face a number of threats to social cohesion, they often receive much less support (i.e. from their national government) to address such threats than capital cities and urban centres.
• Despite current global geopolitical circumstances, cities on both sides of the Atlantic want to collaborate and learn from one another more than ever. Whether it is supporting Ukrainian cities with long-term recovery or simply sharing challenges and brainstorming solutions through Strong Cities Network, they desire more opportunities to convene and collaborate.

Threats & Key Challenges

Participants pointed to the long-term impacts of global crises as one of the biggest threats to social cohesion. In the context of the Israel-Gaza conflict, for example, city officials not only cited significant increases in hate crime and hate speech targeting Muslim and Jewish communities, but also an erosion of public trust in (local) governance, with some communities feeling their elected leaders are not taking a strong enough stance on the crisis.

Participants also noted that the challenge is exacerbated by an ever-evolving digital threat landscape, with new platforms regularly created or exploited to amplify hate and conspiracy narratives. Despite global recognition of the scale of harmful content that exists online, local governments are rarely supported – by their national counterparts or technology companies and other relevant global actors – to a) understand the online threat landscape and b) implement practices to respond, whether through digital literacy training, awareness campaigns, supporting victims of online hate or otherwise. This, despite several examples participants pointed to as proof of the significant potential for online narratives to drive violence and harm offline, with local governments left to deal with the aftermath of such violence, such as:

• Gdansk (Poland): In Gdansk, anti-migrant and anti-LGBTQ narratives, fuelled by a national ‘mainstreaming’ of such sentiment, contributed to the assassination of Gdansk’s then-Mayor Pawel Adamowicz, who was a strong advocate for supporting migrants, refugees and LGBTQ+ rights. Prior to his assassination, he was also sent a fake death certificate by a national far-right youth group, with his cause of death cited on the certificate as “liberalism, multiculturalism and stupidity”.
• Portsmouth (United Kingdom): Officials from Portsmouth City Council shared that when a far-right extremist made claims on social media that a hotel was being built to house asylum seekers (playing into popular extremist narratives claiming refugees and asylum seekers are “stealing” resources from local residents), the City was kept busy “for a full week” trying to dispel the narrative and prevent hateful anti-migrant mobilisation.  
• Southport (United Kingdom): After three children were killed in Southport, narratives spread on X and other platforms claiming the attack was committed by an illegal migrant and blaming the tragic incident on immigration. This incited anti-migrant riots that resulted in hotels, mosques and other soft targets being vandalised, with participants from Liverpool and other cities across the United Kingdom observing how quickly people mobilised and that this is a direct result of the unchecked spread of dis- and misinformation online.

Participants also expressed concern regarding the limited scope of many of the efforts to address to address mis- and disinformation. For example, it was pointed out that digital literacy training primarily targets “digital natives” (i.e., younger generations), neglecting older individuals who did not grow up with digital technology and may also lack the capacity to recognise online harms.

Finally, participants added that mis- and disinformation and the challenges of adequately addressing it also impact public service delivery by eroding trust in governance, in turn affecting the well-being and ability of city officials to do their jobs. Officials from Birmingham (United Kingdom) shared, for example, that city officials increasingly get harassed on the streets, making it difficult for them to canvas safely and fulfil their duties, while representatives of Athens (Ohio, United States) noted that disinformation is “slowing down the daily operations of the city and wearing down City Council”.

Key Themes

1. Keeping it Local: Community-Based Partnerships in Prevention

The workshop shed light on the variety of ways local governments are tapping into and otherwise supporting community-based partners to address hate, extremism and other obstacles to social cohesion. This includes through:

• Small grants programmes and other funding schemes to strengthen citywide primary prevention, with the Mayor of London (United Kingdom)’s Shared Endeavour Fund and Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s RADEQUAL initiatives shared as two good practices. Both initiatives see the local government providing grants to community-based organisations to deliver a variety of prevention programmes, ranging from projects that use creative and performing arts to raise community-wide awareness about hate and extremism and sports to address youth isolation and promote interaction between residents that may otherwise have little exposure.
  
  Importantly, both projects also respond to local needs as shared directly by community members. The Shared Endeavour Fund, for example, is one of the outcomes of a citywide “listening exercise” MOPAC conducted following the series of terrorist attacks London was targeted with in 2017, through which civil society organisations – particularly small organisations – shared that they felt they were an untapped resource in London’s efforts to prevent hate and extremism.
  
  Similarly, as shared by representatives of Manchester City Council, RADEQUAL was launched in part as a response to concerns amongst community members that the primary framework for local prevention in the UK – the Prevent programme, which is funded by the national government – is insufficient given its sole focus on secondary prevention and narrow thematic prioritisation (i.e., individuals on the path to committing to terrorism or violent extremism), and that more needed to be done to support community-based organisations and civil society more broadly with playing a role in primary prevention or communitywide resilience-building.  

• Serving as a convenor of community leaders and organisations to understand local threats and co-design policies, an example of which is Fuenlabrada (Spain)’s Mesa por la Convivencia (Co-Existence Board), a citizen participation body that brings together trade unions, cultural groups and local non-governmental organisations to:
  • Foster constructive conversations amongst different cultural, ethnic and social groups about life in the city and how this can be improved;
  • Promote integration by organising activities (e.g., cultural expositions) that help immigrants and other minority groups integrate into the broader community;
  • Implement co-designed anti-discrimination measures that reflect the experiences and needs of those historically discriminated against; and
  • Engage community members in local government decision-making processes more broadly.
• Similarly, Brooklyn Center (Minnesota, United States) has citizen-appointed boards where communities select a representative to advise the local government on specific topics. This includes a Police Advisory Committee, a Hispanic and Immigrant Affairs Board and others, all of which convene city officials and professionals relevant to, as well as community members most affected by, the given committee’s/board’s focus. As officials from Brooklyn Center shared, these committees/boards not only provide a platform for the City to gain a more holistic understanding of local challenges and needs, but they also build trust between community members and the local government by enabling regular constructive and solutions-oriented dialogue on key public service competencies.
• Partnering with subject-matter or technical experts to address specific challenges. In Highland Park (Illinois, United States), the City tapped into local mental health professionals and a Legal Aid Clinic to provide support in the immediate and long-term aftermath of a mass shooting on July 4^th, 2022 that saw seven killed and dozens more injured. Importantly, this partnership continues, recognising the long-term trauma such an incident can have and that news of mass shootings elsewhere can be triggering for residents of Highland Park. Further, support is offered not just to those who were immediately impacted by the shooting, such as survivors, their families and those who lost a loved one, but to the community writ large.

Crucially, participants shared that community-based partnerships and networks can also support with city-led crisis management and response. In Birmingham (United Kingdom), for example, the City Council was able to leverage its network of faith leaders, which has existed for more than 10 years, to reassure residents that the anti-immigrant violence that occurred post-Southport would not be welcome nor tolerated in Birmingham, and that the City Council would do what it could to prevent it from happening there in the first place. As officials from Birmingham noted, “it was about using the networks that we already had and the trust that we have [already built] and not waiting for a crisis to happen to build those networks but having them in place already.” Meanwhile, in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania, United States), the City’s Interagency Civil Rights Taskforce brings together local, state and federal authorities with civil society organisations, which meet regularly to proactively identify rising tensions. As mentioned by representatives of the City, the Taskforce provides a readily available multi-agency structure that can easily be mobilised in crisis moments to enable a rapid, coordinated response between law enforcement and civil society partners.

2. Promising Practices: Urban Planning and Design, Soft Target Protection and Public-Private Partnerships

Participants also shared new ways they are approaching prevention, including through giving urban design and spatial planning a more explicit focus on community cohesion. Officials from both sides of the Atlantic shared examples of how they are investing in new and repurposing existing physical spaces and infrastructure to foster inter-community interaction and create a more accessible and inclusive built environment. For example, in Gdansk, the City is exploring how it can “regenerate” old city districts and neighbourhoods on the outskirts of the city to accommodate rapid population growth while promoting interaction and exposure between long-term residents and “new arrivals”. Similarly, the City of Mechelen (Belgium) is funding the establishment of sports, youth and other recreational spaces that are designed to bring residents of different backgrounds together. In Budapest (Hungary), the City is repurposing what it deems are unnecessary city assets, converting these into communal spaces instead. For example, it converted a parking lot that belonged to City Hall into a park that local organisations can now use to host inter-communal activities, such as movies.

Urban design is also being used to protect soft targets, recognising that hate-and extremist-motivated actors increasingly target civic spaces, such as city centres, tourist hotspots, places of worship, sports stadiums and concert halls. Officials from London, Madrid (Spain), Oslo (Norway) and Overland Park (Kansas, United States) shared how they are investing in new infrastructure to mitigate e.g., vehicle ramings, working with urban planners to create structures that both reflect the city’s visual identity and effectively serve their security functions.

Further, participants pointed to the private sector as an untapped resource in prevention. While there have been some promising cases of private sector investment in prevention, with Google.org (Google’s philanthropic arm) match-funding the first iteration of London’s Shared Endeavour Fund, these examples are few and far between. Some participants suggested Strong Cities develop guidance for how local governments can approach such companies on prevention.

Participants highlighted how smaller, local businesses are an asset that city governments should tap into for prevention and response. In Manchester, for example, in the immediate aftermath of the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, local taxi companies turned off their payment metres and shared (on social media) that they would drive anyone in Manchester – particularly stranded concert goers – home that night for free, which inspired taxis from Liverpool to drive to Manchester to do the same. While this was not the outcome of a formal crisis response partnership between Greater Manchester Combined Authority and the taxi companies, it demonstrates the potential for local businesses to serve as partners in managing crises. Further, London and Luton (United Kingdom) partner with football clubs to spread anti-racism messaging, leveraging the influence of different professional teams to raise awareness about hate speech and crime and how to report it.

3. Sustaining City-City Collaboration in Prevention and Response

The workshop also reiterated why city-city cooperation is so important, with a number of officials providing examples of how they are supporting or are being supported by other cities in prevention and response. For example, the Unbroken Cities Network is an initiative started by the Mayors of Lviv (Ukraine), Liverpool, Manchester and the One World Strong Foundation to support Ukrainian cities with their (long-term) recovery, inspired by the Mayor of Lviv’s proactive investment – through the Unbroken Rehabilitation Centre – in the psychosocial rehabilitation of Ukrainians. Through the Network, its founding members and other cities such as Oslo are supporting Lviv through “opening up their medical and charitable networks” and sharing learnings from their experiences navigating the impacts of terrorist attacks in their cities. Further, officials from Highland Park, Manchester, Strasbourg and other cities that have experienced mass casualty violence shared that the city-city exchange model of Strong Cities is helping them identify how best to address the long-term impacts of such violence.

Participants added that city-city collaboration can also help local officials cope emotionally with the pressures of their mandate, especially given they are increasingly targeted in hate- or extremist discourse, with some participants sharing that they feel the impacts on well-being of city officials are not taken seriously by their national government counterparts. It is in this context that officials from both sides of the Atlantic encouraged Strong Cities to incorporate a focus on threats against local officials in future dialogues.

Next Steps

Key findings from the workshop will inform future events held under the auspices of Strong Cities’ Transatlantic Dialogue Initiative, including an Autumn 2025 event in Fuenlabrada, which will build on this dialogue’s discussions on co-governance, community-based and public-private partnerships and more.

Strong Cities will also build on its City Spotlights Library, working with participants of this dialogue to create spotlights featuring their various prevention and response efforts. Further, as Strong Cities continues to navigate a rapidly changing multilateral and donor landscape, it will consult with its city members on how best to sustain city-city transatlantic dialogue.

Additional Resources

Manchester’s Resources

• Manchester’s Hate Crime Plan, Greater Manchester Combined Authority; October 2024
• Manchester’s Preventing Hateful Extremism and Promoting Social Cohesion Commission, Greater Manchester Combined Authority; undated. See also its A Shared Future report.

Strong Cities Initiatives

• Global Crises, Local Impacts Initiative, undated
• Transatlantic Dialogue Initiative and Key Findings 2024, Strong Cities Network, February 2025

Strong Cities Policy Briefs

• Managing Migration: City-Led Approaches for Being an Inclusive, Welcoming and Socially-Cohesive City, Strong Cities Network, December 2024
• 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
• City-Led Youth Engagement in Addressing Hate, Extremism and Polarisation: Ten Recommendations for Cities, 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

Donors & Partners

We are grateful to Mayor Andy Burnham and Greater Manchester Combined Authority for generally co-hosting the workshop, and to Manchester Building Society, Fieldfisher and Sister for their support in making this happen.

Contact Information

For more information on this event and the Strong Cities’ Transatlantic Dialogue Initiative, please email Charlotte Moeyens, Chief of Staff at [email protected].

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