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Mayoral Leadership in the Face of Rising Incivility and Polarisation: Modelling Civility and Bridging Divides in Times of Crisis

Publication Date:

22/10/2025

Content Type:

Event Reports

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Bridging DividescivilityMayoral LeadershipRising Incivility

— 7 minutes reading time

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

Summary

On 22 October 2025, Strong Cities Network hosted the latest in a series of monthly webinars on Mayoral Leadership in the Face of Rising Incivility and Polarisation: Modelling Civility and Bridging Divides in Times of Crisis. The webinar series is part of Strong Cities’ Introduction to City-Led Prevention of Hate and Targeted Violence, an exploration of how local governments and elected local leaders can get more involved in addressing hate and other threats to social cohesion in their cities.

Around the world, mayors are on the front lines of local, national and global divisions reckoning with how to mitigate the impacts of increasing division and incivility — and the political and other forms of violence that can result. These challenges have implications across communities, political discourse and governance as residents grow increasingly distrustful of institutions, political processes and the benefits of civic engagement. As residents withdraw from their communities, polarisation festers and incivility and intolerance become the norm, tearing at the fabric of our society.

These trends also give rise to threats to the safety and wellbeing of residents, including elected and other government officials who are increasingly the targets of hate and harassment. Mayors and local elected leaders are uniquely qualified to confront these challenges and demonstrate and promote civility and dialogue to foster community connection and belonging for all residents in their cities and beyond.

October’s webinar featured a conversation with three US mayors across the geographic and political spectrum on the importance of modelling civility and respect and how they promote civic engagement and dialogue to bridge divides and address their communities’ most pressing challenges. The mayors discussed the increasingly important role mayors and other local elected leaders play, including by working with trusted community partners across their city, in restoring faith in institutions and advancing strategies to ensure a healthy and resilient democracy. The conversation was preceded by remarks from Matt Leighninger, Vice President and Director of the Center for Democracy Innovation at the National Civic League.

Introductory Briefer

• Matt Leighninger, Vice President, Director, Center for Democracy Innovation, National Civic League

Panellists

• Kendy Alvarez, Mayor, Borough of Lewisburg, Pennsylvania
• Bryan Barnett, Mayor, City of Rochester Hills, Michigan
• Daniel Rickenmann, Mayor, City of Columbia, South Carolina

Key Takeaways

1. To ensure a healthy, thriving democracy, local governments should innovate and redesign systems to improve how they engage and interact with residents, regardless of background and whether they are longstanding community members or newly arrived to the city.
2. Mayors serve as great conveners – of local institutions, organisations and residents – to build community trust and advance civic engagement.
3. Mayors should make connections and create and foster partnerships with community and faith leaders before tensions escalate or incidents occur.
4. More emphasis should be placed on finding innovative ways to listen and dialogue with communities early and often. Mayors should be accessible, authentic and intentional about engaging and listening to communities.
5. Community foundations and other local place-based funders are great allies to local government as they can serve as conveners, funders and measurers of civic health.
6. Engaging in arguments online with anonymous posters is not a productive way to engage the community or effect change. Mayors and city officials should invest in areas where they get a return on investment from their outreach and communication. When tensions are high, mayors and city officials can help de-escalate tensions by starting community meetings and conversations by focusing on areas of agreement or where common ground can easily be found.
7. To help reverse polarisation, mayors should focus on healing the community in the aftermath of an incident.
8. Mayors should recruit help to build trust and their story. They should find a champion in each community they are trying to reach to help communicate their vision, priorities, goals and successes.

Promoting Civic Engagement

Matt Leighninger opened the conversation highlighting the important role mayors and city officials play in building trust, addressing challenges and inspiring communities to civically invest in their cities. He pointed to how many municipal leaders are challenged in this work by outdated systems, policies and public meeting formats that aren’t effectively responsive to community needs or struggle to authentically capture the views of all communities. Leighninger shared innovative evidence-based practices, tools and strategies from across the US that mayors and other civic leaders can deploy to successfully engage residents and community groups and provide a voice in governance. These include small group deliberative forums, participatory budgeting, survey panels and other efforts to hear and be responsive to community priorities and concerns. These civic forums and innovative engagement strategies allow neighbours to meet neighbours (particularly from different backgrounds), provide an opportunity for civil dialogue and foster belonging that strengthens community bonds and trust in institutions and local government processes.

Promoting & Demonstrating Civility

Mayor Kendy Alvarez cautioned that political correctness, niceties and policing language is not a successful path to civility. Rather, she encouraged a deeper and more thoughtful approach to foster civility that emphasises dialogue and understanding what inspires fellow community members’ decision-making. Armed with this knowledge, civic leaders and community members can meaningfully move forward. Mayor Barnett agreed that leaders should lead with intentionality and authenticity when listening to residents. Mayor Rickenmann shared an example of these authentic connections and conversations. Instead of holding a State of the City address this year, his office hosted town halls in each city district, becoming the convener of conversations to hear directly from residents about their vision for the future of their city.

Partnerships

All mayors emphasised the importance of building partnerships before a crisis or incident occurs. These partnerships often begin with personal relationships between mayors and leaders across local institutions and faith communities. Expanding these relationships to build more formalised partnerships and collaborations ensures more effective prevention and response efforts. Following an incident in his city, to help his community begin the healing process, Mayor Barnett joined activities at a local church to support and stand alongside impacted community members. Through these partnerships, mayors also benefit from trusted messengers who can share their communities’ concerns and priorities. Among these communities, the mayors shared the importance of encouraging civic engagement and promoting flexible thinking in youth. For example, the City of Columbia hosts monthly meetings with student representatives from six area colleges and universities. City officials also visit these campuses to hear from professors and administrators about their challenges and priorities.

Understanding, Implementing & Messaging a Vision

Mayor Barnett shared that his city conducts a statistically significant biennial survey to better understand the community’s needs, priorities and opportunities for service improvement. The local government uses the results of this survey to determine where to invest its funds and other resources. The mayors agreed on the importance of prioritising local needs, as dictated by their constituents, instead of national issues and politics, which may only inflame local tensions. Focusing resources on issues where local government can make measurable progress better reflects local sentiment and can restore faith in local governance and processes. Social media is essential in helping mayors communicate their city’s values, priorities and vision for the future. The mayors emphasised being intentional, data-driven and fact-based in sharing city news and messaging. Mayor Alvarez suggested identifying and recruiting a champion within the community who can help communicate and amplify messaging about a city’s priorities, needs and successes.

Next Steps

This webinar was presented as part of the Strong Cities Introduction to City-Led Prevention of Hate and Targeted Violence series, focused on how local governments and elected local leaders can get more involved in addressing hate and other threats to social cohesion in their cities.

Please sign up for Strong Cities Network’s mailing list to receive invitations for upcoming webinars and other events.

Additional Resources

• A Toolkit for Cities: Building a Multi-Actor Local Prevention Framework – Strong Cities Network (October 2025)
• A Guide for Mayors: Preventing and Responding to Hate, Extremism & Polarisations, Strong Cities Network (updated March 2025)
• A Guide for Cities: Preventing Hate, Extremism & Polarisation (see Navigating Difficult Issues), Strong Cities Network (updated March 2025)
• A Guide for City-Led Response, Strong Cities Network (updated February 2025)
• National Civic League | Advancing civic engagement to create equitable, thriving communities
• A Ten-Step Roadmap for Enhancing City-Led Support for Community-Based Programmes to Address Hate and Extremism, Strong Cities Network (February 2025)
• City-Led Youth Engagement in Addressing Hate, Extremism and Polarisation: Ten Recommendations for Cities (February 2025)
• Bridging Differences Playbook, Greater Good Science Center & Bridging Differences (February 2025)
• Countering Hate Speech in Times of Crisis: Considerations for Mayors and Local Governments, Strong Cities Network (December 2024)
  

Contact Information 

For more information on this event, the webinar series or Strong Cities North America programming, please contact the North America Regional Hub at [email protected]

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