HR&A Advisors, Inc.

Written by Andrea Batista Schlesinger and Jose Serrano-McClain   How a newly elected leader handles the transition period, beginning on election day and spanning their first few months in office, tells you everything you need to know about how they are going to govern.   Effective leaders use the transition period to clarify how they will translate campaign promises into action, generate policies grounded in the reality of people’s lives, express their values through their first budget, and attract talent to get things done.   In our work at HR&A and in our past lives in City Halls, we have learned a few things about how to take advantage of the transition period:   1. Start before you win to ensure a first budget that reflects your values.   It is hard to plan for a transition when you don’t know if you will win; superstitious candidates think it’s bad luck, and most effort is focused on winning. But the risk of preparing and losing is greater t...

Giacomo B agarella shares insights from the 2022 Smart Cities New York Urban Tech Summit. This piece was also featured in The Envoy .   Urban technology comes in many shapes and sizes, and they influence the lives of city-dwellers in myriad ways. Take, for example, your commute home from work: You can call a ride with an app on your phone, step into an electric vehicle when it arrives, and then use another app to turn on the heat in your apartment so it’s comfortable when you arrive. These technologies have various financing mechanisms, lifespans, energy needs, and interdependencies. Together, they make up a slice of everything that’s required to keep a city operating and our lives moving, and to do so with fewer carbon emissions.   The 2022 Smart Cities New York Urban Tech Summit focused on this topic with two packed days revolving around “The Climate Mobilization: Harnessing NYC’s Urban Tech Ecosystem.” Hosted and organized by Cornell Tech , the conference offered a ...