Fertile Ground: Implementing the 2030 Agenda in U.S. Cities

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development promotes sustainable global prosperity by encouraging the coordination of social, economic, and environmental policies and good governance reforms. Cities are expected to play an essential role in implementing the 2030 Agenda. Local programs are to be implemented by multi-actor governance systems (including government agencies, businesses, nonprofits, and philanthropic organizations) that operate across multiple policy domains and provide extensive opportunities for stakeholder participation. Local program finance may require a combination of public, private, and philanthropic resources. We analyze the prospects for local implementation of the 2030 Agenda in large U.S. cities by examining local capacity to plan and carry out cross-sectoral collaborative initiatives. We review sustainability planning in the cities that participated in the Sustainable Development Solutions Network planning demonstration. We analyze an inventory of urban revitalization initiatives to assess local capacity to carry out collaborations. We show that local capacity is associated with having an active local environmental agenda and making progress toward achieving sustainable development goals. However, local capacity appears to be concentrated in larger cities. Although the demands on local governance are daunting, our examination of local capacity to plan and execute cross-sectoral collaborative initiatives in large U.S. cities creates guarded optimism.