Mayors of America: you too can be as brilliant as Michael Bloomberg

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-news-blog/2012/jun/13/michael-bloomberg-mayoral-challenge

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Not content with an unprecedented three-term stint at the helm of New York City, Michael Bloomberg is preparing to judge his peers from around the United States by his own exacting standards.

Launching a $9m competition to find the best new ideas for how to improve American cities, Bloomberg declared he wanted to share his talents with other municipal administrations he when leaves his City Hall eyrie for the last time in January 2014.

The "mayor's challenge" appears to be the latest step in what has been dubbed Bloomberg's plan to be "mayor of the world", in which would bring the experience gained at the head of New York City to bear on other administrations facing similar problems.

Like other initiatives that Bloomberg has championed in cities around the world, this latest one will be funded from his own ample pockets. Asked by Charlie Rose on CBS television about his motivations for launching the competition, Bloomberg replied: "I don't know what I'm going to do when I finish this job at the end of 2013, but I could do a lot worse than trying to help other cities. Everybody said I should worry about New York, but I'm part of America and the world, and I want all cities to do well."

The contest provides for a prize of $5m for the winning city, and additional awards of $1m for four runners-up. Any city in the US with more than 30,000 residents can enter, with the idea being for them to share their insights and actions so that other cities can benefit from them.

The awards are designed to help the winning cities to implement their innovative projects.

Julia Vitullo-Martin, an expert on cities at the Regional Plan Association in New York, said that the Bloomberg contest was bound to be popular. "Doesn't every city in America want to enjoy a portion of New York's fabulous success?"

But she added that the competition reflected Bloomberg's supreme confidence in himself as a leader among mayors. "We have a local word for that in New York: chutzpah."

As Gabriel Sherman of New York magazine recently put it: "It's always been Michael Bloomberg's most fervent political conviction that he knows best how to address problems."

At its most extreme, Bloomberg's belief in his own leadership qualities have led him to be accused of imposing his will on others, particularly in the health field. Last week the soft drink industry took out a full page advert in newspapers protesting the mayor's decision to restrict the size of fizzy sodas sold in New York.

The advert depicted Bloomberg dressed in women's clothing beneath the headline: "The Nanny. You only thought you lived in the land of the free."