New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg will build a consulting group that will help cities worldwide after his term for mayor ends, according to a report by The New York Times.
Bloomberg already hired his team of deputies who will help in his post-mayoral project and will pay his staff with his own pocket.
"We have heard this huge demand and need from other cities to learn from New York City," Amanda M. Burden, NYC director of city planning in the Bloomberg administration, told the Times. "Under this mayor, New York is the epitome that cities look to of how to get things done."
Burden plans to join Bloomberg's consulting group.
The organization will be called Bloomberg Associates and will be deployed at the invitation of any local government worldwide. It will help local governments solve urban problems and long-term city challenges.
However, and unlike mainstream consulting groups, Bloomberg Associates will provide its services free of charge. The report said the organization will involve spending huge amounts of money without expecting getting a profit.
The report said Bloomberg recruited half a dozen of his top aides. The team includes Janette Sadik-Khan, the transportation commissioner; Katherine Oliver, the commissioner of media and entertainment; and Kate D. Levin, the cultural affairs commissioner. The team will be run by George A. Fertitta, chief executive of the city's tourism agency who was responsible for the 54 million tourists who visited New York this year.
Bloomberg argues that investing in cities make sense. He said that half of the world's population are concentrated in urban areas and is expected to increase by 70 percent in the next 40 years.
"Great cities steal ideas from each other," Edward Skyler, a former deputy mayor in Mr. Bloomberg's City Hall and now a top executive at Citigroup, told the Times.
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