On 5 June 2026, U.S. mayors and senior international officials gathered in Paris for the closing side event of Urban7 2026 — a lively conversation on the growing global engagement of American cities at a moment of unprecedented global turbulence.
On Friday, 5 June 2026, the City Diplomacy Lab and the German Marshall Fund of the United States brought together U.S. mayors and representatives of leading international organizations at Reid Hall — Columbia University’s Paris home — for a morning of dialogue on the international engagement of American cities. The event served as the closing side event of Urban7 2026, the first U7 International Mayors’ Summit to take place since cities were formally recognized as an official G7 Engagement Group.
Moderated by Lorenzo Kihlgren Grandi, Founding Director of the City Diplomacy Lab, the event brought together four U.S. city representatives: Steve Patterson, Mayor of Athens (Ohio) and Head of the U.S. Delegation to Urban7 2026; Dilpreet Sidhu, Deputy Mayor for International Affairs of Los Angeles; José “Chito” Vela III, Mayor Pro Tem of Austin; and Elle Bisgaard-Church, Chief of Staff to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
The second part of the program brought in institutional voices: Dario Liguti, Director of Energy, Housing and Land Management at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE); Linda Tinio, Coordinator of UNESCO’s International Coalition of Inclusive and Sustainable Cities (ICCAR); Stefano Marta, Head of Unit for Smart and Sustainable Cities at the OECD; and Paul Costello, Director (interim) of GMF Cities.
The discussion drew an engaged audience of institutional representatives, researchers, and students — including participants in the City Diplomacy course taught by Dr. Kihlgren Grandi at Sciences Po–PSIA, whose Spring 2026 podcast series on city diplomacy in G7 countries offers a complementary perspective on many of the themes raised that morning.
What emerged from the conversation
The case for international engagement is grounded in daily life. City leaders described international engagement not as an add-on but as a response to what residents already live: migration histories, diaspora communities, global supply chains, cross-border cultural ties. The international engagement of cities, they argued, begins with the people who already carry the world with them — and extends outward through universities, sport, culture, and bilateral partnerships that generate concrete local benefits. On the practical side, speakers also addressed a recurring tension: cities are asked to respond to challenges — economic inequality, housing, healthcare — that are largely shaped by national-level policy frameworks, yet are expected to deliver with local resources. International cooperation, in this framing, is not only an outward-looking activity but a mechanism for sharing tools, evidence, and political leverage across cities facing structurally similar constraints.
Sport and major events are powerful levers of city diplomacy. Los Angeles’s relationship with Paris — and with Brisbane, the hosts of the Olympic Games immediately before and after Los Angeles 2028 — illustrated, in Dilpreet Sidhu‘s account, how the Olympic cycle can become the backbone of a sustained diplomatic strategy. The City Diplomacy Lab had explored exactly this theme in a conference on Olympic cities’ sustainable visions and legacies held at the same venue in 2024. Austin’s Formula 1 Grand Prix emerged as another example of a recurring international event that builds visibility, economic partnership, and cultural exchange. Elle Bisgaard-Church described a watch party held in New York City for the Africa Cup of Nations final as an image of the kind of civic internationalism cities can cultivate at the neighborhood level — one that reflected both the city’s diasporic communities and Mayor Mamdani’s own biography.
International organizations: frameworks, tools, and city partnerships
Dario Liguti (UNECE) highlighted the increasingly recognized role of local authorities in addressing shared global challenges, and the need to strengthen their financial capacity to turn recognition into delivery. Linda Tinio (UNESCO) presented ICCAR’s work on inclusion: cross-regional knowledge exchange, youth bootcamp programs linking Los Angeles and Columbus, and emerging research on ethics and AI — alongside a broader effort to raise the visibility of cities’ work against racism. Stefano Marta (OECD) described the territorial approach to the Sustainable Development Goals, the OECD Champion Mayors initiative, and the central role of data and measurement — noting partnerships with New York City (which produced the first voluntary local review), Los Angeles, and Cleveland. Paul Costello (GMF Cities) underlined the capacity development and peer-learning value of GMF Cities’ CDIA network, a transatlantic community of city diplomats, and the timeliness of a strong North American–European partnership, with the U7 process now heading toward the 2027 U.S. G7 Presidency.
Solidarity was the word that carried the room
In the closing round, each city leader was asked for a single takeaway. Mayor Steve Patterson — who had led the U.S. delegation to Urban7 in Nancy, where the Nancy Declaration had been adopted the day before — returned to one word: solidarity. He described returning home not with an abstraction but with a declaration in his back pocket and a story to tell: that the U.S. was engaged, that American cities showed up, and that this energized, strategic commitment was worth sharing with his community. José “Chito” Vela III took away the role of sport as a uniquely accessible gateway to international relationships — one that brings together communities who might never otherwise engage in diplomacy. Elle Bisgaard-Church closed by connecting international coordination to a deeper civic challenge: that the values underlying city diplomacy — imagination, solidarity, the willingness to push beyond one’s own expectations — are precisely what is needed to counter the alienation and democratic disengagement driving political polarization globally. International engagement, she argued, is not separate from domestic resilience; it models it.
The event was organized by the City Diplomacy Lab and the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
The City Diplomacy Lab serves as Scientific Coordinator of the Urban7 2026 process.