Don’t Reinvent The Wheel, Steal It: An Urban Planning Award for Cities That Copy:

Cities around the world may all be struggling with the same problems, from building affordable housing to boosting internet access, but a lack of dialogue means that local governments rarely copy each other’s successful ideas.  The world’s “567,000 mayors are reinventing the wheel, every single one of them with everything” they do, says Sascha Havemeyer, general director of Living Labs Global, a Copenhagen-based non-profit that encourages collaboration among the world’s cities.

Part of the problem is political pressure to contract with local businesses only, which makes it hard for city governments to look to outsiders for advice and solutions. “The logic behind that is it helps local companies grow,” says Havemeyer, but it can cost up to fifty times as much to recreate a product or service instead of importing it from elsewhere.