The Strong Cities Network City-Led Response Guide offers support for mayors, other subnational officials and the local and state governments they lead, in formulating a sensitive and effective response in the wake of a hate- or violent extremism-motivated attack, incident or crisis. In the immediate aftermath of an occurrence or during heightened inter-communal or other tensions, national authorities can often take the lead in emergency responses, reinforcing public safety and launching criminal investigations. However, the impact of the instability that ensues can run deep, causing untold social and other consequences across communities. No matter how resilient they are, communities will require strong local leadership to help them heal and recover. Sub-national leaders and local officials have critical roles to play in stabilising, reassuring, supporting and tackling social division in the aftermath of an attack and in heightened environments, and there are increasing pressures on local public institutions to establish clear roles and protocols for responding to and mitigating the impacts of such incidents for their constituents. With the development of this City-Led Response Guide, we offer officials a framework through which to develop and deliver activities in the wake of such an attack, incident or other crisis in a way that complements, rather than duplicates, national government action. The Guide draws on good practices identified during Strong Cities engagement with member and non-member cities, interviews, desk-based research and other research conducted by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue in developing the Guide’s first iteration: Responding to a Terror Attack (2018). This Guide compiles good practice examples and learnings on key aspects of response, from surveying the issues in a community through to evaluating and sharing learnings from interventions at different levels. Beyond this publication, the content of this Guide will be housed in the Strong Cities Resource Hub as a ‘living’ document with examples, practice spotlights and learnings added and updated online. The Guide will soon be available in Arabic and French, and as a built-out, online tool. This publication was made possible by generous support from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the European Union and the US Department of State. Our thanks also to the Institute of Strategic Dialogue (ISD) for its invaluable research and input.