The Stories that the Facts Tell

There are the Jack Webbs of Pittsburgh, people who work on Pittsburgh's future by focusing on just the facts. I'll call them data visionaries, and they include my blogospheric colleagues Chris Briem and Harold Miller, as well as John Craig of the Regional Indicators project (and, of course, formerly of the Post-Gazette).

There are, by contrast, the storytellers of Pittsburgh, people who work on Pittsburgh's future by weaving narratives that connect past to present and near to far. I'll them the back-to-the-futurists. They include Carl Kurlander, the filmmaker behind "My Tale of Two Cities," Doug Heuck, publisher of Pittsburgh Quarterly magazine, Jim Russell, tireless promoter of the Pittsburgh Diaspora, and Abby Wilson, a core and local part of the Great Lakes Urban Exchange.

I've idealized the two groups; there is overlap. The back-to-the-futurists respect the data visionaries, and the reverse, at least generally. Occasionally members of one group will pop up in the other, via a blog post or an op-ed or a public appearance.

It's important to remember, though, that neither group has all the answers. Facts are seductive because they convey the illusion of objectivity. But it's almost always a mistake simply to trust the scientists, or the economists, or the statisticians, or the planners. Stories are seductive because they seem to make facts irrelevant; if we can imagine it, we can make it happen. That's equally problematic. It's almost always a mistake simply to trust the poets.

Whatever Pittsburgh's future may be, it has to be built from the resources of both groups. The best scientists, economists, statisticians, and planners know that they are storytellers, too. The best storytellers know how to use what's true, and what's not, to challenge our imaginations.

I'm reminded of this by seeing the announcement of the upcoming CityLivePgh event on Wednesday, September 10 (New Hazlett Theater, North Side, and RSVP here), described this way:

Pittsburgh cannot know where it ought to go unless it knows where it is.

While we sali towards a new future we hear statistics that are daunting. Not enough immigration. Young people leaving. 50,000 jobs with no-one to fill them. Are these numbers really accurate? And can they be interpreted in different ways?. How can we understand them, and use them to know where we ought to go?

The speakers are Harold Miller, John Craig, and Lisa Kuzma of the R.K. Mellon Foundation. Go and listen to their stories.

Pittsburgh Quarterly and IntoPittsburgh

The newest issue of Pittsburgh Quarterly magazine is out and online, and with it editor/publisher Doug Heuck is making PQ the communications and media home of the IntoPittsburgh initiative.

From Doug's Letter from the Publisher:

A little over a year ago, on a frigid Saturday in January, I had what you might call a date with destiny. I'd agreed to meet three men in a bar in East Liberty. I'd never been there, but I'd read about the place. As I looked for the street and then the number, I considered what I really knew about these men. Very little. All three, however, had developed a reputation in certain circles for their “activities.”

I got out of the car and walked quickly to the door. I hesitated, then took a deep breath and walked in. I quickly glanced around the place. The front room was empty with a faint smell of old cigarettes. Around the corner, I heard laugher, and there they were — all three of them just sitting there — bloggers.

Yes, bloggers — those flouters of journalistic tradition. Well, we had a great talk, and an idea began to emerge. And as the months rolled by, the group grewand the idea did too. The idea is simple: build a bridge between Pittsburgh and Pittsburghers everywhere. Connect Pittsburghers far and wide with this city and region. Welcome their input and effort in the ever evolving quest to build the greatest city in the world. That's my version of it at least.

The effort now has a name — Into Pittsburgh — and you can see an early version of the logo on this page. You'll hear more about Into Pittsburgh as time goes by. For now, you can start to get involved in the dialogue by going to ittsburghquarterly.com. We have a growing community of bloggers represented, many of them writers whose work you've seen in the magazine.

Pittsburghquarterly.com is undergoing its own renaissance, changing from a sleepy little site to one that we hope you agree has a lot to offer. We have a weekly report from web editor and veteran Pittsburgh journalist Jeffery Fraser. If you want an excellent writer's report on the most interesting and pertinent events of the week, try Jeff's blog.

I was one of those three people having lunch with Doug a little over a year ago, along with Jim Morris and Jim Russell. Since that meeting, we've moved slowly but deliberately, simultaneously figuring out what the message is and what the group can do. We assembled the document still known as the Manifesto for a New Pittsburgh (still online here), enlisted the growing band of like-minded souls now collected under the IntoPittsburgh umbrella, and identified some more concrete but still related projects -- among them Jim Russell's Diaspora initiative, and what I've been writing about here as Pittsburgh 2.0. The Tech Council is part of the loop, and IW, and alumni organizations at local universities, and community organizers. It's a big pool of energy, and it's getting bigger all the time.

What is IntoPittsburgh? My version of the message is this: It's a group of people around the world who want to leverage Pittsburgh's distributed social and financial capital to improve the Pittsburgh region itself -- economically, culturally, and socially. How can you be a part of it? One -- self-identify. Tag your blog posts. Ask me to put your name on my "Pittsburgh 2.0" list to the left. Two -- reach out. Go to LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com), sign up, and search for and join the IntoPittsburgh group. Three -- get involved. IntoPittsburgh is a message, not one specific program. Figure out how your organization (network, family, friends) can participate -- socially, culturally, economically. Click on some of the Pittsburgh 2.0 profiles to the left for examples.

PQ gives all of this a great platform, with one foot squarely in the world of traditional media and another exploring the blogosphere and related new media. One of PQ's commitments in this area is "PQ Blog Central," which includes posts by PQ staff (as Doug notes above) as well as by Jim Russell and Chris Allison. Watch that space as IntoPittsburgh evolves.

Community Connections Awards Announced

"Community Connections, an initiative of Pittsburgh 250 administered by The Sprout Fund, today announced the selection of 100 regional and grassroots projects to receive a total of $1 million in funding for activities and events occurring during the region’s 250th anniversary in 2008."

The announcement culminates a six-month process that began last May with a call for proposals.

Link (apparently a full list of funded projects will be posted after a press conference today)

The British Are Coming?

Lost in the xenophobic hysteria over word that Kennywood has been sold to Spanish-based amusement parks operator Parques Reunidos is the fact that Parques Reunios itself is owned by British buyout firm Candover Investments. Here's the Candover profile of its Parques holding.

Two things about the deal leap out at me immediately, one serious and one not:

The serious: There is no evidence that any of Kennywood Entertainment's parks will close, will lay off staff, or will not be run by local management teams. There's no evidence that Parques Reunios doesn't want Kennywood Park itself to remain a part of the cultural fabric of Pittsburgh. That's in contrast to Don Barden, owner of the Majestic Star casino now officially underway in Pittsburgh. Said Barden to Pittsburgh: Drop dead!

The change here is symbolic, and it's emotional. A core piece of Pittsburgh-iana (is that a word?) is now part of a global entertainment network. Is there any better evidence of old Pittsburgh's role in the new global economy than Kennywood's becoming part of an international amusement park company? Even the Steelers long ago became an international brand.

I think that Pittsburgh should welcome that kind of trans-national connectedness -- even though I understand that Pittsburgh traditionalists prefer to think of this as the destruction of Alderaan: "a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced." Certainly, there is a loss of local affect. But the benefits will, I predict, outweigh the costs. As I often do, I prefer a Star Trek metaphor to one from Star Wars: "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra."

The not: Does this mean that Pittsburgh will finally have enough Spanish-speaking residents to justify Spanish-language television on our cable systems? Temba, his arms wide.

¡Bienvenidos a Pittsburgh!

Thanks to Pittsburgh

Is it possible to be optimistic and pessimistic about Pittsburgh at the same time? It's not only possible; it's absolutely necessary. "Believe in it? I've seen it done!," as the joke goes, or as the White Queen said in Alice in Wonderland: "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

On the eve of Thanksgiving 2007, how about six reasons to give thanks to Pittsburgh -- that is, to be optimistic and pessimistic at the same time?

Painting with a broad brush:

One: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. History and tradition are fabulous things, and respect for them is increasingly rare in American society. Pittsburgh has both in abundance. Perhaps too much abundance. "Respect for tradition" is too often equated with "inertia" and "complacency." Pittsburgh is a nice place. Can't it get better?

Two: Raw materials. Specifically, intellectual raw materials. Pittsburgh has them. It has technical and artistic innovation and creativity coming out of the metaphoric ears of labs and studios all over town. What Pittsburgh lacks is (to hear some describe it) a broad-based established business and marketing infrastructure for taking novelty and building products and companies, and/or (to hear others) a cultural norm within that infrastructure that prizes and rewards risk-taking. Has Pittsburgh overinvested in basic research?

Three: Success. Pittsburgh is in many ways a victim of its own (historical) success. A century ago Pittsburgh was filled with risk-takers of most sorts, who succeeded brilliantly and built giant industrial enterprises. So well, in fact, that today it's difficult to imagine any pursuit other than sustaining or replicating that success. Sports and business have a lot in common on this score. Our cultural institutions still happily feed off the charitable proceeds of Pittsburgh's past. Both business and cultural institutions might consider competing on contemporary terms, rather than competing against historical benchmarks. How about this? Instead of worrying about graduates of Pittsburgh universities who relocate to other regions to start their careers, why not compete aggressively to recruit top university grads to relocate to Pittsburgh from other regions? If a Wisconsin alum is more capable and a better fit than a Pitt alum, then go get the Wisconsin alum. Right?

Four: It's cheap to live here, and it's going to stay that way. Sure, real estate taxes are insane, but across the region as a whole, the cost of living in Southwest Pennsylvania is pretty low, and and it's not rising quickly if it's rising at all. That's great if you're already here. It's not particularly appealing if you're looking to move in, if you have a choice of destination (Pittsburgh or somewhere else?), and if you're evaluating your options from the standpoint of building assets. The low rate of increase reflects low demand. After you, then who?

Five: The Laurel Highlands are beautiful and accessible. Too bad about the air quality. Bill Peduto's green building initiative is a step in the right direction. How about the carbon footprint of the city's (and county's) existing buildings? What are Pitt, CMU, and UPMC doing to reduce the environmental impact of their operations?

Six: The Pittsburgh Diaspora. From the ruins of the 1980s, Pittsburgh has an underappreciated jewel: The good will of Pittsburghers -- both natives and emotional offspring -- everywhere. Smart trademark owners know how to monetize good will. How can Pittsburgh extract real value from the Diaspora?

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

ACCD, ACDC, and Other Acronyms

Pittsburgh's mayoral ballots have barely been counted and already the "out with the old, in with the new" refrain has found another target. Chris Briem shines his light on the Trib's lengthy critique of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development on the occasion of the ACCD's upcoming annual meeting. The message of the story is that the ACCD has outlived its original mission. Now, Pittsburgh needs nimble, progressive urbanism focused on job creation, not big city ideas led by big business people. (None of that is news; in the past, I've written as much myself. Here's the link.)

I wish, however, that the Trib had focused less on staff titles and the ACCD's budget, and less on the implicit suggestion that the ACCD fiddled while Pittsburgh burned, and more on the content of the Conference's current priorities. The questions should be: What are those priorities? Do those priorities represent things that the ACCD can pursue more effectively (and more cost effectively) than other individuals, governments, or organizations in the region? Maybe the answer is no; maybe the answer is yes, but those are the questions to which answers are worth nailing down.

The ACCD gets into trouble, I think, at least in part because it doesn't effectively sell itself. After I published my ACCD critique two years ago, I heard from a lot of people -- including some quoted by the Trib -- who wanted to congratulate me for hitting the nail on the head. Over time, I started to hear a smaller and quieter suggestion that the ACCD's more public intiatives (such as the Pittsburgh 250 campaign, of which I'm skeptical) don't represent the bulk of its activity. It may be that both points of view are right, but it's difficult for me, as an outsider, to assess them. I don't mean that the Conference should hire a marketer. Rather, I wish that the ACCD would do more to pull back the curtain. Here's the ACCD site list of the Conference's current initiatives. Given that summary, which is all over the place, I'd wonder, too, about how staff time is being spent and how the ACCD budget is being allocated. Maybe the ACCD should change how it goes about its -- and the region's -- business. Let the people know what's happening, and let them participate in Pittsburgh's future. Can the ACCD do that? Will it?

I'm not optimistic, but I'd be delighted to be proved wrong.

I'm equally skeptical today regarding Pittsburgh's populace as a whole. Ruth Ann Dailey's column today picks up the "change is good, and change is inevitable, regardless" theme from the mayor's race, and while she doesn't call the Allegheny County Democratic Committee to account, she might as well have accused the party of standing in the way of the future. "Change is, well, inevitable. The election's biggest question was how fearlessly, or capably, we'd embrace it. That's still the big question." In a manner of speaking, that's right, but only in a manner of speaking. Are the 60+ percent of voting Pittsburghers who opted for the mayoral status quo prepared to accept "inevitable" change? Here and there, perhaps, but on a large scale, I just don't see it. I read the election result as a broad endorsement of the "no meaningful change" agenda. Pittsburgh is mostly just fine as it is.

For individuals and institutions that do (fearlessly) embrace change -- that is, who are willing to trade a bit of social and cultural bird in the hand for some speculative economic two in the bush -- the lesson to draw from the ACCD/ACDC combo is that neither local government nor local business bigwigs nor the 7th and 14th Wards can make change happen, or make change succeed. At least not in their standard modi operandi. Where the earth is moving in Southwest PA, it is moving on account of new players, and old players with new agendas. For better and for worse, keep your eyes on the universities, on UPMC, on the foundations, on high-tech manufacturing, and on the startup community. Keep your eyes on economic development competition from the suburbs. Keep your eyes on nonstop flights to and from the West Coast. In short and in sum, keep your eyes on Pittsburgh's newcomers.

Cutting Off Pittsburgh's Nose

Is there any other small city in the country that still suffers from as much city dweller resentment of its suburbs as Pittsburgh does?

Almost every day, it seems, there is a letter to the editor of the Post-Gazette that complains about the illegitimacy of suburban interest in the election for Mayor of the City of Pittsburgh. Today's installment, from Guy DeFazio of Greenfield, is relatively tame:

As current residents of the city of Pittsburgh, my wife and I take exception to Craig Conley's Oct. 11 letter ("City Voters, Change Your Ways on Election Day"). He claims that city residents have no common sense when it comes to our "woes" and the upcoming mayoral election. We'd like to know why this is of any concern to him, as a suburbanite. He apparently chose to leave the city to move to the suburbs. Maybe he should have stayed and fought for change.

It seems that the people who are most critical and judgmental of the city and its residents are those who no longer live here, or those who never did. Mr. Conley no longer lives here; he should not sink to insulting those of us who do.

I don't wish to insult City residents, plenty of whom are as disgusted by the antics and immaturity of the current Mayor as are my fellow suburbanites. It's the persistent us-vs.-them attitude that intrigues me.

There are some American cities that have every good reason to look down on their suburban neighbors. New York. Chicago. (OK, maybe there are two American cities that can do that.) There are other American cities that look down on their suburban neighbors because their egos would have it no other way, and they get away with it sometimes because they've got genuine urban charm that goes back centuries. Boston ("the Hub") comes to mind, and perhaps Philadelphia.

That brings me to Pittsburgh. I'm hard pressed to think of any other American city today where the city/suburb conflict is so stark, or where the persistent anxiety about the suburbs is so unjustified. Certainly, in the first half of the 20th century, the City of Pittsburgh was rich and powerful and important. In the latter half of the 20th century, increasingly the City was not, and increasingly the suburbs are wealthy, if not necessarily always important, or powerful. Historical hangovers take a long time to improve, if they ever do.

This plays out both materially (money and jobs) and conceptually (the energy and vision that drives the region). I'll leave the material details to Chris, who always does a better job with that stuff than I ever could do. But I do get the point that suburbanites who work in the City but don't pay City taxes are responsible for some portion of the City's fiscal woes. They aren't the only ones who might be paying taxes; there are plenty of big, needy fish in town who could pony up much more.

The conceptual point, however, is that the anxiety is backward-looking rather than forward-looking. (Ah, so what's new about that in Pittsburgh?) Economically and culturally the City of Pittsburgh needs its suburbs just as much as the suburbs need the City. The future of Pittsburgh is not merely a City issue; it's a regional issue. This is why suburban-ites care about the next Mayor of Pittsburgh, whether or not they are former City residents. There are pockets of economic vitality and promise in both City and suburb - and beyond. Leaders and members of political, business, educational, cultural, and community institutions live all over the place. Like a lot of people in Western PA, I'd like to find ways to engage more of them in regional solutions. I'd like to encourage in-migration of all kinds of populations, to all kinds of different communities. How do we engage them? Attract them? With the man that Chad Hermann calls The Boy Who Would Be Mayor?

Up in Boston, Tom Menino has been Mayor for a long time. He's far from perfect, but he's a great ambassador for and advocate of both city and region. Boston isn't the Hub of anything except in the minds of people who believe, and Menino has the maturity and stature and presence to get them to believe. (Pace Tug McGraw.) Unless the City of Pittsburgh lets go of its suburban anxiety, it runs the risk of becoming something else -- a hole in the Western PA doughnut.

Putting the Pop in Pop City

I went to the first "Pop City Live!" conversation last night at the New Hazlett Theatre and came away unchanged.

This was a moderated panel titled "The First, the Best and the Only." How to make Pittsburgh better, hipper, snappier -- hot.

The speakers were energetic and thoughtful. The theater was mostly full. There was free wine and beer afterward.

Little was said or heard that has not been said or heard before, on this blog, on other blogs, in board rooms and classrooms and buses and bars around Pittsburgh. There was even a gratuitous Chris Briem reference, and an even more gratuitous Pittsblog reference. There's no harm at all in saying these things again (that is, "let's get out there everyone and break down those barriers; Pittsburgh sure would be a wonderful place if only we can mobilize everyone!"), and there's some virtue in repeating it publicly and loudly and often. And (portent of posts to come) a few of the players are welcome additions to the conversation.

But there was a faint undertone of Pittsburgh's Waiting for Godot problem. There were 250 souls in the New Hazlette Theatre last night, and it felt distinctly like they were waiting for someone to tell them what to do.

Best line I heard all night: Pittsburgh will only emerge from its painful collective insecurity when it stops worrying about its painful collective insecurity.

To paraphrase Yoda, just do. Or do not.

Finding a Professional Job in Pittsburgh

I hear anecdotes from time to time from people struggling to find professional employment in Pittsburgh. Breaking into the local networks can be difficult enough; even getting local firms to return your phone calls and messages turns out to be a problem. Does this city want to grow and thrive, or what?

Frustrated, voiceless job seekers now have an online voice. Take a look at Mary's blog, Searching for a Job in Pittsburgh.

What Becomes a City Most?

Culled from my reading over the last month: This piece in the Economist, about the Orange County suburb of Cerritos:

Of course, many American cities have built parks, performing-arts centres and fancy libraries while struggling financially. The key to Cerritos's success may be the timing of its investments. Cities such as Cleveland and Baltimore poured money into museums and other grand projects in the vain hope that they would lure businesses and young, creative folk. Cerritos began by building pipelines and roads, then moved on to business parks, policing and schools (including California's best high school). Only when it was rolling in money did it break out the titanium.

Local officials attribute the city's success to fiscal discipline and the ability to follow a long-term plan. That, in turn, is the result of its political culture. Cerritos has a tradition of powerful, long-serving city managers, to whom local politicians frequently defer. As Laura Lee, the mayor, explains, “There are many things we, as elected officials, do not understand.” Voters, it seems, like this arrangement greatly. In a 2002 poll, an astonishing 96% of residents said they were satisfied with the provision of public services.

As a later letter writer (from Baltimore) pointed out, it's much easier to build anew than it is to rebuild the old, and places like Cleveland and Baltimore (and Pittsburgh) face the second challenge, not the first. Still, as Bill Toland puzzles through the "hotness" factor in his latest Diaspora Report, there is something to be said for the idea that foundation work (in the building sense, not the giving grants sense) is itself an attraction. In a different context last week, I wrote elsewhere that Pittsburgh may never attract that Gen Y contingent looking for cocktails and panache. Pittsburgh may and should attract that contingent looking for a place where it can lift a bucket and wield a shovel, metaphorically speaking, urban adventurers looking for a place that needs help and a place where they can make a difference.

A Sense of Place

If you want to feel optimistic about Pittsburgh's future, check out this profile of Heinz Endowments' Grant Oliphant, by Pop City's Abby Mendelson. Both Grant and Abby nail it.

Pittsburgh Leadership

Republican Mayoral candidate Mark DeSantis finally took the gloves off earlier this week, accusing incumbent Luke Ravenstahl of being the human equivalent of Gertrude Stein's Oakland: There's no There there. Rich Lord's P-G coverage of DeSantis's policy team intro is representative.

Ho-hum. The intro was okay as far as it went, but it went wonky. DeSantis will have the money to make the race entertaining. As long as he's likely to go down, he should go down really swinging. Talk about the future of Pittsburgh, Mark. Give the people what they need as well as what they want. No one cares if Luke Ravenstahl is a star-struck, ethically-challenged celebrity chaser. He's a publicly pleasant guy and a Democrat in a city where that's almost all that matters.

What Pittsburgh needs is leadership. It could come from the Mayor's office or from City Council or from any number of other sources. (If I sound for a moment like I've watched The American President one too many times, it's because I have.) Luke Ravenstahl's problem isn't just that he's done nothing. His problem is that he has failed to lead.

What does that mean?

In my book, the biggest test of leadership is the ability to attract good and talented people to the cause. A leader inspires people to follow. If you're Mayor, that means that good and talented people should want to work for you and for the City that you represent. Look around city government right now. The P-G reports: City Hall Hobbled by Brain Drain. The official line is that budget constraints hobble hiring, but that explanation hides a deeper problem. Folks who staff municipal government don't do it for the pay (which is low) or the hours (which are long). Those managers and directors do it because at some level, they believe. Right now, the believers are fleeing. That's a bad sign. Eventually, it's not just the staff that will turn their backs. Eventually, the rest of the City will turn their backs, too.

If you want to change things -- if you're running for office (Mayor, say) -- what do you do? Go beyond pointing out the lack of activity. Go beyond putting out a conventional platform (which DeSantis is preparing to do). On top of that: Put something out there that people can rally behind, both your future staff and your prospective supporters in the electorate. Inspire them. You may lose (DeSantis almost certainly will lose), but inspire someone to pick up the banner and carry that momentum forward. There will be another election before we know it.

How about this? Declare that the following five things should and will be *the* major priorities of the City, and that the Mayor should and will collaborate with the County Executive, County Council, City Council, the School Board and Superintendent, and other regional leaders to make them *the* major priorities of the region. The specifics are important, and those have to be worked out. Inspiration, though, arrives via the vision.

(1) Business and jobs creation.
(2) Public education.
(3) Equitable taxation for individuals, families, homeowners, and businesses.
(4) Ethical, effective, and responsive government.
(5) Safe and clean natural and manmade regional infrastructure. A clean environment, in other words; safe bridges and roads; and sensible public transportation.

It doesn't have to be the Mayor or Mark DeSantis who puts this out there. Mike Tomlin could do it (after he wins the Super Bowl, at least). Or John Murray. Or Astro Teller. Or Jared Cohon or Mark Nordenberg. Or Glen Meakem. I'm not interested in political affiliation and I'm not necessarily interested in politics. As Ben Stein said in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, "Anyone? Anyone?" *Someone* needs to start talking this way; someone needs to build a new way of thinking about Pittsburgh's future. If you build it, people will come. They will most definitely come.

At the least, they'll stop talking about whether UPMC should have bought Luke a ticket to a golf outing.

Aren't We Special?

On another blog, I was asked to respond to this question: What makes Pittsburghers special?

Here's what I posted:

As a non-native and nine-year resident of the Pittsburgh region, I'll answer [the] "What makes Pittsburghers special?" question with some skepticism. I'm not persuaded that Pittsburghers are special, at least not in the sense that Pittsburghers generally possess some quality or set of characteristics that isn't widely shared in Cleveland or Providence or Tampa or San Diego or Des Moines.

I'm a native Californian, and I learned from a very early age that California is the American Shangri-La. There is no happier, sunnier, or more prosperous place than that anywhere in the world, and there is nowhere else that a person could live and be truly happy.

Of course, this is bunk.

Instead of asking "What makes Pittsburghers [or Californians, or Iowans, or Bostonians] special?," I'd ask "What makes Pittsburghers distinct?" That's a question that I can sink my teeth into, if only preliminarily.

-- A very unusual geography: The hills, the natural resources, the densely populated urban center (now not quite so dense), the quick transition to suburbs and rural areas

-- An unusually strong core demographic and sociological narrative over the last century: Most urban areas are blends of different narratives; Pittsburgh really only has one.

-- The diasporan connection: Partly because of the economic implosion of the 70s and early 80s, a giant distributed population of former Pittsburghers.

That combination, together with other things that I'm not thinking of right now, gives Pittsburghers a pride-of-place that is unusual in this country, even among cities and other places that are extraordinarly proud of who and what and where they are.

The Spirit of the Manifesto

Three of our students at the Pitt law school are the energy behind tomorrow's Walnut Street Sweep.

Finally, we're going to have fun street sweeping together. The work won't be strenuous, and we'll be doing it with other fun, young Pittsburghers -- students, professionals, and artists alike. We're not just calling on activists, the politically savy, the "green," or the volunteers -- we're calling on everybody. As young people in Pittsburgh, its time that we quit waiting for the City to fix our community, and its time that we start fixing it and expanding it ourselves. In that spirit, we're all going to go to a local bar after our volunteer efforts to meet each other, share our clean-up war stories, and, have some drinks to help reduce our sense of smell after an hour of our force cleaning up garbage...

The pitch:

* Come: help clean up your City and save its rivers on Sunday, August 26th at 10AM.
* Meet: at 5707 Walnut Street
* Wear: Bright colored clothing (so motorists don't have to guess where we are...)
* Bring: Gloves, comfortable shoes; some trash bags if you have them handy. Maybe a broom?
* After: We'll be returning to 5707 Walnut for a cookout and a keg of beer, courtesy of Fanatics Bar in Squirrel Hill.

Carpe diem.

Nobody Asked Me, But . . .

I've been all over this great land of ours over the last month, from the Pacific Ocean to Lake Michigan to the Atlantic and home. A few random thoughts on things that I missed but wish I hadn't -- and some that I'd glad I did:

The Post-Gazette launched a new website. Dull. And even more difficult to read than the version it replaced. It's a missed opportunity. I prefer the Post-Gazette Then.

Bill Peduto and friends launched "Reform Pittsburgh Now," one Web 2.0 website to save us all. Take the photo down, BP. It's not all about you. The enterprise has a real 2001 reverse-Oreo feel to it, fluffy distributed social engineering on the surface, concentrated political rhetoric on the inside. Want to use the Net to transform Pittsburgh politics? Think BitTorrent. What we've got is Napster 1.0.

Bacn? This is going to be Pittsburgh's legacy to tech culture? We can do better.

Regionalism and the brain drain. I keep waiting for someone in the MSM to write publicly about the multi-party political power-swapping soap opera going on just beneath the surface of things like Mayor Luke's close brush with ethics. Tim McNulty called one move by the Mayor "chillingly old-fashioned," which sounds to me like code for "cynically manipulative." Does the Post-Gazette dare to pick up its own gauntlet? Instead, the same heads deal the same threads.

In better news, Sam thinks that the Diaspora/Manifesto idea -- which is gradually morphing into something more robust called "Global Connect: Pittsburgh" -- may have a little traction. In Erie. Thanks for the shout out, Sam. Can Pittsburgh out-renew Erie?

Pitt's Bytes 8.13.07

I was out of town for much of last week, so the mailbag is mostly empty. I did trip over an interesting RFP (Request for Proposals), however. I'll call it "The Vision Thing."

The Allegheny Conference and the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance and the Convention Bureau and associated other movers and shakers have worked on and off over recent years to create a new Pittsburgh "brand" (what an awful word for a city!) via slogans and marketing campaigns. Most of these things have been ridiculed out of existence, partly because the very idea of doing this sort of thing is just short of ludicrous, and partly because the slogans and campaigns have been related only marginally to what we find in the city and the region today.

They're at it again. The Vision Thing is back. The ambition is a mite more realistic. Will that make a difference? Should it?

From the folks at ImaginePittsburgh, celebrating the upcoming 250th birthday of the city (click on the link to their homepage at your own peril; it comes with an irritating sound file), itself brought to us by the usual powers-that-be, an RFP: "The Pittsburgh Region Re-Imagined."

Pittsburgh is poised for yet another re-birth as the region simultaneously celebrates its 250th anniversary and navigates its decades-long transformation from its seat of the industrial revolution to the edge of other greatness. It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who penned that “each generation must write its own books,” and so it is: this generation of “Pittsburghers” endeavors to write a third chapter to the Pittsburgh region’s renaissance.

In some ways, the writing has already begun. Researchers, journalists, and ratings gurus beyond Pittsburgh have declared the Pittsburgh region to be among the most artistic, most literary, most recreational, most family-friendly, most civically-engaged anywhere. It’s celebrated for its unlike-anywhere-else neighborhoods and towns; for its world-class universities and medical centers; for its historical spots as well as cutting-edge industries; for its not-to-be-surpassed entrance and vistas; for its organized and dedicated regional leadership. [Don't miss that last phrase!] . . .

Applicants should propose to create visual (and possibly printed) materials that present the Pittsburgh region as-it-is as well as what the Pittsburgh region might be – substantiating both with fact-based scenarios and projections. Importantly, the work product resulting from this project may be used to engage regional leaders and the broader public in conversations regarding the future of the Pittsburgh region. Indeed, should the Pittsburgh region undertake comprehensive regional visioning, the resources produced by the selected applicant will likely be used to position and provoke civic dialogue – in-person, on-line, and otherwise – among tens of thousands of citizens. As such, the resultant work product should unmistakably convey current trend projections and straightforwardly forecast scenarios for the region’s future prosperity so that any citizen could quickly understand and easily participate. The resultant work product should thus not amount to branding campaign materials or business recruitment pieces.

The project requirements likewise tries to convey a sense of realism:

1. Do not conduct any original research. Utilize currently available information, data sets, presentation materials, etc., to present a scrupulously accurate and highly informative “picture” of the Pittsburgh region today as well as scenarios for its future progress. . . . .
2. Think big. The Pittsburgh region extends far beyond the borders of Allegheny County, including thirteen other counties in southwestern Pennsylvania and several counties located in West Virginia, Ohio, and Maryland. . . . . [Let's call this the Pittsburgh city-state]
3. Embrace all multimedia. Applicants who propose to publish only a report – even a wellcrafted, absorptive one – will not succeed. Only those applicants who propose to knit together a story and a vision – utilizing not only the written word but also perhaps film, photography, images, video, electronic arts, etc., will receive serious consideration.
4. Be broad. Frame the region’s potential not only in terms of economic development but also on such matters as environmental conservation, governance, social equity, public health, education, fiscal policy, safety, taxes, the arts, land use, etc.
5. Think globally. Compare the Pittsburgh region to other regions around the world using benchmarks and other indicators. Describe the extent to which the Pittsburgh region can compete with leading regions elsewhere by offering the best mix of economic vitality and lifestyle amenities.
6. Be critical. Do not sugarcoat the region’s adversities, and do not exaggerate competitive advantages. Document the base case and describe realistic scenarios.
7. Be highly compelling and provocative. Prepare products that tell the Pittsburgh region’s remarkable story, capture the imagination, and inspire forward-thinking discussions.

So what's going on here? You can't create Renaissance III with a marketing campaign, but you can try to frame a public conversation about the future by concentrating the conversation and managing it from the top down. The opposite tack, I suppose, would be to follow distributed bottom-up efforts to do the same sort of thing. In, say, a seven-point Manifesto for a New Pittsburgh. The two approaches will co-exist; the Web guarantees that. The question is who owns Pittsburgh's future? The RFP makes clear that ImaginePittsburgh owns your work. Coordinate with the Manifesto, and you own your own work.

More on Multiple Pittsburghs

Here's an excellent comment on my post regarding the multiple Pittsburghs. I've added some paragraphing for clarity:

It’s interesting to see how the pasts of the various Pittsburghs have
influenced how these different groups are viewing their prospects in a new regional economy.

Traditional Pittsburghers have for the most part resigned themselves to the fact that the old economy is over, and they are skeptical that anything acceptable can be developed that will help them or bring their kids back to the region. For those that have come to grips with the current economy,especially those in their golden years, prestige is more important than reinvention. Losing the status of major city is more important that developing a competitive economy.

Poor Pittsburgh never really had a shot in the region’s traditional economy, and they’re not expecting much out of the new economy either. In the meantime the social and support networks from which they’ve relied have become frayed, and their communities more fragile. In a region where opportunity is viewed in short supply, there’s always a need for someone to pick up the garbage, make beds, or clean houses and offices, and this will be needed no matter the state of the economy.

Corporate Pittsburgh sees its paternalist role as holding everything together, which mainly means keeping up appearances, keeping a lid on any potential social revolt (many remember the smoke rising from the Hill in 1968), and keeping their corporations in business. They’ve taken on the role of entrepreneurially developing regional assets in order to be economically competitive, and their lack of entrepreneurial skills is telling.

New Pittsburgh is the future, and they, along with their civic boosters, are waiting out the obstructionalists (Traditional and Corporate Pittsburgh) so that they can step forward and redefine the regional economy and its institutions.

The problem with all of this is that there has been very little work to bring these different groups together to negotiate an economic future where opportunity and wealth are expanded and shared. Part of this is because most feel that decisions about the region’s economic future isn’t, and shouldn’t, be in their hands. Economic decision-making is something best left to experts, and outside of the political process. The belief in the public’s right to consent in the region’s economic development investments is almost pre-Enlightenment in its absurdity.

But if the region is going to bring these populations together, there must be a shared agenda, and that shared agenda has to be built not from power relationships or a skepticism that change is possible, but from a sense of shared benefit from change. The institutional infrastructure to broker these kinds of discussions is really not in place. In the forties Lawrence and Mellon could engage the rank and file and the corporate leadership around a strategy to transform the city into a corporate headquarters. They were strong leaders, certainly, but they also needed consent. The plan gained consent because it was felt that this proposed future was in their best interest. When that strategy failed (as did numerous neighborhood redevelopment strategies), and folks learned what is was like to be left on the short end of what was supposed to benefit all, a distrust set in that many consider insurmountable. Absent negotiation, Pittsburgh’s economic future will depend upon endurance built from a sense of scarcity, rather than growth built from the value of contribution. Could the fruits of victory be more bitter?

Manifesto Meme

Bill Toland at the Post-Gazette puts the Manifesto for a New Pittsburgh at the center of today's Diaspora Report column. Thanks!

Link

The Manifesto, the Diaspora, and the Second and Third Pittsburgh

Back at the beginning of 2007, or perhaps it was in late 2006, at the first face-to-face gathering of the group that developed the Manifesto for a New Pittsburgh and pushed the idea of the Pittsburgh Diaspora, we talked about the challenges and opportunities that the diaspora could address locally. Naive visionaries that we sometimes are, we talked about how diasporan capital -- financial capital and social capital -- might be capable of reviving the Monongahela Valley.

That's not going to happen, however, if local powers-that-be are determined finally to kill it. I haven't paid close attention to the plan to close Duquesne High School, but Chris Briem's data wrangling, coupled with eloquent posts by Jason Togyer and Jonathan Potts and some timely outrage from Mark Rauterkus, makes the issue unavoidable. There are two Pittsburghs today. There is the city and region that is the object of some guarded optimism courtesy of tech and arts and higher ed and health care that supports emerging economic development. Call that First World Pittsburgh. And there is the fading Steel Valley region with no advocates, but plenty of pure pessimism and worse. Call that Second World Pittsburgh. Our Manifesto is nominally addressed to both, but in reality our limited ability to affect First World Pittsburgh is diminishing rapidly when it comes to Second World Pittsburgh.

Couple those "two Pittsburghs" with these two Pittsburghs. Today's Post-Gazette headline says it all: "Pittsburgh's 'Livable' label called lie for blacks." The story and the meeting that it covers follow on this report from the University of Pittsburgh that describes the bleak condition of Pittsburgh's African-American population. There are clearly not two but three Pittsburghs. Call this Third World Pittsburgh, burdened by poverty and crime and no obvious way out.

Second World Pittsburgh and Third World Pittsburgh, the closing of Duquesne High School and the condition of the African-American community, are symptoms of a single problem. Describing it fully would take volumes, and my relative ignorance of Pittsburgh's history puts me at a disadvantage that is deeper than usual. The core problem, however, is simple: Pittsburgh's industrial economy shifted sharply downward shortly after WWII, at right around the same time that that city's African-American population was swelling with newcomers. Structurally, lots of new people arrived; yet jobs were on the way out. What we see today is the product of long-time systematic inattention to that combination. First World Pittsburgh largely takes care of First World Pittsburgh.

What to do? Here, all I can offer is a bit of additional blogging light -- like Chris, Jonathan, Jason, and Mark (and others whose blogs I haven't picked up yet), and the OneHOOD group featured in the Post-Gazette story, I share the sense that these are critical, even tragic problems. Our Manifesto and Diaspora projects have to include them as part of their agendas, naively optimistic as our group may sometimes be. The Diaspora should be metaphorically as well as literally geographic; the Manifesto needs to address all of Pittsburgh's Worlds. No number of new startups in Oakland will compensate for the disappearance of the Steel Valley, or the inequities described by Larry Davis and Ralph Bangs at Pitt.

Democrats for DeSantis

Chris Schultz, who runs the Green is Good blog here (all about Clean Tech and what Pittsburgh can do), has launched a "Democrats for DeSantis" blog to support Republican mayoral candidate Mark DeSantis. Chris writes:

The city of Pittsburgh has been ruled by one party for way too long. As those of you have seen here in the city and also at the national level - when one party is in power for too long things go to shit, to put it bluntly. It is time that politics and government here in the city become more about ideas and leadership rather than party affiliation.

I'm not in the endorsement business, but I've met Mark DeSantis, and he talks as if he could have written the Manifesto for a New Pittsburgh. That impresses me. Pittsburgh's party demographics are what they are; any Republican mayoral candidate faces an enormous uphill battle. But three months remain until the election, and the public campaigning is just getting underway. Hopefully, some number of voters and the print and TV media will look beyond the Democrat v. Republican labels and beyond the usual political sniping and gossiping and see the Ravenstahl v. DeSantis contest for what it should be: a debate about the future of the region.