How Gainey can change the city
Barring some unforeseen catastrophe, Pennsylvania state Rep. Ed Gainey will be Pittsburgh’s next mayor. This city, so much on the move for the last decade or so, is now stalled. That’s partly why Mr. Gainey beat incumbent Mayor Bill Peduto in a Democratic primary. Grand and long-considered plans, often, were never operationalized.
Amazon, famously, did not come here. And not much has been done to correct what was lacking since that decision was made. Pittsburgh has been treading water.
But Mr. Gainey, an old-style pol with a big heart and a talent for listening, is well positioned to make a difference. He could become the most important mayor of Pittsburgh since Richard Caliguiri. Here is how:
Working with the county and the state, he could make infrastructure his chief concern.
How do we get Amazon next time or the next Amazon?
It need not be the moral equivalent of rocket science.
Fix the streets. Here is the mantra: “Potholes over bike lanes.”
Find ways to move traffic in and out of the city with greater ease and efficiency. It simply does not move along now, in many places, and it is often impossible at prime traffic hours.
Fix the drinking water problem. This is a malady that has only been half-heatedly addressed since it first became appallingly evident in 2016.
No one is pretending these are easy problems, or that there there are simple, quick fixes. But Mr. Gainey knows his way around Harrisburg; there is, miraculously, federal money available to address our problems (we must not squander it). And, thanks to our universities, there is plenty of brain power and expertise available to serve the public good.
I think housing is a part of our infrastructure issue, too. We do not need to build more yuppie condos in the Strip or anywhere else. We need housing stock for families.
I’m not talking about the city building homes. I’m talking about the city getting out of the way so that private enterprise can meet themarket need.
And perhaps a certain amount of conversion of Downtown office space will also happen naturally, given the change in work habits and diminished need for office space Downtown. This will not be family housing, of course, but it could open up family housing if empty-nesters-choose Downtown.
And for that to occur, Downtown will have to be better patrolled than it is now, and homeless people are going to need more help.
The great thing about infrastructure as a focus of attention for a mayor is that it cuts across class and party lines.
Adequate and affordable housing and high-quality drinking water are causes that should appeal to everyone.
And that brings us to the next point.
Mr. Gainey can be the mayor he promised to be: a mayor for all.
The city is far too Balkanized and separated. This is a matter of geography and tradition, partly. But a unity mayor, who works for all neighborhoods and classes, and listens to all — and cares as much about how Italian Americans feel about Christopher Columbus as how East-Enders feel about global warming — is precisely what we need. And in a consistent manner.
Good mayors, governors, presidents are there for the people who were not in their winning political coalition, as well as those who were. That’s how you build and expand coalitions and, ultimately, govern.
Mr. Gainey needs to enact police and public safety reform.
There is no doubt about it. Anyone who thinks there is not now a profound alienation between the police and the minority communities is kidding himself.
During the campaign, Mr. Gainey said that some neighborhoods of color were over-patrolled. But what he actually described is how they are wrongly patrolled — in cars and not on foot or bike. And for the purpose of traffic stops instead of building relationships and networks of trust.
But Mr. Gainey needs to pursue police and safety reform in a very deliberate, and transparent, and almost clinical and scholarly way: Fly in experts, hold public hearings and town halls. Bring the public and the rank-and-file of the police force along. Build consensus for a specific reform agenda that emerges after examination and dialogue. And then make policy and personnel changes.
This is a lot easier to imagine than do, I know.
But Mr. Gainey has made a study of the mayor’s office and the people who have held it in his time. Again, he is uniquely positioned.
Finally, the new mayor can change the way the administration of the city is managed day to day. So he must first change the culture of the city bureaucracy.
Simply put, as now constituted, the experts and bureaucrats always “know best,” and the public is often disregarded or demeaned. It’s as if, to paraphrase the playwright Bertolt Brecht, the government could at any time abolish the people and form a new one.
That’s if it cared for the people at all.
City government is too arrogant, calcified and unreachable. It’s not easy to do any kind of business with the city. It is hard even to pay a parking ticket.
This is the kind of thing a mayor can change.
But we haven’t had a mayor interested in this sort of change in a long time.
There are all kinds of disenfranchised people in this city and even more who feel they don’t count for much in the eyes of the people who run things.
Ed Gainey could be the champion of the powerless and invisible instead of the pet of the people who already know how to access and work the system.
Being mayor is the hardest job in politics. It can also be tremendously satisfying because a mayor, or a governor, can directly change and improve people’s lives.
That makes Mr. Gainey’s moment one of hope and exhilaration, for him and for a dynamic city currently stuck in neutral.
A personal note
This is my last column as editorial director for this newspaper. I have elected to explore a less structured life, at least for a time. Rather than “retire,” I hope to retread, restore and recharge. I am going to start with serious reading and listening to music. My wife, Amy, and I hope to see more of our kids and travel a bit. A long-delayed and promised book will finally be written.
And I will continue to write this weekly essay.
But, for the first time since 1985, I will not be on the staff of a newspaper.
The Block newspapers represent a significant part of my life, and I am deeply grateful to John Robinson Block for the many opportunities he has given me and for his abiding enthusiasm for journalism. Bill Block Sr. took me under his wing 40 years ago, and John Craig, here at the Post-Gazette, mentored me. Everyone who knew Craig well saw him as a teacher. He showed us all a great editor’s skepticism, curiosity and independence.
I am also grateful to you, the readers, particularly a certain kind of reader — one who possesses that same sort of independence and open mindedness. You have sustained me and I hope I have served you.
Godspeed to all. Stay safe. Shalom. Peace.