With a PowerPoint that showed maps and photos of the city and its industrialist and banker founders, Mayor Bill Peduto told the audience at the most recently held African American Chamber of Commerce PowerBreakfast meeting that the city had flooded multiple times, and burned to the ground once, but Pittsburghers have always found a way to overcome those setbacks.
The challenges going forward can be mitigated, he said, by anticipating and planning for shocks to the system—whether natural or man-made.
“Creating an entirely new economy with all the potential of the (industrial) economic boom without rust, pollution, and fears of flooding and burning to the ground,” Mayor Peduto said at the March 16 event. “Our challenges are very real, and we have to work together to see the new vision. As we go through this next revolution we going to make sure there is opportunity for everyone. That’s our goal: one Pittsburgh.”
The city and its business, foundation and community partners will invest $1.5 billion over the next 12 years on things like a social impact fund.
“We can save money by sending a kid to college instead of sending him to jail,” he said. “This isn’t about bricks and mortar, it’s about people.”
The overriding scheme for all this is encapsulated in the P-4 agenda—People, Place, Planet and Performance. The city will not engage in any development or investment, he said, that does not improve all of these conditions.
Mayor Peduto said there will be substantial investment in education and training—$20 million per year alone to get Pre-K for all city children. He also plans to have workforce training in Pittsburgh Public Schools as early as seventh grade, focusing on specific needs potential employers like PNC or UPMC. The summer Earn and Learn internship program would be expanded so that every kid in the city can have a summer job.
He said the city also plans to generate new revenue by leasing some of its properties—like locations where they park garbage trucks—that currently generate no income.
Plans also include multi-faceted environmental improvements, eradicating homelessness and hunger and creating a baseline of 10,000 affordable housing units.
“Last year the city gave 12 houses to Dr. Howard Slaughter at Habitat for Humanity where with sweat equity, homeless vets get a zero percent mortgage, and zero mortgage insurance,” Mayor Peduto said. “Think what our CDCs and faith institutions could do with the 17,000 properties we have in inventory. Couple that with an initiative to put federal subsidies toward those properties…people could take those housing voucher and pay toward homeownership instead of rent.
“Our mission is people,” he added. “That’s where our investment needs to be, that’s where our challenges will be…and if we work together, we’ll be able to reach every one of those goals.”
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Peduto presents vision for the future at PowerBreakfast
