Gutter: Summertime and the living's easy

Another day, another recognition as the Most Livable City in the state/country/world.

…Pittsburgh once again is the most livable city in the United States -- and 29th worldwide -- in a 2009 survey by British magazine The Economist…(Post-Gazette, 6/10/2009)

And again I say, take that, East St. Louis!

The Economist Intelligence Unit -- which publishes numerous surveys and studies for paying clients -- has ranked Pittsburgh first in U.S. livability ratings since it started measuring them in 2005, said Jon Copestake, editor of the survey….

…The Economist's ranking is just one of many kudos Pittsburgh has earned recently: In 2007 it was rated as "America's Most Livable City" by Places Rated Almanac, and in January Forbes Magazine cited it as the sixth best city in "Ten Cities For Job Growth In 2009."

But we should give the other side a say as well.

Of course, there was that survey by the Pew Research Center's Social & Demographic Trends project, which found Pittsburgh one of the least popular of places to live -- in the bottom 10 of 30 cities surveyed -- with only 17 percent of those surveyed saying they wanted to live there. And Business Week magazine reported that Pittsburgh is the 14th "Most Unhappy City" in the nation.

And it’s also humorous to note that when you Google the phrase “most livable city,” you come across the website www.mostlivable.org, which has nary a mention of Pittsburgh on its lists.

But let’s put the negative aside. We can here to praise Pittsburgh, not to bury it.

Well, some of us did.

"Livability is in the eye of the beholder," [Jake Haulk, president of the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy] said, noting surveys tend to overvalue cultural institutions -- which benefit relatively few people -- and undervalue economic indicators such as job growth and low taxes, which benefit many. Places like Charlotte, N.C., attracted people for that reason, he said.

"I would think that livability would have to do with finding a good job. If you're just looking at cultural things, sure, Pittsburgh is a nice place to live, if you can afford to send your kids to private schools or live in the suburbs and pay high taxes for good schools, but people tend to go where they can find work."

Hmmm, those are some interesting points, particularly about the overvaluing of cultural institutions. So what factors were considered when deeming Pittsburgh the most livable city in America?

In The Economist's report, between 30 to 40 indicators were considered under five categories: stability, health care, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. The Economist used its own analysts plus statistics and input from correspondents in each city.

"The idea was that the city presenting the least challenges to your lifestyle would be deemed the most livable," said Mr. Copestake -- in other words, cities that aren't too big, too crowded or too crime-ridden. Pittsburgh's medical centers and its cultural amenities -- unusual for a city of its size -- helped propel it up the charts, he added.

Okay, so:

Not too big - This city is nothing if not geographically small.

Not too crowded - We’re losing people everyday, right?

Not too crime-ridden - I guess that per capita the crime rate’s probably not too bad.

Look, I like Pittsburgh. I really do. I moved here almost 12 years ago and I’ll probably be staying here for quite some time (although I wouldn’t be surprised if the future finds me living in the scenario Haulk suggests - in the suburbs and paying high taxes for good schools). And to tell the truth, my life is pretty, well, livable. But I look around and I see city employees wondering if their pensions will survive and I see murders increase by 38.5% from 2007 to 2008 and I see neighborhoods ignored so that developers’ interests can be met and I see whole groups of people in this city being completely undervalued - or, as The Wire creator David Simon once said, “people are worth less” - and I have to think that a strong percentage of this city is having its lifestyle challenged.

And again we find ourselves thinking back to Carmen Robinson and her talk of “two Pittsburgh’s.” Time and again during the election Robinson talked about how you have the Most Livable City of Champions and you also have the real Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh that’s made up of neighborhoods no one on Grant Street has cared about in some time and definitely no one at The Economist considered when ranking the city so high.

So if you consider Pittsburgh to be America’s Most Livable City but you aren’t really taking the whole city into consideration, then you’re saying that those neighborhoods that don’t fall into the mold aren’t part of the city and they don’t exist. Sounds like sweeping the problems under the rug or, even worse, ignoring them altogether.

And that’s probably the worst effect of these kinds of reports: they give the impression - delusion? - that things are going well. For a great many people in this city, things are not going well. But every time a study like this comes out, those in charge can sit back and feel good about themselves, content to go another day without addressing the real problems.

Also, for a brief history of Pittsburgh's placement in these kinds of studies, check out Null Space's take on the matter.

Gutter: Who's got a "Word of the Day" calendar?

Pittsburgh democratic debate with Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, Councilman Patrick Dowd, and attorney Carmen Robinson just wrapped up. Each candidate appeared to have his or her own Word of the Day calendar.

My approximation of what each of those calendars said this morning:

Dowd: "Leadership"

Robinson: "Disingenuous"

Ravenstahl: Not sure, but it must have been something funny, since he was smirking the whole time.

Gutter: Why you wanna go and do that?

Bill Peduto has pulled out of the race for the Democratic mayoral nomination. As a result, my great plan of political action has gone down the toilet.

Let me explain:

Several years ago I thought I would make our nation’s two-party mandate work for me. So, despite my generally liberal/libertarian views (although those two don’t always overlap), I registered as a Republican. My line of thinking was that I would vote with that designation, but since my votes would usually tend toward Democrats, the voting statistics would show that a Republican had broken party lines and voted Democrat.

I then concluded that if I could convince many others to do the same thing, we could create a cause for concern within the GOP when they saw large numbers of their “supporters” cross party lines. That concern would then translate into panic and self-doubt; long term, the party would eventually unravel. I liked to think of this as tearing down the Republican party from the inside.

I was very proud of this plan, and I would boast of it to anyone who would listen.

But then Bill Peduto came into my life.

Well, not really. What happened was Luke Ravenstahl became the mayor of Pittsburgh and I began to develop an interest in city politics. Now, I’m not to be confused with the far-more advanced and well-read pundits at such luminary blogs as The Burgh Report or The People’s Republic of Pittsburgh, two of my favorite Pittsburgh-centric blogs, but through reading their work and the work of others, I came to form some opinions on the young mayor and his primary opposition in the Democratic primary, Bill Peduto.

I won’t go through what I like and dislike about each candidate because, quite frankly, it’s pretty meaningless now. But I found that I tended to prefer what I learned about Peduto over what I learned about Ravenstahl.

But as I was trying to learn me some Pittsburgh politics, I realized a crucial issue: with Pennsylvania's closed primary laws, I, as a registered Republican, wouldn’t be permitted to vote in the Democratic primary. I could vote in the general election, but by then the real decision would have already been made. The true vote for mayor is the Democratic primary, and my voice could not be heard because of my crusade against the Republican Party.

Then, as fate would have it, the state Department of Transportation showed up in a most pleasant way when they informed me that I needed to renew my driver’s license in February. The process of renewing one’s license in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania includes the opportunity to register to vote, or, if one is already registered, the opportunity to update one’s voter information.

Fortune smiled upon me, and I seized the opportunity to have a say in choosing this fair city’s next mayor. With the future of Pittsburgh as my focus, I put aside my personal mission to tear down the GOP from the inside and changed my party affiliation. I walked out of the AAA Motor Garden in East Liberty that day as a man who would be a part of the local political machine. I would be a spoke in the wheels as this great city rolls forward.

On Wednesday, March 21, 2007, the wheels fell off when Peduto announced that he was withdrawing from the race. He gave some nonsense reasons about wanting to have an issues-based race and not wanting to divide the city and that "The only way to win would be to go negative.”

Whatever.

Speculation seems to circulate around Peduto bailing because 1) he’s not a good campaigner, or 2) he didn’t raise enough money, and those two could be connected.

Whatever.

The Admiral at The People’s Republic thinks Peduto could be lining up for a run as an independent candidate in November, and there’s some discussion on that blog about whether or not he missed his chance on that one. Either way, I don’t buy it, and if that is Peduto’s plan, it seems like a poor decision: there was enough negativity about Ravenstahl that Peduto probably could have won the nomination. As an independent, he would never be able to produce the resources necessary to win the general election, nor would he have the backing of the powerful Pittsburgh Democratic Machine (which I assume exists).

All I know is that Bill Peduto has torpedoed my carefully-laid plan. I guess I could change my party affiliation back to the GOP and put the plan back in action, but it took a personal invitation from the Department of Transportation to get me to switch my party in the first place, so it seems unlikely that I will do it again.

Anyway, that’s not what it’s about. At some point, I became genuinely interested in the future of this city and I developed a genuine interest in having a say in who made the decisions that would have an impact on the future of this city. Now I feel like that opportunity has been taken away because Bill Peduto, for whatever reason, has decided not to run. As mentioned in the Post-Gazette (the article I linked in the first sentence of this post), Ravenstahl and Peduto were the only candidates who filed petitions to appear on the ballot in the Democratic primary.

So that’s it. Unless some dark horse comes along and somehow beats Ravenstahl in May, it’s done. I hope my political interest in Pittsburgh doesn't go with it.