Pittsburgh the resilience city right now
the city has gone through many types of
changes and we’re going to go through a
quick history lesson today and then sort
of understand where we’re at today and
where we need to be to tomorrow the city
was burned to the ground in the 19th
century that had been flooded numerous
times and went through economic collapse
but it somehow always came back that was
1754 the French came here they said
hello we are here this is as far as the
new world will go and a little bit later
it was taken over by the British and
it’s kind of interesting because we
fought the first world war for this
little treasured piece of land the seven
year war the French and Indian War was a
battle that had begun right here in
western Pennsylvania and spread
throughout the world
Pittsburgh became a fortress a little
western frontier town that’s what we
were you know the the resiliency factors
were plagues floods attacks by Native
Americans and we prepared and built a
little fortress in order to be able to
handle all of that but very soon a
couple of guys would get in a boat one
of them right down by Heinz Field named
Lewis and Clark and they would discover
Ohio now they discovered the rest of the
country right manifest destiny ocean to
ocean and they looked over their
shoulder and they said who’s going to
build it in Pittsburgh
of course Pittsburgh and before it was
steel it was glass and then iron then
steel then aluminum and Pittsburgh built
America from this little fortress town
came this industrial giant and what came
with that air that was dangerous to
breathe water that was poisonous to
drink and the greatest disparity between
the haves and the have-nots in American
history and I really like this slide
because it reminds me every day what
would have happened if Frick and
Carnegie hadn’t hated each other the
school would have been known as Carnegie
for
can moyen pittsburgh grow like we were
the Boomtown we learnt population
doubling each decade more and more
people coming all these immigrants no
walls and we built this city was more
importantly when we not only built the
city we built the middle class as a
process of it we went to work we started
to solve the problems of the bad air the
first Clean Air Act in American history
decades before there would even be an
EPA Pittsburghers rolled up our sleeves
and we’ve partnered corporate pittsburgh
with government in order to be able to
solve our pollution corporate pittsburgh
with government in order to be able to
solve the issues we had with our water
in working in those mills and organizing
in order to end the disparity and make
it a pittsburgh for all but there were
other things that we were doing at the
same time that we’re really taking away
from the heart of this region from the
city this is a beautiful shot of the
north side and within ten years it
looked like that we took big wrecking
balls and took it through East Liberty
and took it through the hill district
and took it through the north side we
invested billions of dollars in tunnels
and bridges and we saw our city change
but then came 1979 the city that had
once been an industrial giant was now
the third largest corporate Center in
America New York Chicago Pittsburgh and
in 1979 the Pirates won the World Series
the Steelers won their fourth Superbowl
in six years
in Pittsburgh died we died our entire
economy that we had put in through heavy
industry was gone that city that was
booming and growing and doubling every
10 years started a downward trend that
would last 70 years of population loss
we would lose more people in the 80s the
New Orleans lost after Hurricane Katrina
and they never came back our
unemployment was greater than it was
during the Great Depression
at 19 percent triple with Detroit’s is
today in our debt ratio of our city of
our government higher than New York
City’s when it went bankrupt but we’re
Pittsburghers what do we do we rolled
our sleeves up and we started to get to
work we started to working together with
government in the corporate community
our foundations our nonprofits our large
institutions the very interesting study
that came out in that time number one
thing we have to do reinforce the
region’s traditional economic base as a
center for metals industry and corporate
headquarters the corporate headquarters
continue to leave the metals industry
continue to diminish convert
underutilized land facilities and labor
force components to new uses especially
those involving advanced technology the
seeds were planted what would happen
during the 80s and the 90s is the mills
never really left it just moved up the
hill and they are called Carnegie Mellon
the University of Pittsburgh
UPMC Allegheny Health Networks enhance
the region’s quality of life thereby
attracting new residents and increasing
tourism don’t give up on the arts and
culture double down this is our time to
make sure that we don’t lose any of
those great things we had a hundred
years ago and were able to give the next
generation something more expand
opportunities for women minorities and
structurally unemployed well we still
got a lot of work to do on that one so
this is the Pittsburgh of today we did a
lot of heavy heavy lifting when it came
to investment we built a
state-of-the-art airport then we tore it
down and built a state-of-the-art
airport we both state of art stadiums
and we tore them down and built
state-of-the-art stadiums we built a
brand new Convention Center then tore it
down and built
a new Convention Center so that stuff’s
done right we don’t have to worry about
that for at least another 30 years so we
have to start thinking what is it that
we invest in and how do we do it the
arts and the culture that was invested
in the 80s the place that we’re standing
at there and sitting in today the entire
cultural district was all done by
partnerships it never happened alone it
wasn’t that one group did it it was that
all groups took a certain part to make
sure that would happen it was groups
like the foundation community that did
more than just hold our head above the
water while we were treading water but
they helped to build this wonderful city
that we have today and it was these
institutions that would become the
engines of a new economy that were born
during the 90s in the 80s through ideas
that people had of planting seeds and
watching to see where they would go so
this is where we stand today we’re on
the cusp of the next great Pittsburgh
from that fortress town to the city that
became an industrial giant to the
transformation to a corporate city to
its economic collapse
we’re now at that critical next phase
the resilient city the capacity of
individuals communities institutions
businesses in systems within a city to
survive adapt and grow no matter what
kind of chronic chronic stresses in
acute shocks they experience a
resilience strategy for the city of
Pittsburgh the city of Pittsburgh has
been selected as one of the 100 cities
on earth to be part of the Rockefeller
Foundation’s 100 resilient cities
learning and working from cities around
this world we’ve put together a strategy
that we’ve partnered with the RAND
Corporation and presenting our strategy
is one that looks at the next 30 years
and identifies the shocks and the
stresses and says what can we do to
maybe not eliminate them but to make
sure that their impacts never knock us
down like we got knocked down before we
put it through a filter that we call p4
economics of the 19th century or based
on a single bottom-line of profit
cities of the 21st century have a
quadruple bottom line of people place
planet and performance all four have to
be the metric which we measure our
success by and our investment in we
looked at Pittsburgh’s areas we went out
into the community to be able to
understand it more fully the shocks that
we will face the impacts that will
happen infrastructure collapse you’re
seeing it with PWSA you’re seeing it
with our bridges our roads we have to
undo more and invest more in it climate
change in extreme weather what we used
to call 50 year storms or 100 year
storms now happen on a yearly basis
homes and entire neighborhoods are
flooded we don’t have the capacity of a
sewer system to even be able to handle
it hazmat accident we have crude oil
going through the heart of this city
multiple times a day just one mishap
could be a disaster catastrophe or it
could happen up in Oakland at one of the
hospitals or one of the university labs
and we have to be prepared what do we do
if we have to quarantine an entire part
of our city for 60 days 90 days 120 days
economic collapse we went through it
once and we weren’t prepared how do we
prepare ourselves for something that
might happen outside of our own
economics something on a national or a
global scale and then the stress is
what’s happening day by day by day that
we can help to mitigate eliminate or at
least be able to minimize impact our
environmental environmental degradation
we have a long history of being able to
address it
we’re still far away behind other cities
and regions economic in racial inequity
we don’t have a black middle class in
the city of Pittsburgh we have poor and
wealthy and we have to be up ride
opportunities ladders of opportunities
for these jobs of the future that are
being created so that everyone has a
place in pencil Pittsburgh’s future
aging infrastructure as we talked about
in fragmentation the most fragmented
governmental structure in the USA we’re
number one
and how does that break down into these
four areas that
you put everything in with p4 well with
a planet it’s how we address our issues
with water or local in renewable energy
understanding that the idea of having a
power plant 100 miles away producing
energy off of fossil fuel going along an
energy line losing the majority of the
energy that was used to make it so that
you can toast your toast in the morning
is an antiquated idea in the future
cities will produce their own energy
they’ll be done in micro grids there
won’t be a major grid OB small grids
that we’ll be producing with renewable
energy and renewable sources we already
see it happening we’ve created a
biosphere an opportunity for a
neighborhood that has no grocery store
to be able to grow fish tilapia grow
vegetables all being done and powered by
the Sun and rainwater nothing plugged in
no pipes no attachments in in two
thousand examples where it’s being used
with direct current energy only five in
the United States in one of them is in
Homewood how do we work with people it’s
on housing and affordable housing
options the opportunity to take 17,000
blighted properties that the city of
Pittsburgh owns because they had no
market value in the past and turn it
into an opportunity for someone to call
it home be able to turn it over and have
workforce development programs in that
neighborhood and teaching people how to
become electricians teaching people how
to become roofers teaching people how to
become plumbers in one by one taking
each of the properties back in not only
giving somebody an opportunity for
affordable housing but somebody the
opportunity to own their own home we
look at transportation mixed uses
vacantly in green space all the
different opportunities within a public
space and we start to think about how we
can enhance it enhance a neighborhood
and make a city more resilient by taking
out that big paved parking lot and
putting in a field that retains
rainwater so it never gets to the pipe
so you don’t have to spend a billion
dollars to replace the pipe by using
ideas of how that can enhance a city’s
health its ability for cleaner air its
ability to be a global leader in
understanding that revitalization
combined with sustainability can help to
create a city that becomes resilient in
each of these have a different way of
being enacted it’s not just like city
government sits down and works with this
group and gets it done there’s different
ways to be able to approach it in order
to be able to see it succeed
initiate develop and implement new
initiatives things that aren’t there in
the past that need to be there great
example summer of earn and learn 2013 we
employed 150 kids in summer employment
most of them cut grass or painted fences
2014 four months in office we expanded
it to six hundred kids and they worked
at PNC Bank
UPMC the University of Pittsburgh and
throughout this city we did it by doing
it on our own using Community
Development Block Grant dollars to fund
it the next year we realized for every
kid we gave a summer job to we told to
we don’t have a job for you so we
partnered with the county we partnered
with our corporate community and we
partnered with our foundations and that
next year we had 2,000 kids working all
throughout the city in this county doing
things in learning about careers taking
voice lessons at the University of
Pittsburgh where children had never been
on a college campus and saying this is
where I want to go to school and then
the next year we partnered with the
Children’s Museum we partnered with
Carnegie Library Carnegie museums we
partnered with Pittsburgh Public Schools
summer dreaming we had 16,000 kids
involved in learning and education
programs during the summer for 150 to
16,000 in three years because we did it
the Pittsburgh way we partnered
yesterday we announced our goal for this
summer 27,000 coordinate let’s just as I
had said working together and being able
to pull the resources together amplify
things that are already there that you
want to be able to do more with and
accelerate those initiatives that are
already there or on the
table in getting them moving out the
door some of our partners because we’re
working on a global basis involved
companies from around the world but
we’re also now getting Pittsburgh
companies involved in the other 100
cities in every continent on earth and
we’re working it together so that
Pittsburgh’s resiliency plan becomes a
plan for every other city to follow is
weary emerge on the global stage we want
the example of how Pittsburgh can work
together and to do things to be a model
that all cities can see so it doesn’t
matter who’s serving in Washington it
doesn’t matter who’s in Harrisburg in
Pittsburgh we roll our sleeves up we
work together and we get the job done
and that’s how it connects a smart city
that utilizes technology and new
investment and creates new markets that
don’t even exist in the world a
sustainable city that understands the
importance of making it so that it lasts
in making sure that it has a very
minimal impact on the environment in a
resilient city that puts it all together
so that it will be here way after the
time that we’re gone for the ones who
will follow why local governments must
solve problems the idea that federal
programs will come in and save us is
gone the idea that this can all be
solved on a global level or on a federal
level is gone cities around the world
right now can end the refugee crisis
mayor’s around the world will each take
a certain amount of people that we can
host and bring to safety and if the
cities around the world
let it we wouldn’t have a crisis cities
around the world can affect climate
change
we each through lower our carbon
footprint be able to do more at a local
level and we can do more than what
federal governments can do there are all
these different areas where we have the
ability to make these great changes but
it really is because of the way the
world is right now that the solutions to
these problems are on a local level and
in Pittsburgh our district energy plan
is already taking off creating with our
new developments the
energy to sustain them 178 acres down in
Hazelwood with a foundation community
that will be powered 100% by renewable
energy on-site the 28 acres round the
Penguins PPG paints arena will all be
powered on-site with natural gas areas
around the city where we’re putting in
eco innovation districts like in Uptown
in order to be able to pull all the
components together at a community level
basis in Pittsburgh’s becoming a world
leader than this as well in the next
steps
Pittsburgh survey 2.0 1908 Pittsburgh is
at its crisis it is economically one of
the strongest cities and regions in the
world
and it has as I said before air that was
dangerous to breathe water that was
poisonous to drink in the greatest
disparity in American history between
the haves and have-nots the Pittsburgh
survey survey was the first
socio-economic study of a city ever done
on earth and it uncovered all the
problems that were there and gave about
solutions it’s time for Pittsburgh
survey 2.0 and we’re working with RAND
Corporation and Brookings in order to
present that during this next year in
over the course of the next several
years and what it will do is it will
provide us not only with a plan but it
will measure how if we’re being
successful because if you aren’t
measuring you’re only practicing
Pittsburgh investment prospectus how
much would it cost to give every three
and four-year-old in the city of
Pittsburgh in education not daycare in
education every three and four-year-old
having the opportunity to be able to
start out in kindergarten at the same
starting line hearing the same number of
words having a vocabulary that was equal
being able to have cognitive abilities
that are all the same and then what
would that mean at the kindergarten
level then what would it mean at the
third grade level then what would that
mean by sixth grade and those kids that
start dropping out at seventh grade the
ones that you read about in the papers
when they’re 16 the ones that are in
prison by the time they’re 18 how many
more of them would then have an
opportunity to be a success
if we just invested but what’s the cost
going to be so let’s say it’s twenty
million dollars
is it worth the city then to invest five
million if we can get the school to
invest five million would there be a
foundation in town that would be willing
to contribute five million dollars how
about one corporation to be a sponsor
all of a sudden now we have every third
and four-year-old having that education
and changing an entire generation that’s
what the community investment prospectus
is it’s the opportunity to see what the
value will be and then help to get the
Pittsburgh way done where we all take a
little part of it part of the
responsibility we roll up our sleeves
and we get to work from a western
frontier town to an industrial giant to
the Renaissance that brought about the
corporate city to the economic collapse
to the rebuild that we’ve seen over
these past thirty years to where we
stand today
you can bomb a city you can burn a city
to the ground
you can flood a city you can rip the
economic heart out of a city but a city
will always come back if you invest in
its people
[Applause]
the city has gone through many types of
changes and we’re going to go through a
quick history lesson today and then sort
of understand where we’re at today and
where we need to be to tomorrow the city
was burned to the ground in the 19th
century that had been flooded numerous
times and went through economic collapse
but it somehow always came back that was
1754 the French came here they said
hello we are here this is as far as the
new world will go and a little bit later
it was taken over by the British and
it’s kind of interesting because we
fought the first world war for this
little treasured piece of land the seven
year war the French and Indian War was a
battle that had begun right here in
western Pennsylvania and spread
throughout the world
Pittsburgh became a fortress a little
western frontier town that’s what we
were you know the the resiliency factors
were plagues floods attacks by Native
Americans and we prepared and built a
little fortress in order to be able to
handle all of that but very soon a
couple of guys would get in a boat one
of them right down by Heinz Field named
Lewis and Clark and they would discover
Ohio now they discovered the rest of the
country right manifest destiny ocean to
ocean and they looked over their
shoulder and they said who’s going to
build it in Pittsburgh
of course Pittsburgh and before it was
steel it was glass and then iron then
steel then aluminum and Pittsburgh built
America from this little fortress town
came this industrial giant and what came
with that air that was dangerous to
breathe water that was poisonous to
drink and the greatest disparity between
the haves and the have-nots in American
history and I really like this slide
because it reminds me every day what
would have happened if Frick and
Carnegie hadn’t hated each other the
school would have been known as Carnegie
for
can moyen pittsburgh grow like we were
the Boomtown we learnt population
doubling each decade more and more
people coming all these immigrants no
walls and we built this city was more
importantly when we not only built the
city we built the middle class as a
process of it we went to work we started
to solve the problems of the bad air the
first Clean Air Act in American history
decades before there would even be an
EPA Pittsburghers rolled up our sleeves
and we’ve partnered corporate pittsburgh
with government in order to be able to
solve our pollution corporate pittsburgh
with government in order to be able to
solve the issues we had with our water
in working in those mills and organizing
in order to end the disparity and make
it a pittsburgh for all but there were
other things that we were doing at the
same time that we’re really taking away
from the heart of this region from the
city this is a beautiful shot of the
north side and within ten years it
looked like that we took big wrecking
balls and took it through East Liberty
and took it through the hill district
and took it through the north side we
invested billions of dollars in tunnels
and bridges and we saw our city change
but then came 1979 the city that had
once been an industrial giant was now
the third largest corporate Center in
America New York Chicago Pittsburgh and
in 1979 the Pirates won the World Series
the Steelers won their fourth Superbowl
in six years
in Pittsburgh died we died our entire
economy that we had put in through heavy
industry was gone that city that was
booming and growing and doubling every
10 years started a downward trend that
would last 70 years of population loss
we would lose more people in the 80s the
New Orleans lost after Hurricane Katrina
and they never came back our
unemployment was greater than it was
during the Great Depression
at 19 percent triple with Detroit’s is
today in our debt ratio of our city of
our government higher than New York
City’s when it went bankrupt but we’re
Pittsburghers what do we do we rolled
our sleeves up and we started to get to
work we started to working together with
government in the corporate community
our foundations our nonprofits our large
institutions the very interesting study
that came out in that time number one
thing we have to do reinforce the
region’s traditional economic base as a
center for metals industry and corporate
headquarters the corporate headquarters
continue to leave the metals industry
continue to diminish convert
underutilized land facilities and labor
force components to new uses especially
those involving advanced technology the
seeds were planted what would happen
during the 80s and the 90s is the mills
never really left it just moved up the
hill and they are called Carnegie Mellon
the University of Pittsburgh
UPMC Allegheny Health Networks enhance
the region’s quality of life thereby
attracting new residents and increasing
tourism don’t give up on the arts and
culture double down this is our time to
make sure that we don’t lose any of
those great things we had a hundred
years ago and were able to give the next
generation something more expand
opportunities for women minorities and
structurally unemployed well we still
got a lot of work to do on that one so
this is the Pittsburgh of today we did a
lot of heavy heavy lifting when it came
to investment we built a
state-of-the-art airport then we tore it
down and built a state-of-the-art
airport we both state of art stadiums
and we tore them down and built
state-of-the-art stadiums we built a
brand new Convention Center then tore it
down and built
a new Convention Center so that stuff’s
done right we don’t have to worry about
that for at least another 30 years so we
have to start thinking what is it that
we invest in and how do we do it the
arts and the culture that was invested
in the 80s the place that we’re standing
at there and sitting in today the entire
cultural district was all done by
partnerships it never happened alone it
wasn’t that one group did it it was that
all groups took a certain part to make
sure that would happen it was groups
like the foundation community that did
more than just hold our head above the
water while we were treading water but
they helped to build this wonderful city
that we have today and it was these
institutions that would become the
engines of a new economy that were born
during the 90s in the 80s through ideas
that people had of planting seeds and
watching to see where they would go so
this is where we stand today we’re on
the cusp of the next great Pittsburgh
from that fortress town to the city that
became an industrial giant to the
transformation to a corporate city to
its economic collapse
we’re now at that critical next phase
the resilient city the capacity of
individuals communities institutions
businesses in systems within a city to
survive adapt and grow no matter what
kind of chronic chronic stresses in
acute shocks they experience a
resilience strategy for the city of
Pittsburgh the city of Pittsburgh has
been selected as one of the 100 cities
on earth to be part of the Rockefeller
Foundation’s 100 resilient cities
learning and working from cities around
this world we’ve put together a strategy
that we’ve partnered with the RAND
Corporation and presenting our strategy
is one that looks at the next 30 years
and identifies the shocks and the
stresses and says what can we do to
maybe not eliminate them but to make
sure that their impacts never knock us
down like we got knocked down before we
put it through a filter that we call p4
economics of the 19th century or based
on a single bottom-line of profit
cities of the 21st century have a
quadruple bottom line of people place
planet and performance all four have to
be the metric which we measure our
success by and our investment in we
looked at Pittsburgh’s areas we went out
into the community to be able to
understand it more fully the shocks that
we will face the impacts that will
happen infrastructure collapse you’re
seeing it with PWSA you’re seeing it
with our bridges our roads we have to
undo more and invest more in it climate
change in extreme weather what we used
to call 50 year storms or 100 year
storms now happen on a yearly basis
homes and entire neighborhoods are
flooded we don’t have the capacity of a
sewer system to even be able to handle
it hazmat accident we have crude oil
going through the heart of this city
multiple times a day just one mishap
could be a disaster catastrophe or it
could happen up in Oakland at one of the
hospitals or one of the university labs
and we have to be prepared what do we do
if we have to quarantine an entire part
of our city for 60 days 90 days 120 days
economic collapse we went through it
once and we weren’t prepared how do we
prepare ourselves for something that
might happen outside of our own
economics something on a national or a
global scale and then the stress is
what’s happening day by day by day that
we can help to mitigate eliminate or at
least be able to minimize impact our
environmental environmental degradation
we have a long history of being able to
address it
we’re still far away behind other cities
and regions economic in racial inequity
we don’t have a black middle class in
the city of Pittsburgh we have poor and
wealthy and we have to be up ride
opportunities ladders of opportunities
for these jobs of the future that are
being created so that everyone has a
place in pencil Pittsburgh’s future
aging infrastructure as we talked about
in fragmentation the most fragmented
governmental structure in the USA we’re
number one
and how does that break down into these
four areas that
you put everything in with p4 well with
a planet it’s how we address our issues
with water or local in renewable energy
understanding that the idea of having a
power plant 100 miles away producing
energy off of fossil fuel going along an
energy line losing the majority of the
energy that was used to make it so that
you can toast your toast in the morning
is an antiquated idea in the future
cities will produce their own energy
they’ll be done in micro grids there
won’t be a major grid OB small grids
that we’ll be producing with renewable
energy and renewable sources we already
see it happening we’ve created a
biosphere an opportunity for a
neighborhood that has no grocery store
to be able to grow fish tilapia grow
vegetables all being done and powered by
the Sun and rainwater nothing plugged in
no pipes no attachments in in two
thousand examples where it’s being used
with direct current energy only five in
the United States in one of them is in
Homewood how do we work with people it’s
on housing and affordable housing
options the opportunity to take 17,000
blighted properties that the city of
Pittsburgh owns because they had no
market value in the past and turn it
into an opportunity for someone to call
it home be able to turn it over and have
workforce development programs in that
neighborhood and teaching people how to
become electricians teaching people how
to become roofers teaching people how to
become plumbers in one by one taking
each of the properties back in not only
giving somebody an opportunity for
affordable housing but somebody the
opportunity to own their own home we
look at transportation mixed uses
vacantly in green space all the
different opportunities within a public
space and we start to think about how we
can enhance it enhance a neighborhood
and make a city more resilient by taking
out that big paved parking lot and
putting in a field that retains
rainwater so it never gets to the pipe
so you don’t have to spend a billion
dollars to replace the pipe by using
ideas of how that can enhance a city’s
health its ability for cleaner air its
ability to be a global leader in
understanding that revitalization
combined with sustainability can help to
create a city that becomes resilient in
each of these have a different way of
being enacted it’s not just like city
government sits down and works with this
group and gets it done there’s different
ways to be able to approach it in order
to be able to see it succeed
initiate develop and implement new
initiatives things that aren’t there in
the past that need to be there great
example summer of earn and learn 2013 we
employed 150 kids in summer employment
most of them cut grass or painted fences
2014 four months in office we expanded
it to six hundred kids and they worked
at PNC Bank
UPMC the University of Pittsburgh and
throughout this city we did it by doing
it on our own using Community
Development Block Grant dollars to fund
it the next year we realized for every
kid we gave a summer job to we told to
we don’t have a job for you so we
partnered with the county we partnered
with our corporate community and we
partnered with our foundations and that
next year we had 2,000 kids working all
throughout the city in this county doing
things in learning about careers taking
voice lessons at the University of
Pittsburgh where children had never been
on a college campus and saying this is
where I want to go to school and then
the next year we partnered with the
Children’s Museum we partnered with
Carnegie Library Carnegie museums we
partnered with Pittsburgh Public Schools
summer dreaming we had 16,000 kids
involved in learning and education
programs during the summer for 150 to
16,000 in three years because we did it
the Pittsburgh way we partnered
yesterday we announced our goal for this
summer 27,000 coordinate let’s just as I
had said working together and being able
to pull the resources together amplify
things that are already there that you
want to be able to do more with and
accelerate those initiatives that are
already there or on the
table in getting them moving out the
door some of our partners because we’re
working on a global basis involved
companies from around the world but
we’re also now getting Pittsburgh
companies involved in the other 100
cities in every continent on earth and
we’re working it together so that
Pittsburgh’s resiliency plan becomes a
plan for every other city to follow is
weary emerge on the global stage we want
the example of how Pittsburgh can work
together and to do things to be a model
that all cities can see so it doesn’t
matter who’s serving in Washington it
doesn’t matter who’s in Harrisburg in
Pittsburgh we roll our sleeves up we
work together and we get the job done
and that’s how it connects a smart city
that utilizes technology and new
investment and creates new markets that
don’t even exist in the world a
sustainable city that understands the
importance of making it so that it lasts
in making sure that it has a very
minimal impact on the environment in a
resilient city that puts it all together
so that it will be here way after the
time that we’re gone for the ones who
will follow why local governments must
solve problems the idea that federal
programs will come in and save us is
gone the idea that this can all be
solved on a global level or on a federal
level is gone cities around the world
right now can end the refugee crisis
mayor’s around the world will each take
a certain amount of people that we can
host and bring to safety and if the
cities around the world
let it we wouldn’t have a crisis cities
around the world can affect climate
change
we each through lower our carbon
footprint be able to do more at a local
level and we can do more than what
federal governments can do there are all
these different areas where we have the
ability to make these great changes but
it really is because of the way the
world is right now that the solutions to
these problems are on a local level and
in Pittsburgh our district energy plan
is already taking off creating with our
new developments the
energy to sustain them 178 acres down in
Hazelwood with a foundation community
that will be powered 100% by renewable
energy on-site the 28 acres round the
Penguins PPG paints arena will all be
powered on-site with natural gas areas
around the city where we’re putting in
eco innovation districts like in Uptown
in order to be able to pull all the
components together at a community level
basis in Pittsburgh’s becoming a world
leader than this as well in the next
steps
Pittsburgh survey 2.0 1908 Pittsburgh is
at its crisis it is economically one of
the strongest cities and regions in the
world
and it has as I said before air that was
dangerous to breathe water that was
poisonous to drink in the greatest
disparity in American history between
the haves and have-nots the Pittsburgh
survey survey was the first
socio-economic study of a city ever done
on earth and it uncovered all the
problems that were there and gave about
solutions it’s time for Pittsburgh
survey 2.0 and we’re working with RAND
Corporation and Brookings in order to
present that during this next year in
over the course of the next several
years and what it will do is it will
provide us not only with a plan but it
will measure how if we’re being
successful because if you aren’t
measuring you’re only practicing
Pittsburgh investment prospectus how
much would it cost to give every three
and four-year-old in the city of
Pittsburgh in education not daycare in
education every three and four-year-old
having the opportunity to be able to
start out in kindergarten at the same
starting line hearing the same number of
words having a vocabulary that was equal
being able to have cognitive abilities
that are all the same and then what
would that mean at the kindergarten
level then what would it mean at the
third grade level then what would that
mean by sixth grade and those kids that
start dropping out at seventh grade the
ones that you read about in the papers
when they’re 16 the ones that are in
prison by the time they’re 18 how many
more of them would then have an
opportunity to be a success
if we just invested but what’s the cost
going to be so let’s say it’s twenty
million dollars
is it worth the city then to invest five
million if we can get the school to
invest five million would there be a
foundation in town that would be willing
to contribute five million dollars how
about one corporation to be a sponsor
all of a sudden now we have every third
and four-year-old having that education
and changing an entire generation that’s
what the community investment prospectus
is it’s the opportunity to see what the
value will be and then help to get the
Pittsburgh way done where we all take a
little part of it part of the
responsibility we roll up our sleeves
and we get to work from a western
frontier town to an industrial giant to
the Renaissance that brought about the
corporate city to the economic collapse
to the rebuild that we’ve seen over
these past thirty years to where we
stand today
you can bomb a city you can burn a city
to the ground
you can flood a city you can rip the
economic heart out of a city but a city
will always come back if you invest in
its people
[Applause]
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