Matter of Trust

: By Joseph Sabino Mistick, December 17, 2006 
Allequippa Terrace was one tough place. Once a state-of-the-art public housing development, it eventually fell on hard times along with most other communities of its type. A high concentration of poverty-level residents now seems so obviously wrongheaded that we have forgotten that "the projects" represented progressive thought when they were built.
In time, drugs and violence and all their attendant social ills became commonplace. Gunfire broke the night and mothers wept for their children. Finally, the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh cleared the land and promised that a new neighborhood would rise.
This time, however, it was to be an economically diverse community that would avoid the pitfalls of the past. Just down the hill, Crawford Square was successfully developed using this new approach. And like Crawford Square, Oak Hill would be developed in phases.
And so it is that the first phase has been successfully completed. But the second phase -- the fulfillment of the promise that the city made to the residents -- appears to have been derailed by power politics. The first sign of trouble started when officials of the Bob O'Connor administration cited the kinds of technicalities that a party always cites when it wants to break a deal.
The city invoked federal regulations and funding requirements that ostensibly put further progress on hold. City officials proposed other sites that they argued were better. And even casual observers of this urban vignette could smell trouble for the Oak Hillers.
It would be easy to blame the University of Pittsburgh, but that would be unfair. Any chunk of land in that neighborhood could be used in many ways, and Pitt wants additional athletic fields. Since the collapse of big steel, Pitt has become the core of our regional economy and it deserves our attention.
But this issue -- a dispute between a group of citizens and their government -- is not just about local land use. It is not about a David-and-Goliath struggle that pits average citizens against a major university. It is about trust -- between a government and its citizens.
The Oak Hillers had pitched the practical points. Without construction of the next phase, the concentration of low-income units would remain too high to create the synergy that would ensure success. And the more that a planned community mimics naturally evolved neighborhoods, the more likely it is to survive and prosper.
Still, those arguments were missing the mark as far as city officials were concerned. The news from City Hall grew from troubling rumblings to public skepticism to official maneuvering by housing and redevelopment authorities. The dream of Oak Hill was fading.
Then, with the passing of Mayor Bob O'Connor, the Oak Hill people had an opportunity to press their case to another mayor, Luke Ravenstahl. By all accounts, after meeting with the community at Oak Hill, Ravenstahl knew the answer. His instincts told him this: The city must keep its promise to its citizens.
And this story should end there, but it does not. Maybe it was anxious bureaucrats or some hangers-on who had made political promises that this would turn out differently, but somebody got to the new mayor and changed his mind.
Members of the 1960s counterculture said, "Never trust anyone over 30." And there remains a chance that Ravenstahl, still well under 30, will keep that milestone in place. Not only is it important for the citizens to trust their mayor, it is important for the mayor to trust himself -- and stick with his instincts.
In this regard, he should follow the advice of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said, "Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason."
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