Pittsburgh Tomorrow: The Power of Belief

One weeknight in early April, i returned home after a tiring day packed with meetings. I don’t usually drink during the week, but as I sat down with the day’s mail, I eyed a bottle of Malbec on the kitchen counter. I sighed and thought “Nope, too much work tonight.” I grabbed the mail, noticing an unusual white envelope with eight colorful stamps, each distinct and unfamiliar.

I opened it and recognized the writer’s name; I had typed in his subscription every two years for the last 18. In the letter, he said he’s a few months shy of 100 and has been reading about Pittsburgh’s economic and demographic problems. As “a life-long believer in this area,” he said, he supports our efforts with the Pittsburgh Tomorrow project and is “happy to give you a hand.” He enclosed a $25,000 check and said that when his time comes to “depart this earth” he pledged another $400,000. He’s helping, he said, because of the old adage, “To whom much is given, much is expected.”

I put the letter down before finishing it. “Read this,” I said, handing it to my wife. As I reached for the bottle of wine, I was aware that my eyes were moist. I uncorked the bottle and recalled my father’s planting 10,000 black walnut trees by hand a few years before his death and his fondness then of quoting Cicero: “The farmer is prophetic who plants his crops knowing he will not see their fruition.”

I took a sip and reread the letter, considering its implications. I’d been working on Pittsburgh Tomorrow night and day for the past year, fundraising from friends for the previous four months. The going had been steady but slow. And here was a very old man dropping in with a statement of affirmation that would inspire our whole team, no one more than me. Here was, as he said, “a lifelong believer” — someone taking a true leap of faith.

***

About a year ago, a group of us set out to attack a difficult problem — turning around the population and the prospects of a great region. Pittsburgh — the gateway to the west, the cauldron of industrial innovation where will and production won wars, the indispensable city in the American ascendancy — this great city was bleeding people and its future.

Over the past 10 years, the average job growth among 16 similar regions was 28.2 percent. Only one actually lost jobs and workers during that period — Pittsburgh. And of all 387 U.S. metro areas, which one has the greatest natural population loss (more deaths than births)? Pittsburgh.

Reversing these trends is something “experts” say can’t be done. Given that, and given our current political leadership — which seems unaware of the need for a business climate that attracts jobs — many are ready to simply give up on Pittsburgh.

Once, 29 years ago, I received a memorable lesson about giving up from Dr. Jonas Salk. I spent a weekend with him on his 80th birthday, which turned out to be only months before he died. Though he detested reporters, we ultimately got along well, and I’ve never forgotten something he told me: “Some people say, ‘Where there’s a will there’s a way.’ I turn that around and say, ‘Where there’s a way, there isn’t always the will.’” Since then, when I face a problem that seems insoluble, I remember that challenge and summon the will to try harder.

We at Pittsburgh Tomorrow have the will, and since last summer and fall some 75 volunteers have met (and met) looking for the way. At every step, despite obstacles, lights have appeared to guide us. And now, like the little engine that could, we’ve found the way and, in terms of getting there, we think we can.

***

In November, we incorporated as a Pennsylvania nonprofit. Since then, we’ve launched several ships, and now the wind is in our sails.

Our first project was building a network of media companies willing to donate ad space and air-time for a tenacious, ubiquitous public messaging campaign, getting this region’s citizens to believe in a new future with a can-do attitude. Look for that to begin this fall.

We’ve outlined Pittsburgh Tomorrow to the region’s largest philanthropic foundations, but we didn’t seek their financial support initially. We purposely sought support first among successful Pittsburghers. If they wouldn’t donate, it either meant we had a crummy plan or they didn’t care. Either way, Pittsburgh Tomorrow wouldn’t deserve to exist.

It turns out, however, they do care, and in mid-May, we closed our Founders Circle with 140 members who’ve donated and pledged more than $2.6 million. (See page 19). We’re now seeking to match that amount from local foundations and also from the area’s biggest companies, which need new people in order to thrive.

***

In February, we asked 88 high school principals to nominate one sophomore and one junior (one boy, one girl) to join our inaugural congress for the Allegheny Conservation Corps. It’s designed for high school students to play a new, leading role here. Young people believe they can change the world, yet we ask virtually nothing of them. This program will do three things: beautify Allegheny County through conservation projects; be an important plank in a long-term attract-and-retain strategy by having these young people identify with Pittsburgh (“I planted that tree — this is home”); and finally, get national attention (there’s nothing like it in the country) and change Pittsburgh’s image from old and Rust Belt to young and green.

When 50 students from 25 schools gathered March 2 at LeMont restaurant, the idea was to lay the city out at their feet and inspire them. However, a heavy fog enshrouded Mt. Washington that Saturday morning. Just as I handed the microphone to Andy Masich — the leader of America’s best regional history museum and an even better speaker — the fog lifted and he told those enthralled students all the seminal things that have happened right here in Pittsburgh.

In April, the students met again — this time armed with plans for the inaugural Community Service Day they’re creating this fall in their home communities across Allegheny County. We were all guests of Pirates owner Bob Nutting and President Travis Williams who treated us to having our pictures taken on the field and tickets to a game with a thrilling 11th-inning victory.

Can such a community-wide project happen here? It is happening here.

***

In late fall and winter, we surveyed and interviewed the leaders of 25 immigration-related agencies to understand the barriers and opportunities for increasing our anomalously low percentage of foreign-born residents. We did this because immigrants bring diversity of all kinds to our region, the nation’s oldest and whitest; they also have higher birth rates, are five times more likely to start businesses, and in my experience, believe in this country more than many Americans.

We learned that, because we’ve been insular so long — with a dearth of immigrants — we as a culture often don’t understand what immigrants face when they arrive in Pittsburgh in terms of housing, police, jobs, language, transportation, government and acceptance. Nor do we understand how best to help these new neighbors successfully become Pittsburghers.

To remedy this, we’ve launched a wide-ranging immigration journalism project to educate local citizens and leaders alike. This is not about the southern border and policies there, and it’s not advocacy. It’s journalism — about the issues surrounding immigration in Pittsburgh. And we have a partnership of more than 40 news outlets to carry these stories and produce their own. We believe that if the people here — from the beat cop to the next-door neighbor to a bank president to a philanthropic funder — understand the issues, we as a region will make smart choices and improve in the long term.

***

We’re a higher education mecca, attracting 130,000 students a year, including some 5,000 foreign students. These promising young people represent low-hanging fruit, which, given our population losses, we cannot ignore. They’re already here, and it’s a lot easier to get people to stay than get them to move. For the past five years, the Allegheny Conference on Community Development built a program — as funding allowed — connecting students (especially from Pitt and Carnegie Mellon — our two national universities whose students are most likely to move away after graduation) with Pittsburgh’s amenities and employers.

The idea is to get them out of the Oakland bubble, let them know our charms, show them we want them, and help them become the next generation of Pittsburghers. When the Conference regrouped in December focusing on Downtown, it discontinued that program (the Pittsburgh Passport,) and recently handed it off to the Pittsburgh Urban Magnet Program, (PUMP), which is spearheading the Passport’s resurrection, with our help.

We’ve hired the Conference’s former Passport lead, who also is leading the effort we’ll roll out this fall to familiarize local employers with the visa process so they can hire promising foreign-born students and keep them in this region. To date, local employers generally have been slow to build the bridge between Pittsburgh’s college students, especially foreign students. We have to change this picture, and Pittsburgh Tomorrow is jumpstarting and accelerating efforts in these critical areas.

***

We’re just beginning. We’ll launch more programs soon. And while it’s true that we want and need people of all kinds, Pittsburgh Tomorrow has developed a very targeted plan: We are seeking what we’re calling pioneers, and all of our programs will focus on attracting, engaging, encouraging, activating and connecting these enterprising souls who will build the Pittsburgh of tomorrow. These first movers will catalyze the renewal this region needs, and ultimately they’ll bring many others in their wake.

Pioneers come in all kinds, colors and ages, (though they tend to be young at heart). They may be engineers or scientists, artists or writers. They may be capitalists or community builders. Think of the Mexican American mother who starts a house-cleaning business, the Thai restaurateur, or the Hill District pastor building neighborhood resilience. Above all, they’re believers — people who say yes. These are the people we seek — the influencers and freethinkers who want a place where they can be part of creating something better — something great. We’ll attract them from elsewhere — from everywhere. We’ll cultivate and accelerate those who are already here. We’ll invite others to return home. And for those of us with the spirit, we’ll become pioneers ourselves — there’s room for many a more.

Finally, whether they’re new arrivals or long-timers, we want to connect these pioneers, remove obstacles in their way and build a movement among them — a movement that will gain momentum and create a new, Can-Do culture that will turn this place around.

Fueled by these innovators, our overall goal is to build the best place to live in the world — and to have fun doing it. This is our quest, the heart of Pittsburgh Tomorrow.

Some will think that’s far-fetched. We don’t. Not only do we believe this is the best and most realistic way to reinvigorate Pittsburgh, we believe it’s absolutely doable. It’s not a short-term fix — nothing really worthwhile ever is. And that’s part of its beauty. It’s a long-term strategy built on the strengths this area possesses, which will only grow more evident in time.

Why would such pioneers come here or stay? We have the ingredients they want. Good bones, for starters. We’re a manageable city, with a human scale, high quality of life and a compassionate social fabric. We have very low crime, sky-high philanthropic wealth and excellent schools. We have great educational and medical engines of innovation as well as superb and accessible culture. Our small-town quality of life is within a day’s drive or an hour’s flight of the nation’s leading population centers. We’re surrounded by a beautiful natural playground of rivers, trails and mountains. We have abundant water and we always will. And as the climate continues to change, we’ll be a beacon of sustainability, an oasis of green assets, even as other others wither and fade.

Is it so hard to imagine that Pittsburgh could become the best place to live in the world? Look around the country and the world, at all the places beset by terrible problems beyond the scale of human endeavor. Of all the world’s countries, futurists say, the U.S. is best situated for the years ahead. So why can’t we make our own relatively smaller region the place in the U.S. where people of all kinds respect and appreciate each other, raise their families and flourish? Where the toxicity that’s endemic in so many places is rejected?

Finally, we’ve always been a cradle of pioneers. It’s in our DNA — from Washington, Carnegie, Westinghouse and Marshall, to Carson, Clemente, Salk and Wilson. Pioneering is Pittsburgh’s cultural legacy. This is the place where dreamers and builders created not only a great city but cast the foundation of a great nation.

Put it all together, and we have something no other place can offer: a smaller, authentic city that will provide the canvas upon which these pioneers can imagine and create the new Florence.

***

For many and perhaps even most of us, we’re dispirited when we look at this country. We wish we had different presidential candidates. And the chaotic state of the world seems to justify Churchill’s definition of history: “Just one damned thing after the other.”

Nationally and internationally, it’s hard to imagine influencing what happens. Locally, though, we can make a difference. A relatively small group of people working with unity of purpose can change the reality here. A larger group can make a huge difference. And if we can make a big enough difference locally, that example can make a difference nationally.

Our 99-year-old letter writer believes we have an obligation to do just that — to do what we can to make things better. Like being on a camping trip, you pick up garbage whether it’s yours or not — you simply leave the place better than you found it. So why bemoan a lack of leadership, when we have the ability, collectively, to become the leadership we feel is needed.

I believe our citizens want to believe in a Pittsburgh that matters again. I know our donors and our team do. I believe now is the time to invest. Now is the time to light the lamp. Ultimately though, it’s a question for all Pittsburghers — here and elsewhere — to answer.

Which team do you want to be on? The doubters or the believers? We’re recruiting for the latter, a new team in town — The Pittsburgh Pioneers. Let’s take a collective leap of faith. Let’s create Pittsburgh Tomorrow.

(If you would like to donate or get involved, please email doug@pittsburghtomorrow.org)