Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institution presents Back To Prosperity: A Competitive Agenda for Renewing Pennsylvania to the region - next steps.

Back to Prosperity by the Brookings Institution and Citizens Vision for Smart Growth by Sustainable Pittsburgh have much in common.  They are aligned in setting a foundation for new strategies for prosperity by linking economic performance to good fiscal management focusing public investments on existing communities ahead of sprawl.  Recommendations and analysis of both reports use latest and most creative thinking to make Southwestern Pennsylvania’s established communities as prosperous as they can be and to reverse overall trends of decline so that more people enjoy better lives regardless of where they choose to reside and work.  And the timing of this work could not be better.

  • Most elected officials and many community leaders throughout the Pittsburgh metropolitan area and the Commonwealth have taken positions on dealing with the fiscal crisis in Pittsburgh; there seems to be growing understanding that this issue is only the most currently conspicuous example of an issue that virtually every city and borough in the Commonwealth must face -  with necessity to focus the reform agenda on regional approaches governance and service delivery to enhance equitable development.

  • Real estate developers are seeking to concentrate their holdings into more mixed use “town centers” to accommodate market demands to minimize automobile dependency. There is an emerging trend for creating “New Towns in Town” like The Waterfront along the Mon River.

  • Environmental advocates -- including farmers, hunters, fishermen, historic preservationists, and eco-tourism interests -- are working to preserve the Commonwealth’s not-so-gradually disappearing environmental assets in conjunction with advocates of renewed agricultural development that can only happen if farmlands are protected.

  • New executives, notably Governor Rendell and County Executive Onorato, and a many new legislators have been elected to Commonwealth and Southwestern Pennsylvania offices. Regional fiscal, economic development, and infrastructure programming topics have been key issues in their campaigns -- there seem to be tendencies that suggest these officials support at least in principle the Smart Growth agenda.

The key actions both reports recommend include making all public officials and community leaders aware of the profound contradiction that pervades the Commonwealth, compromises its economic prowess in the Global economy, diminishes the economic well-being of its citizens, is within in their control to reverse, and demands immediate attention:

The Commonwealth’s economic and demographic decline with significant sprawl cannot be sustained in a region of livable communities!

The agenda for getting “Back to Prosperity” is: 

  • Plan for a more competitive, higher-quality future by promoting sound land use planning and economic competitiveness strategies on a more coherent basis.

  • Focus the Commonwealth’s investment policies by targeting its resources on older, already-established places.

  • Invest in a high-road economy that supports workers and industries that will help produce a more competitive, higher-wage future for Pennsylvanians.

  • Promote large-scale reinvestment particularly on land that can be reclaimed from earlier uses (“brownfields”) in older urban areas.

  • Renew, reform where possible, the Commonwealth’s and each region’s governance to stress regional collaboration, cohesion, and competitive capacities.

Sustainable Pittsburgh will continue to support these efforts.  It will collaborate with partners on strategies for regional reforms and work with 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania to communicate to officials in the Commonwealth’s Executive and Legislative branches to advance reforms in planning and management to support municipal, county, and regional cooperation with particular attention to:

  • New ways to make all organizations that play a role in establishing priorities for capital improvement investments more responsive to and reflective of region-wide needs and multi-municipal efforts to use Smart Growth practices to ensure that Southwestern Pennsylvania’s communities are even more livable and sustainable a generation from today.

  • “Fix-it-first” principles for setting capital improvement priorities and targeting use of public funds for infrastructure development and multi-jurisdictional approaches within the existing "Growth Area" (defined as the that which is currently served by public sewers and within intensively used transportation corridors as defined the 20/20 Transit Vision).

  • Efforts to make Southwestern Pennsylvania more competitive in the Global Economy by encouraging more efficient and effective government through management and planning at the multi-jurisdictional level, tax-base sharing and joint service provision efforts at the county and multi-county levels, and further integrating government and corporate efforts to market the region and increase its visibility as an investment target.

Back to Prosperity by the Brookings Institution and Citizens Vision for Smart Growth are a citizen driven call to action at the neighborhood, municipal, functional authority, school district, county, and state levels of government to bring Pennsylvania and its regions “Back to Prosperity.”

So, what’s the wait? You can act!  Please consider making contact with those people in your community that can help address these issues and would benefit from understanding your views about them.

In addition, please consider joining the 81 organizations that have signed on as Endorsing Partners of  Citizens' Vision in support of its Smart Growth practices and principles for regional development including:

  • a regional planning approach to designate growth areas to steer development to existing communities using public spending to reinforce existing infrastructure ("fix-it-first")  to focus growth in step with the regional plan 

  • regional consideration of tax base/revenue sharing to foster growth in appropriate places

  • study of how best to reform the board structure of the Southwestern PA Commission so that its programmatic priorities represent region-wide objectives and foster multi-jurisdictional governmental cooperation and coordination that help to reduce the tax burden on individuals, businesses, and potential investors

  • use of Sustainability Assessment Criteria to evaluate and prioritize public investments and development projects

  • adoption of the 20/20 Regional Transit Vision Plan as basis for “focused growth” regional planning

Please add your organization to the list* of those that endorse Citizens' Vision and engage with Sustainable Pittsburgh as it takes both Citizens' Vision and Back To Prosperity around the region.

 Click to access Citizens' Vision.

 *Citizens' Vision - Endorsing Partners to date:

3 Rivers Wet Weather Demonstration Program; Affordable Comfort, Inc.; Allegheny County Health Department; Allegheny Land Trust; Allegheny Trail Alliance; Arthur Lubetz Associates Architects; Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management; Bethlehem Haven; Big Beaver Borough; Bike Pittsburgh, Inc; Burt Hill Kosar Rittelmann Associates; celento henn Architects + Designers; Central Northside Neighborhood Council; Chambers Design Associates; Chaney Associates; Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future; Community Design Center of Pittsburgh; Cool Space Locator; Cowanshannock Creek Watershed Association; Crooked Creek Watershed Association; CrossRoads Contracting Corporation; The Design Alliance Architects; Duquesne University Center for Environmental Research and Education; East Liberty Concerned Citizens Corporation; Ebony Development LLC; Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh; Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank; Ground Zero Action Network; Group Against Smog and Pollution (GASP); Hanson Design Group, Ltd; Harmony Trails Council; Hazelwood Initiative; The Heinz Endowments; Hollow Oak Land Trust ; Holistic Living ; INNITT ; Jampole Communications, Inc. ; Jaxon Development Company ; King Communications; Kolano Design; Lake Erie-Allegheny Earth Force; League of Women Voters Greater Pittsburgh; The Main Stay Bed and Breakfast; The Main Street Center - Beaver County; Manchester Citizens Corporation; Mon Valley Initiative; Mooncrest Neighborhood Association; Mt. Lebanon Nature Conservancy; National Aviary; The Nicassio Group; Northside Leadership Conference; Oakland Planning and Development Corporation; Pashek Associates; PA Cleanways; PA Resources Council, Inc.; Perfect Pitch Productions; Perfido Weiskopf Architects; Personalized PC Solutions, LLC; Pfaffmann + Associates; Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation; Pittsburgh Interfaith Impact Network; Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy; Pittsburgh Urban Magnet Project; Pittsburgh Voyager; Preservation Pittsburgh; Ron Gargasz Organic Farms; Rothschild Doyno Architects; SW PA Ozone Action Partnership, Inc.; Strada Architecture; Sustainable Communities, LLC; Sustainable Pittsburgh; Try Again Homes, Inc.; West-to-West Coalition, Inc. - 21 Mon Valley Communities; Western Pennsylvania Conservancy; Western Pennsylvania Watershed Program; Wilderness Voyageurs; Wilkinsburg Municipal Authority; The Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh; Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh