The Blurgh

I haven’t mentioned anything so far about the mayoral race that’s been going on, but that’s mostly because no one in their right mind is planning on voting against the incumbent, Mayor Conway. Since her victory 8 years ago, the amount of stuff she’s gotten done makes it hard to believe that she’s slept. She was the real driver of the initiative to get the city’s books back in order, she cracked down on improprieties stemming from Pittsburgh’s casino and riverboat gambling operations, she worked with the former SSP members on the council to pass the Family First and Foremost policy (which went WAY beyond the federal Family Medical Leave Act), she pushed for city-run child care centers to provide support for families who couldn’t afford private child care…the list really goes on and on.

Her biggest success, however, has been what she’s done to “green” the city. Pittsburgh has been known as a haven for green building for a long time, but most of that has been focused on large new commercial buildings. It was Mayor Conway’s idea to partner with Duquesne Light and other energy providers to provide incentives for people to remodel their houses for both efficiency and renewable energy. And, believe it or not, Pittsburgh neighborhoods were perfect for it. The plethora of row houses made it easy to install large arrays of solar cells, the many hills became perfect platforms for small, efficient wind turbines. But above all, the people loved it. It also didn’t hurt that most of the breakthroughs in renewable energy products were coming from local firms spun off from local universities.

Dr. Lemley likes to compare the emergence of renewable energy as a big industry to what the steel industry used to be like for Pittsburgh. It encompassed everything–it permeated the air, and you could taste it in the water, and it was people’s livelihoods. Now, you can’t walk down a street without seeing a solar array on a roof or a advertisement for new green products. Unlike steel, however, it’s permeating people’s lives in a much more healthy way. I’m just glad that Mayor Conway had the foresight to see the impact it could make, although she has admitted several times that she’s surprised at how important to the city’s prosperity it has become.