Editorial: Gainey's 'Downtown is doing well' assessment ignores realism of Pittsburgh's bigger picture

Everything is just fine in Downtown Pittsburgh.

That’s what Mayor Ed Gainey said Tuesday in a forum at Point Park University.

“Our Downtown is doing well,” he said.

It is the kind of stiff-upper-lip optimism that may give some confidence. When the Tribune-Review asked people, their opinions were mixed.

“The media does a real good job of reporting all the bad stuff and none of the good,” said Barb Myers of Peters Township, who said she didn’t feel particularly unsafe.

We can take the hit for our part in the perception. We do cover the shootings, assaults and murders when they occur. (We also cover the good things, for the record.)

We can agree with Hector Tirado of Lancaster, who said the people were nice when he was in town with his wife for a conference. Pittsburgh has some great people.

But Quay Jones wasn’t visiting or from a nearby municipality. She works on Forbes Avenue, and she doesn’t agree with the mayor.

“I do not feel safe down here,” she said.

Specifically, she thinks people see one Pittsburgh during the day and a different one at night.

That’s something Gainey missed when he spoke, pointing to events like the Fourth of July and Picklesburgh as proof that people love coming to Pittsburgh. Of course, they love it. Pittsburgh is a great place to come for a big event like the Taylor Swift concert or a Steelers game or a festival.

But the people who turn up for those well-publicized, well-covered, well-prepared-for events don’t say that everything is fine every day. They say that everything is fine when the city has a spotlight and time to get ready.

Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, speaking at the same event, was less cheerleader and more the sage coach talking about the whole season instead of one game.

“It really is going to take all of us working together … to make sure people feel good about Downtown Pittsburgh,” he said.

This is the realism that can’t be ignored just to pump up morale.

Pittsburgh is a great city. Allegheny County is a great place. But there are more than just bridges and sports teams and fun to consider.

The city, its surrounding municipalities, the county and Southwestern Pennsylvania as a region have a tangled knot of overlapping problems. There is poverty and homelessness. There are housing prices and a lot of empty Downtown real estate. There are drugs, job challenges and inflation. All of those affect crime.

And just saying things are fine ignores that things could be a whole lot better.