Mayor Bill Peduto in his office in December 2021, just weeks before his term ends. (Photo by Nick Childers/PublicSource)
Pittsburgh’s outgoing mayor won the office in 2013 as a progressive leader, but he lost reelection in 2021 as progressive groups backed challenger Ed Gainey, saying Peduto too often fell short of creating an equitable city.
by Charlie Wolfson, PublicSource
Shortly before he was sworn in as Pittsburgh’s mayor in 2014, Bill Peduto took two trips to Washington to meet with Obama administration officials, including a meeting with the president and vice president themselves. As Peduto’s former chief of staff Kevin Acklin recalled, Peduto told White House officials, “We want to be your laboratory. If there are ideas you want to try out as a federal government, come to Pittsburgh.”
The message reflected Peduto’s background as a policy enthusiast and his penchant for trying to tackle the biggest problems with cutting-edge technology, new commissions and offices, and partnerships with startups and academia.
“What we brought about was not a change in operations; we brought a cultural change to our city,” Peduto said this month, referencing economic development, infrastructure and parks improvements.
In a wide-ranging interview at the end of his term, he discussed the MetroLab partnership with Carnegie Mellon University, his hire of a reforming police chief and the city’s Affordable Housing Task Force as examples of his administration leveraging the city’s institutions and taking new approaches to old problems. But many critics say Peduto’s scientific approach to governing too often fell short of achieving tangible results for city residents.
Bill is a really good idea guy,” said former Pittsburgh City Council President Doug Shields, who served on council with Peduto from 2004 to 2012. “But he was not a good execution guy.”
Tension between the mayor and those who felt that his progressive statements did not bear out in policy came to a boil in 2020 when activists were angered by the mayor’s response to racial justice protests in the city. Racial equity became the defining issue of the 2021 mayoral campaign. Peduto opponents pointed to studies that show worse outcomes for people of color in Pittsburgh to call for a change at the top. In the end, Peduto lost his bid for a third term, falling in the primary to state Rep. Ed Gainey.
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