Local Government for a New Era

For most of recent Western Pennsylvania history, local government has been expected to keep the streets clean, patch the potholes, and stay out of the way. The big ideas came from other places, whether Washington, Harrisburg, or the private market. The money came from the federal and state governments. Local leaders were meant to simply try to keep up, not invent.

That model is broken, and the cracks are widening.

Federal investment is rapidly shrinking in real terms. State governments are stressed and reactive, burdened by legacy systems and politically paralyzed. The problems that affect people most directly — housing, transit, aging infrastructure, emergency response, climate resilience — are falling to the level of government least equipped to deal with them.

That does not mean we are stuck. It means we need to stop waiting and start building.

We need to reimagine what local and regional government can be. Not as passive administrators, but as the architects of a new civic foundation. Not as isolated counties, boroughs, and townships, but as a network of communities capable of collective action, shared investment, and real innovation.

The good news is that we already have the tools. What we need now is the will.

We can build modern public safety systems that reflect regional needs through shared staffing, combined training, and strategic investment in volunteer and paid response. We can design utility and infrastructure systems that prioritize resilience over fragmentation. Stormwater, energy, broadband, and mobility should be planned together, not in silos.

We can create governance models that tear down the artificial walls between school districts, counties, transit agencies, and local governments. We can refocus all of them on outcomes, not turf.

And above all, we can remind each other that local government is not a fixed inheritance. It is a living system. If it is not working for us, we can change it.

This region is full of smart, committed, public-minded people. But too often, we are working in parallel instead of working in concert. There is no structural mechanism that tells a mayor in the South Hills, a county planner, and a nonprofit housing leader that they need to align. So most of the time, they do not.

That lack of alignment is not just inefficient. It is costing us our future.

This is not about politics or ideology. It is about the capacity to govern and deliver services effectively in the twenty-first century. And right now, that capacity is spread thin, under-coordinated, and badly in need of reengineering.

We do not need to wait for Washington to fix it. We do not even need Harrisburg’s permission. We need local leaders who are ready to act together.

I have seen what is possible when we build for the future. In Mt. Lebanon, we created new structures like the Mobility Board and the Resiliency Advisory Board that bring together volunteers, staff, and experts to help shape long-term planning, not just react to short-term problems. We have taken on financial management responsibilities for multiple municipalities, delivering better oversight and coordination while reducing overhead. That kind of cooperation does not just save money, it builds real capacity. I have also seen what happens when we do not act, when we ask one department, one agency, or one municipality to take on something that is clearly regional in nature and set them up to fail.

This is not a crisis of competence. It is a crisis of coordination.

Western Pennsylvania does not need more good people working in their silos. We need more leaders who are willing to name the structural flaws, to design new models, and to build coalitions across government, geography, and mission.

That includes the people we vote for.

We need elected officials who are not just interested in fighting the other party. We need people who understand how public systems actually work. People who are prepared to navigate complexity, respect the long view, and get to work. People who believe that government should be worthy of the people it serves.

Because if we do not redesign our civic systems, they will fail on their own. And the cost will be borne by working families, aging residents, small businesses, and the next generation.

This is our region. We live here. We serve here. And we have the tools to do something extraordinary if we choose to act like a region, and not just a collection of zip codes.