Pittsburgh's comprehensive plan: Phase 4 explainer
The comprehensive plan went through four phases and is currently in the fifth
By Christopher Flowers
We are up to phase 4 of Pittsburgh’s comprehensive plan, Scenario planning.
Pittsburgh’s comprehensive plan sets goals for the next 25 years — ones the city hopes will revitalize neighborhoods and increase business opportunities. In this multi-part series, we examine and understand how a list of 20 core topics were synthesized into five plan pillars, a shared vision of a scenario for planned development. (Those are the terms they use; it’ll make sense as you read through.)
The comprehensive plan went through four phases and is currently in the fifth:
Research (Phase 1 explainer)
Synthesis (Phase 2 explainer)
Shared vision (Phase 3 explainer)
Scenario planning
Plans development
Pittsburgh’s online comprehensive plan hub says the goal is to express “a holistic, community-wide vision of the city’s future” that guides “how the city grows and makes improvements by developing goals and policies related to a range of land use, city services, and quality of life topics.”
Scenario planning consider different possibilities for the future, and ran from October 2025 to January 2026. It includes three scenarios, labeled A, B, and C. These have “been informed by all of the comprehensive planning work to date, including the 20+ topic area books, the State of a Just Pittsburgh, and public, community, and working group input,” per the city website. “The scenarios are designed to help us stress test the big ideas and major policy drivers that will shape the direction of Pittsburgh’s growth.”
The city thinks of these scenarios as “recipes” for Pittsburgh’s future. “Each scenario ‘recipe’ uses the same four policy ingredients, but in different amounts,” and the quantity of each “policy ‘ingredient’ used represents the amount of resources dedicated to that policy. Adding more of one policy ‘ingredient’ does not always mean reducing another.”
Those four policy “ingredients” are:
Housing
Job & Business Growth
Mobility Infrastructure
Climate Resilience Infrastructure
These aspects of the Scenario planning phase illustrate “how different land use, infrastructure, environmental, and quality of life policies and actions could be designed across the city to help achieve our shared vision.” The city says there is no way it can predict the future, “but we need to prepare for potential outcomes that could happen and help Pittsburgh achieve its shared vision.”
Scenario A: The Attainable City
More housing, more choices, more neighbors
With this scenario, Pittsburgh “prioritizes population growth, accommodated through more housing and increased density as the primary driver of the city’s economy by creating a diverse mix of attainable housing, supporting anti-displacement efforts, and investing in community resources.”
Here is how those four policy “ingredients” are used in this Scenario planning “recipe”:
Housing: High
Job & Business Growth: Medium
Mobility Infrastructure: Medium
Climate Resilience Infrastructure: Medium
The city sees scenario A being one that anchors growth to new homes across the neighborhoods, “making it possible to welcome new residents, protect affordability, and strengthen everyday neighborhood life.” This scenario shapes Pittsburgh “into a city where population growth fuels vibrant, livable neighborhoods filled with diverse housing, thriving local businesses, and seamless mobility connections.”
The city includes a rationale behind this scenario: “Pittsburgh at its peak had a population of over 600,000 residents. Today we have 308K and people are starting to move back to the city.”
Scenario B: The Prosperous City
More economic diversity & opportunity
For option B, Pittsburgh would prioritize “job and business growth by expanding economic centers while housing and infrastructure follow to connect people to these opportunities.”
Here is how those four policy “ingredients” are used in this Scenario planning “recipe”:
Housing: Medium
Job & Business Growth: High
Mobility Infrastructure: High
Climate Resilience Infrastructure: Medium
Economic opportunity drives growth, “while new housing and infrastructure follow to connect people with those opportunities and strengthen the city’s competitiveness,” per the city website, adding that the city “will position Pittsburgh as a magnet for jobs and businesses by expanding our strongest economic centers and strengthening connections across the city and region.”
The city’s rationale: “Pittsburgh is still the region's largest job center with over 447,00 jobs, but 46% of residents still have to drive to the suburbs for work.”
Scenario C: The Climate-Ready City
More adaptable & resilient
The third scenario prioritizes “expanding and upgrading critical infrastructure to prepare for a more resilient future and repair environmental harms in ways that center equity, health, and sustainability.”
Here is how those four policy “ingredients” are used in this Scenario planning “recipe”:
Housing: Low
Job & Business Growth: Low
Mobility Infrastructure: Low
Climate Resilience Infrastructure: High
Climate change “determines where people and jobs can locate, guiding new investment toward stronger, more adaptable neighborhoods and economies.” By 2050, “at-risk areas transition into parks, green corridors, and compact, walkable districts take shape through mid- to high-rise mixed-use buildings, office-to-residential conversions, and small multifamily housing.”
The rationale for Scenario C: “Pittsburgh’s unique identity is defined hills, valleys and rivers flats, but with accelerating climate change, this landscape is prone to more flooding, landslides and extreme heat, causing costly damage to property and infrastructure.”
A Just Transition
Those three words appear often in Pittsburgh’s proposed comprehensive plan, and the city recognizes “that while Pittsburgh has seen growth and momentum in recent years, not all communities have benefited from that progress.” Pittsburgh’s comprehensive plan and “all three scenarios are rooted in equity, inclusion, and just transition principles.” While each scenario invests more or less certain areas, “they are all grounded in our shared vision for a just Pittsburgh, anchored in affordability, sustainability, and shared prosperity.”
. . .
That is a look at the Scenario planning phase of Pittsburgh’s comprehensive plan. The Pittsburgh 2050 website is worth checking out on its own; the reports aren’t long, and are broken up into readable chunks.
In the next installment, we will look at phase 5, Plans development.