Pittsburgh's comprehensive plan: Phase 1 explainer
The comprehensive plan went through four phases and is currently in the fifth
By Christopher Flowers
Pittsburgh is working on a plan for the next quarter-century, one it hopes will revitalize neighborhoods and increase business opportunities. In this multi-part series, we’ll look at Pittsburgh’s comprehensive plan and explain 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.)
This week, we will be looking at phase 1, Research.
The Pittsburgh 2050 website is the “engagement hub for Pittsburgh’s comprehensive plan.” A comprehensive plan helps municipalities strategize how they want to develop over a set number of years; in Pittsburgh’s case, it’s 25. Their website — well worth going out of your way to fully explore — says that a “comprehensive plan expresses a holistic, community-wide vision of the city’s future,” one that helps “guide 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.”
Planning Director Ivette Mongalo-Winston told Pittsburgh’s Public Source that the plan “will address more than what the state mandates, which has, in turn, made the process more expensive.” Pittsburgh allocated $6 million, and the Heinz Endowments donated $750,000. The current comprehensive plan draft includes maps visualizing “preferred development based on overall land use, the economy, housing, mobility and green infrastructure,” and the article linked above has a great explainer on those.
The comprehensive plan went through four phases and is currently in the fifth:
Research
Synthesis
Shared vision
Scenario planning
Plans development
Phase 1 began in October 2024 and ended the following January. The Pittsburgh 2050 website shows a list of 20 topic areas that “capture conditions and trends in Pittsburgh and help frame how the city has changed over time, where it stands today, and where trends suggest it is heading.” The research is informed by “reviews of past plans, original research and analysis, and input from the Department of City Planning and its various partners.”
The 20 topic areas for the Research phase of Pittsburgh’s comprehensive plan are Arts & Culture, Climate Action, Digital Equity & Urban Tech, Economic Opportunity, Energy, Environmental Justice, Food, Historic Preservation, Housing, Land Use & Zoning, Mobility, Neighborhoods, Parks & Open Space, Planning & Civic Engagement, Population, Public Health & Safety, Real Estate & Vacancy, Stormwater Management, Urban Design, and Waste.
When you go to the Pittsburgh 2050 homepage, each of the five phases are presented as buttons in front of you. If you click phase 1, Research, you will find 20 reports written about each topic area. You can click and read each individual report, or stay here for the 20 summaries that I wrote:
Arts & Culture
The comprehensive plan will “uplift the cultural assets currently in Pittsburgh and will aim to spur further investment to ensure equal access to cultural amenities.” This topic area looks at expanding the “current definition of public art and cultural resources beyond the City’s public art collection to include other cultural assets such as music venues, legacy small businesses and important community gathering spaces.”
Climate Action
This refers to “efforts to reduce the City’s greenhouse gas emissions (climate change mitigation) and to ready Pittsburgh for current and projected climate hazard impacts (climate adaptation).” This topic area evaluated greenhouse gas emissions and climate hazards to “unearth opportunities for Pittsburgh to take concrete steps toward meeting its emissions targets, and make sure those most impacted by fossil fuel consumption or climate hazards have access to the resources needed to build community resilience.”
Digital Equity & Urban Tech
Foundational to the city’s future, the city wants to provide all residents “with access to high-speed internet and the digital skills necessary for meaningful participation in 21st century social, civic, and economic life.” Pittsburgh wants to “reveal opportunities for the city to prioritize future-proof broadband infrastructure, equitable resource distribution, and community resilience.”
Economic Opportunity
The comprehensive plan envisions “an economy for all,” while ensuring employment and industries growth is “inclusive, equitable, and sustainable.” The Research topic acknowledges “Pittsburgh’s exclusionary past, where many communities were left behind” and will “prioritize strategies that actively dismantle those barriers.”
Energy
Use patterns and physical energy infrastructure can “reveal opportunities to enhance accessibility to clean and reliable energy, and energy efficiency measures aligned with the 2021 City Energy Strategy.”
Environmental Justice
Defined as a right for everyone “regardless of race, color, national origin, or income … to the same environmental protections and benefits, as well as meaningful involvement in the policies that shape their communities.” This topic area assesses “environmental threats and disparities, in order to reveal opportunities for environmental policies that address the root causes of environmental inequality and build opportunities for disproportionately impacted communities to build community wealth.”
Food
There are seven factors that make up the food system in Pittsburgh — growers, processors, distributors, retailers, community resources, cooking & eating, and food waste. The comprehensive plan “will evaluate the current state of food policy in the city to reveal opportunities for addressing the root causes of food insecurity in the city.”
Historic Preservation
Pittsburgh has over 13,500 historic properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places or designated such by the city. There are eight historic districts, both locally and nationally designated. The comprehensive plan will identify cultural assets “across scales and assess City policies, planning, and programs that can help protect cultural heritage across Departments,” and explore opportunities “for how the City can play a role in preserving cultural assets and intangible cultural heritage.”
Housing
Pittsburgh is Appalachia’s largest city with 90 neighborhoods that have been planned, built and formed by the mountainous culture and past policies. The comprehensive plan “will guide Pittsburgh’s approach to growth and development in a way that increases community wealth, mitigates displacement, and meets housing needs for current and future residents.”
Land Use & Zoning
Past land use policies and practices, the report said, “have contributed to segregation and exclusion, and especially harmed Black, low- income, and immigrant communities.” Recent zoning amendments “have worked to combat these issues — focusing on increasing mixed use zoning, advancing greater housing choice and flexibility.” The comprehensive plan will not directly change the zoning, but will allow for future overhauls.
Mobility
Pittsburgh’s transportation infrastructure was built for a city of nearly 700,000 “but now faces tax base support of just over 300,000 people. Aging roads, bridges, walls, and public steps are under significant strain.” The plan will help position Pittsburgh “as a leader in equitable, climate-responsive urban mobility.”
Neighborhoods
“Each of the city’s 90 neighborhoods has a distinct identity defined by topography, use, economic conditions, and the people who have lived there before and live there today,” the Research report says, adding that 85% of neighborhoods are not well-connected due to the city’s topography and annexation history. “This contributes to the sense that the city is made up of pockets of neighborhoods set into the landscape. Pittsburghers are rightfully proud of their neighborhoods and can be wary of change,” noting neighborhoods experience these changes in different ways. “A more pervasive issue is the lack of investment and change that contributes to vacancy and poor housing conditions, which are a different kind of displacement risk.”
Parks & Open Space
This section provides “a framework to guide the City’s current and future parks and open spaces,” which include the city’s parks, greenways, cemeteries, hillsides, woods, trails, city steps, and other outdoor public spaces. “This topic area will evaluate the current state of parks and open space in the city in order to reveal opportunities for prioritizing a future park network as an essential local resource for Pittsburghers and a regional destination for visitors.”
Planning & Civic Engagement
The Department of City Planning is organized into five divisions, and work with a number of commissions, boards, advisory panels, and Registered Community Organizations on planning and development reviews. Historically, “planning has had mixed impacts; guiding growth in the city, but also harming communities — particularly Black and low-income communities,” noting that “in past planning eras, power has been highly concentrated and uneven.”
Population
Pittsburgh, founded in 1758 at the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers, is the second largest city in the state. “The city of Pittsburgh evolved rapidly with the rise of the steel industry in the late 19th century, leading to dense, working-class neighborhoods,” but after World War II, “the city faced significant challenges, including population decline and economic shifts.”
Public Health & Safety
The city’s Plan for Peace is a “public-health, trauma-informed approach to violence prevention,” one that aligns “more with how neighborhoods describe their public health and safety needs and the strategies they identify in Neighborhood Plans.” Reported crime incidents are down 41% since 2012. This report in the Research phase focused how residents “define public health and safety, and what the most critical issues are.”
Real Estate & Vacancy
There are in the neighborhood of 37,000 vacant properties in Pittsburgh, and the city owns about 12,000. “Historically, the high concentrations of vacant and abandoned properties, including brownfields, in Pittsburgh was a consequence of the significant decline in population due to deindustrialization.” The comprehensive plan “will guide the programs and policies in Pittsburgh for the development of vacant land, vacant structures, and long-term and interim uses that reduce blight and promote safety and security for all residents.”
Stormwater Management
Within the last four years, “Pittsburgh has seen more rainfall than ever, triggering flooding and unprecedented landslide events,” and over the next three decades, “at least 19,337 properties in Pittsburgh are at risk of severe damage and destruction due to flooding.” This is around 2% of all properties in the city. “Homes that survive this flooding will be at risk for mold growth, high repair costs, and additional damage. In addition to physical damage, flood waters carry debris, high levels of pollutants, and bacteria due to combined sewer systems.” The comprehensive plan will “provide a review and analysis of blue/green infrastructure opportunities for stormwater management across the City of Pittsburgh with a focus on utilizing the City’s parks, open spaces, and public realm assets.”
Urban Design
In recent years, “Pittsburgh has shifted toward a more inclusive approach, focusing on community engagement and sustainable development, reflecting lessons learned from the past while revitalizing the city’s unique character.” The comprehensive plan will focus on “the built form and urban character of Pittsburgh” addressing “current issues and future problems related to neighborhood fabric disruption, climate vulnerabilities, and infrastructure barriers.”
Waste
This report focused on “current waste generation volume and composition trends, including recycling, composting, and illegal dumping,” assessing the current network of waste infrastructure and collection routes, mapping waste policies and “emerging trends,” and evaluating “the role of private haulers and the codes and regulations that impact their operation.” The comprehensive plan will “emphasize environmental justice and community health,” evaluate waste streams and “identify opportunities to minimize waste generation and enhance reuse, recycling, and composting opportunities that decrease dependency on landfills and lessen environmental impacts.”
. . .
That is a look at the Research 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 2, Synthesis.