Women, Political Stagnancy, and Civic Engagement in Pittsburgh

Introduction and Targeted Organization

This proposal for a program implementation is targeted at the Pennsylvania Center for Women, Politics, and Public Policy. The goal of the program is to investigate underlying attitudes among adult female citizens toward political stagnancy in Pittsburgh. It will seek to determine whether these citizens perceive the political situation as stagnant, whether they feel resistant to change, whether they believe Pittsburgh is outperforming comparably positioned cities, and whether they feel capable of making meaningful political changes at the city and county level. The goal of the project is to help the Pennsylvania Center for Women, Politics, and Public Policy understand how to motivate greater female participation in the local political process in order to implement positive, female-oriented policy changes.

The organization for whom this report has been prepared is the Pennsylvania Center for Women, Politics, and Public Policy. The goal of the Center is to affect public policy in order to improve the status and impact of women in Pennsylvania, particularly western Pennsylvania. The attention of this organization has been sought because of its interactions with female voters. While female voters in Pittsburgh appear responsive to national and statewide concerns, they have not responded to local-level issues with broad changes in local leadership structures.

Gender Differences in Voters

A women-oriented organization has been targeted in part because men and women are believed to respond differently to political scenarios. "The gender gap — the difference between how men and women vote — represents on average a seven-point gulf between the sexes during presidential elections" (Copeland, 2012). What is interesting is that the gender gap in voters does not appear to be the result of women's willingness to shift political positions, but rather their willingness to adhere to their own personal convictions. "The women's movement reinforced the growing sense that women's political interests could and should be different than those of their husbands and fathers" (Copeland, 2012). Therefore, women seem willing to vote in their own interests, at least at the state and federal level. However, women in the Pittsburgh area, like men, appear to discuss their frustration with the current political scenario, yet stop short of engaging in meaningful change — instead re-electing the same officials who seem unwilling to move Pittsburgh forward.

Problem and Need: Pittsburgh's Political Stagnancy

The primary reason for this study is that Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is characterized by considerable dormancy in the political process. This political complacency has led Pittsburgh to miss out on opportunities that a more aggressively forward-seeking government would have seized. Furthermore, the stagnancy dominates both city and county levels of local government. The result is that Pittsburgh continues to fall behind other cities of comparable size — a lag visible in both its educational and economic opportunities. Despite being well-suited for a positive economic environment, Pittsburgh has lost economic viability at an alarming rate, which raises the question of whether the Steel City is poised to compete with the Motor City for obsolescence.

Political stagnancy seems to be a way of life for much of American government, and many people associate a conservative ideological viewpoint with a preference for such stagnancy. However, when one looks at campaign promises — though rarely fulfilled — one sees that candidates' calls for change speak to the fact that many Americans are deeply dissatisfied with the current state of American politics. It would be erroneous to assume that politicians are intentionally misleading voters; instead, many of them seem to genuinely support the idea of significant, systemic change, yet once in office find that meaningful reform is very difficult because of how governmental systems operate. In many ways, thorough change would require either an overhaul of the entire political system or the wholesale replacement of those currently in office.

The problems of stagnancy seem to be magnified as one moves from local government toward national government. At the federal level, it can be difficult for any political party to push through meaningful change, even when that change has broad public support, because of entrenched political systems. One need only consider that abortion has been a critical political issue for more than forty years to see that the political system is stagnant. This stagnancy is not simply about policy positions; whether someone is pro-life or pro-choice, there is reason to be frustrated that the issue has consumed so much political currency and attention for two generations without resolution.

In many locations, while state and federal governments remain somewhat unresponsive to citizens' concerns, local governments have been able to engage in major social change. Cities with dynamic local governments that respond to the needs of their citizens include New York, San Francisco, and even Houston. All three have experienced sustained economic growth, weathered the recession better than their counterparts, and maintained educational standards higher than what one would predict based on their states' overall socioeconomic performance.

Why is stagnancy so dangerous at the local level when it does not appear to cripple the federal government? The reality is that many citizens are far more directly affected by local government decisions than by federal or state decisions. For example, both San Francisco and Detroit were relatively successful in the 1980s, but San Francisco has boomed while Detroit has become a ghost town. Much of this divergence is attributable to the policies that state and local governments adopted toward innovation. Looking across the United States at the disparity between regions, it becomes clear that some areas have seized hold of technological and economic change and found themselves thriving even as the rest of the country struggles. These differences do not appear to stem from inherent geographic advantages. Silicon Valley, for instance, could just as easily have developed in an area like Detroit; the industry is not dependent on shipping or other geographic factors, and San Francisco is not inherently better positioned for the technology sector than Detroit.

Pittsburgh's Three-Part Stagnancy and Economic Indicators

One of the harbingers of stagnancy actually appears to be a history of greatness. When a city has built its success on one or two industries that subsequently decline, local government leaders often seem determined to hold on to those industries rather than exploring new directions. Pittsburgh is one such city. There is no question that Pittsburgh was once an indispensable city for the United States — it was the center of the American steel industry. However, steel no longer plays a pivotal role in the American economy. While this shift was inevitably going to impact Pittsburgh's economy, it did not have to produce an area-wide depression — which is nonetheless what occurred. Even more alarming is the fact that, when community leaders suggested constructive changes, city and county government officials failed to implement them, and citizens did not seem troubled by this complacency. Another indicator of stagnation is that Pittsburgh's political arena has been rife with corruption, yet its citizens have appeared unwilling to challenge that situation. This project seeks to determine the underlying causes of this civic ennui by focusing on how female citizens respond to stagnation in the political process.

Any observer can see that city and county level governments are very reluctant to change. However, understanding that the city is stagnant is not the same as understanding why it is stagnant. Encouraging political action is impossible without understanding why the people of Pittsburgh have been so reluctant to vote for political change. Therefore, this proposal involves implementing a study that would examine why the citizens of Pittsburgh exhibit the same type of complacency as their elected officials — and reject change even when that change would benefit the community. The study will focus on female citizens because the female vote has proven so critical in recent elections.

The following employment data illustrates the depth of Pittsburgh's economic stagnation. Examining the period between December 2010 and May 2011, the changes in key economic indicators were as follows: non-farm employment changed by +0.8%, construction by −2.3%, manufacturing by +2.9%, government by −2.6%, education and health services by +1.3%, information by −0.5%, and professional and business services by +1.5% (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011). During this same period, the Consumer Price Index for the area rose by 1.6%. The stagnancy in employment growth while prices increase illustrates one of the core problems with civic complacency: it renders the city unable to keep pace with change.

References

Cochrane, R. (2009, December 10). Pittsburgh levies "education privilege tax" to pay off public employee pension debt. Retrieved March 1, 2012, from Hypocrisy Reigns Supreme website: http://hypocrisy.com/2009/12/10/pittsburgh-levies-education-privilege-tax-to-pay-off-public-employee-pension-debt/

Copeland, L. (2012, January 4). Why do women vote differently than men? Retrieved March 1, 2012, from Slate website: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/01/the_gender_gap_in_politics_why_do_women_vote_differently_than_men_.html

Renn, A. (2009, September 24). Pittsburgh renaissance? Retrieved March 1, 2012, from New Geography website: http://www.newgeography.com/content/001060-pittsburgh-renaissance

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2011). Economy at a glance: Pittsburgh, PA. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.pa_pittsburgh_msa.htm