Bob Donaldson, Post-Gazette Mayor Luke Ravenstahl. Click photo for larger image. Listen to Mr. Ravenstahl talk about: The Economy The Fire bureau Transforming government Education The city budget Downtown
	Annie O'Neill, Post-Gazette Pittsburgh City Councilman William Peduto Click photo for larger image. Listen to Mr. Peduto talk about: The Economy The Fire bureau Transforming government Education The city budget Downtown

With two young candidates running in a one-party town that usually re-elects mayors, voters in the May 15 Democratic primary could be picking Pittsburgh's leader for a decade.

The process hits a milestone today, when the Democratic Committee endorses either Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, 27, or Councilman William Peduto, 42.

The winner of the general election will serve out the term the late Bob O'Connor won in 2005, and face the voters again in 2009. In a city that hasn't driven a mayor from office since 1936, that person could be mulling whether to run again in 2013 and 2017.

Though the city is constrained by budgetary limits and state oversight, some argue that in the next decade the mayor will be as important as ever.

"The presence of all of those constraints makes the role of the mayor more important," said Mark Fatla, executive director of the Northside Leadership Conference and a citywide development veteran. "He's the only one who has the single voice that can cut through the clutter."

The two candidates differ in their visions of the future, and in their approaches to getting there. The mayor is cautious, emphasizing the need for cooperation and negotiation. The councilman seems ready to hurtle headlong into a changing world.

Downtown dreaming

"I really believe that Downtown is going to be a significantly different place 10 years from now than it is now," the mayor said. "It's going to be a vibrant area that has activity at all hours of the day, not just between 9 and 5."

He'd get there by stoking the already-hot housing market. He's proposed a 10-year tax break for new housing Downtown and in 21 struggling neighborhoods, but not in areas immediately surrounding Downtown, like the Hill District and North Shore, nor for stores or offices.

Mr. Peduto's Downtown wouldn't be a triangle anymore. His tax break plan would cover housing and commercial construction throughout "what I call the Golden Quadrangle."

The area would be united by more pedestrian connections between Downtown, the South Side, North Shore and Strip District, plus a bus loop to take Port Authority vehicles out of the congested center of town.

Getting around
In Mr. Peduto's crystal ball, a private-public partnership turns an old CSX Corp. rail line into a public transit system linking Hazelwood, Oakland, Bloomfield, Lawrenceville and the Strip District. He'd "use this old economy corridor to create the new corridor of growth."

Mr. Ravenstahl said he'd have a Downtown-to-Oakland link started by 2017 but wouldn't dictate the route or method.

"I have some ideas," the mayor said, but he would defer to experts and affected neighborhoods. "The Hill District, for example: If it would go through the Hill District, [there] would be a tremendous opportunity to redevelop that community."

Or a transit route might run up Second Avenue, he said.

He's not taking a my-way-or-the-highway stance on the Mon-Fayette Expressway, either. The unfunded northern section of that road would sweep through Swisshelm Park and Hazelwood and into South Oakland.

"If the Mon-Fayette does get the funding, and for example, the design is not up to standards," he said, "I will oppose that."

Mr. Peduto opposes the road outright.

Healthy, wealthy and green
"We have one foot still firmly planted in the industrial era. Our other foot is in the global economy," said Court Gould, director of the development group Sustainable Pittsburgh. "The next mayor is going to have a say in whether we have a place in the global economy, or fall back."

For a peek at the economy Mr. Ravenstahl envisions, watch the Bridgeside Point II project in South Oakland. That's a planned $46 million biotechnology lab and office building, supported by $19 million in taxpayer-funded parking and road improvements that the mayor hopes will also spur other biotech buildings.

"Providing space, wet lab space and office space, for that type of growth is government's role," Mr. Ravenstahl said.

In Mr. Peduto's Pittsburgh, the buildings themselves might be alive.

"Pittsburgh has the opportunity to become the first city in the world to create a living building, one that is able to use rainwater and sunlight in order to produce energy, and that sustains itself," he said.

Already in the forefront of making environmentally friendly buildings, the city can become a center for the manufacture of "green" construction materials and technologies, he said.

The councilman's economic strategy, though, is focused less on structures than on forging a future workforce, from elementary school to adult education. The city "needs to be one that provides the opportunity for both the Ph.D. and the G.E.D. to have access to the more than 10,000 new jobs that will be created over this next decade," he said.

The centerpiece of Mr. Ravenstahl's educational vision is The Pittsburgh Promise, an as-yet-unfunded plan to provide college scholarships to all graduates of Pittsburgh public schools.

Mayor or not
"We've got a city-county merger looming in the offing," said Mr. Gould. The next mayor may have to deal with pressure to negotiate his job away.

Mr. Ravenstahl would travel along two tracks, selling city services such as trash collection to neighboring municipalities while shifting some functions, such as purchasing, to Allegheny County.

The mayor wouldn't rule out more sweeping change in how the city is run. "I will ensure, and demand, that whatever model of government that we choose to pursue in this city and this county ensures that the citizens of Pittsburgh will always have a voice," he said.

Mr. Peduto said he'd gladly fold the city into a larger government, if it was part of a melding of all of the county's 130 municipalities.

"I don't know if I can make that happen," the councilman said. "But I know that I can do this: I can create a government in the city of Pittsburgh that focuses in on public safety and public works, so that people can see that there's a police officer on their streets and that the potholes are being fixed."

He'd try to pass other functions, from paying pensions to collecting taxes, to the county or state.

S.O.S. to the state
City leaders have long wanted the state to take over city workers' pensions and health insurance, and help alleviate the $840 million debt. The question is how to persuade the state to help.

"There are 53 other cities with a similar problem," said Mr. Peduto. "Pittsburgh needs a mayor who is a leader, who can bring the other mayors of the state together in order to create the new urban agenda."

If that involves mayors picketing Harrisburg, it wouldn't fit Mr. Ravenstahl's approach.

He'd also hope to be part of a multi-city push for help, but only if it's "in a cooperative spirit.

"I'm not going to throw stones. It's not the city versus the state," he said. "We will not be successful that way. We've seen that in the past. It doesn't work."

Mayors of yore didn't need to plead with the state. Now the mayor can't spend money without the approval of two state oversight groups.

So does the mayor matter?

"The role of the mayor is still paramount," said Mr. Fatla. "What the mayor has that nobody else has, is that individual personifies the vision and direction of the city, for good or ill."