Getting rid of a city government isn't easy, experts say, and the sales job started by Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato Thursday will be tough to pull off.

Proponents must win over the city and county councils, which could vote on an early-stage pact; the state Legislature, which will have to pass a law allowing a referendum; and suburban leaders, who could shape opinions outside the city limits.

The model for the sales pitch may be the 2000 merger of Louisville, Ky., with Jefferson County, which was approved by a solid majority of voters after a million-dollar campaign against a diverse, but underfunded, opposition.

There, proponents used a simple rallying cry, a beloved leader and assurances that suburbs would be untouched to make their case -- and avoided making many specific promises that could be picked apart.

Whether the local effort can muster the same strengths as Louisville's remains to be seen. Lousiville's former mayor now heads Louisville-Jefferson County Metro Government. The mayor is elected at-large by all voters in the county; a legislative council of 26 members is elected by district.

The plan being rolled out here does not specify how the new government would be structured or what the process would entail, but city government -- now comprising 11 elected officials and 3,300 employees -- would be melded into a larger whole.

Mr. Ravenstahl's support made possible the Thursday press conference in Oakland at which he said that the region "can no longer afford the status quo. We must change before we can grow again."

That was the message in a 21-page, full-color recounting of the region's history and a vision statement about its future prepared by a 13-member committee led by University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark Nordenberg, and the same message Mr. Onorato and Mr. Ravenstahl carried to suburban officials yesterday at a Seven Springs conference. But what will it take to convince city residents that folding their government into the county's is in their interests?

"By telling them that the alternative is the status quo -- things are gong to remain as they are," Mr. Ravenstahl said. He said he always hears that the city "is not what it used to be. ... It's time to stop talking about it, and time to start getting to action."

Mr. Nordenberg said selling the idea is a two-part job. "One, present the big picture of the study in ways that leave people feeling that they can play a role in supporting governmental change. The second is to get into the nuts and bolts. People can be provided with the specific information they have a right to receive."

So far the pitch has been all big-picture, with no details on what would happen to city jobs, city workers, who would run the new entity, or even what it would be called.

In Louisville, proponents led by the business community and a bipartisan group of elected leaders, faced an electorate that had turned down consolidation three times since the 1950s. They kept the message simple.

"Our message was this would allow us to speak with one voice," said Chad Carlton, communications director for Louisville Metro Mayor Jerry Abramson, who was the public face of the merger push. "It would give us a more efficient and effective government."

As here, the promise was made that separate municipalities would not be affected, though the city would be combined with territory that was not part of any municipality. There is no such territory here.

In Louisville, opposition emerged including members of their city council, African-American leaders who feared a loss of minority clout, and some labor unions. "The opposition campaign was basically one of fear," said Mr. Carlton.

Here, opposition is already percolating in the councils that may be asked to approve a pact to merge duplicative parts of the city and county governments even if full consolidation doesn't happen.

"In this case, suburbanites get a say over what happens in the city, but the city residents don't have any say over what happens in suburbia," said city Councilman Ricky Burgess, whose northeast Pittsburgh district is mostly African American. "Any system that does not equally treat the distribution of resources, and access to resources, will not be viewed favorably by the people of my communities."

Because existing state law on municipal mergers excludes Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, a new statute would have to be crafted and pass the state Legislature. Three Allegheny County legislators said yesterday that while they still need to learn more about the consolidation process, they might support it if it means reducing the cost of public services.

But Reps. Nick Kotik, D-Robinson, Chelsa Wagner, D-Beechview and Don Walko, D-North Side, said they must consider any financial implications that a merger would have for their constituents.

Any merger plan "should mean a cost savings by eliminating duplication of [city and county] services," Ms. Wagner said. "We should create better efficiency. The goal is to provide cost savings to our political subdivisions. We need to see measurable data that such savings will actually occur."

Mr. Kotik said the residents he's talked to "are asking a hundred questions'' about the effect of a merger.

He said he doesn't think his suburban constituents should have to make a direct payment to bail out the city, but he's also concerned about an "indirect payment," meaning state financial aid to reduce the city's debt.

The principal on the city's debt is $768 million. With interest the payments due through 2024 total $1.12 billion. Its pension fund is $476 million short of full funding, according to figures released Friday. Various city authorities also have debt, topped by around $600 million owed by the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, which officials said is not chained to the city.

The Nordenberg report says that any consolidation must ensure that county residents don't end up paying city debts. Mr. Nordenberg said the state might be called upon to help reduce the debt. Otherwise, the debt would remain the responsibility of city taxpayers.

"You've just created an incentive to leave the city," said City Council President Doug Shields. He wants all 130 municipalities in the county to merge.

A full merger is exactly what many suburban leaders fear, but yesterday's presentations by Mr. Ravenstahl and Mr. Onorato seemed to tamp down those fears.

Pittsburgh can embrace consolidation, suggested Aradhna Dhanda, president and chief executive officer of Leadership Pittsburgh, and a member of the Nordenberg committee. In 2006, a cohort of budding leaders in her program studied consolidation and "took the temperature" of various regional players.

"At the beginning, there were mixed feelings," she said. "In the end, what they said was [the region needs] a clear message, a clear voice. ... There was enough openness, willingness, in the community to embrace this."

In Louisville, there were "25 reasons to be against the merger, and there were really only one or two reasons to be for the merger," said Mr. Carlton. "On the pro side, it was basically to say, 'Trust us.' "

The involvement of Mr. Abramson, a beloved 13-year city mayor who was then out of office due to term limits, was key to building trust, he said.

It's unclear that Mr. Onorato or Mr. Ravenstahl, with less time in office and more foes, could duplicate Mr. Abramson's feat. Their embrace of the merger is already ruffling some feathers in the Democratic Party's apparatus.

"There's not going to be any leadership that is going to care about the city of Pittsburgh, or at least for whom that's the main focus," said city Democratic Committee Chair Barbara Ernsberger. The city would be "the hole in the donut" with no champion.

Louisville leaders overcame such concerns, in part because the city got a tangible benefit -- access to taxes from undeveloped land outside of its borders. That's one key piece missing from the Pittsburgh-Allegheny County proposal, said former Albuquerque Mayor David Rusk, a prominent speaker and consultant who generally favors consolidation.

"I feel badly to be throwing cold water on this proposal," he said, after reading the Nordenberg report and a related study by RAND Corp. "Pittsburgh will get nothing out of that deal."

Louisville suggests otherwise, if only because for cities, seeming bigger can be better.

"Louisville's stock, on a national level, has gone up," said Mr. Carlton. They've also cut around 1,000 government jobs -- just 200 by layoff -- and reduced the vehicle fleet and government office space, he said.

And politically? "The mayor ran for re-election four years after merger and was overwhelmingly re-elected."