"Just when I thought I was out -- they pull me back in."
-- Michael Corleone in "The Godfather III."

The Pittsburgh area may not have many working smokestacks anymore, but we still managed to snag the top spot on the American Lung Association's list of sootiest U.S. cities.

This is one hometown advantage that will probably kill us.

Pittsburgh narrowly edged out the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside area to take top honors as the home of the most airborne ash, metals, diesel exhaust, chemicals and aerosols in America.

Pittsburgh hasn't become more polluted, they'll argue. Southern California simply deserves a lot of credit for dramatically improving its air quality. They've gotten better, but at our expense in the national standings.

Fine, but what does it say about particle levels in the air here if we've replaced the Los Angeles basin as the sootiest region in the country?

Detroit and Baltimore are Nos. 8 and 9, respectively, on the list. Once it sinks in that Cleveland and Houston aren't in the Top 10 list of sootiest cities, you'll get the same nagging tickle in the throat that has bedeviled me for two weeks.

As if sensing potential political blowback for making the list, Allegheny County Health Department spokesman Guillermo Cole was quick to deflect blame upriver to U.S. Steel's Clairton Coke Works.

You could almost hear Mr. Cole moving the beads on his abacus as he explained how the problem is far more localized than the ranking on the list implies.

Metropolitan Pittsburgh has 2.5 million people, with Allegheny County accounting for 1.2 million of the total. That means a mere 25,000 people living in the Liberty-Clairton area are dragging down the region's air quality reputation.

"The fact of the matter is that the ranking only applies accurately to the Liberty-Clairton area, and Pittsburgh, the rest of the county and the surrounding counties have much better air," Mr. Cole said, disputing the real-world significance of the list.

But even with the Liberty-Clairton area taken out of the mix, Pittsburgh would still rank 16th out of 222 ranked cities, according to the American Lung Association.

At least this isn't something that can be seriously laid at the feet of Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's embattled administration.

Still, no mayor wants to see headlines decrying Pittsburgh's loss of good air quality during his or her watch.

In Pittsburgh's case, I understand we're already considering a series of aggressive public service spots pointing out the environmental benefits of living here.

Two mottoes in particular are effective: "Come to Pittsburgh. Our Air Doesn't Stink" and "If You're Visiting Pittsburgh and You Start Coughing, It's Clairton's Fault."

With Urban Redevelopment Authority Executive Director Pat Ford indisposed pending the outcome of a State Ethics Commission review, it's hard to know who to blame for the bollixing that resulted in unused office space on the sixth floor of the City-County Building.

The plan, as proposed by Mr. Ford and Mr. Ravenstahl, was that the city's planning and development functions would be centralized under one roof.

The bureaucratic plotting to make it happen seems to have been thwarted. But the furniture to support an intended result of the reshuffle has shown up -- at a cool $15,375, including another $1,950 for installation. Ironically, the money to pay for it has come out of federal dollars originally intended for distressed neighborhoods.

For now, the six orphaned workstations -- once designated for the Planning Department employees who merely handle federal moolah -- sit in an air-conditioned room that is the distressed neighborhood known as Grant Street.

Of course, this wouldn't be a cautionary tale about the futility of reform in modern Pittsburgh if the intended recipients of the furniture weren't toiling away in another building on Ross Street.

No move has been scheduled and no one believes the redevelopment offices will follow through with plans to consolidate.

Mr. Ravenstahl told Post-Gazette staff writer Rich Lord that the original plans for consolidation were "more dead than alive."

Meanwhile, attracted by the smell of freshly constructed furniture in an air-conditioned space, other bureaucracies have begun to circle. Because government abhors a vacuum, expect butts we can't even imagine now to fill those chairs in the near future.

People often accuse me of seeing metaphors where there really aren't any. I plead guilty to that tendency, I suppose.

Still, this story jumped out at me because it is indicative of the governing mind-set in this town. Who goes to the trouble of ordering furniture and securing a large work space without working out the logistics of making the merger happen? There's a metaphor here and we can all smell it.

It's enough to make a taxpayer double over with coughing fits.