Redd Up Crew, meet the Hokey Patrol.

Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl is launching a new initiative today to clean up business districts citywide, using a "neighborhood SWAT team" of city workers to overhaul them in intensive, weeklong visits.

It begins this morning in Brookline, where a group of public works, building inspection, police and Urban Redevelopment Authority officials -- aka, the SWAT team -- will begin removing graffiti, painting street curbs, replacing signs, and working on public safety and small business issues.

The city also will deploy a separate, five-member squad of public works laborers to oversee the areas full time. Like late Mayor Bob O'Connor did when he assigned "redd up" crews to neighborhood cleanups in 2006, Mr. Ravenstahl dipped into old-time Pittsburghese to dub the new squad a "hokey" patrol.

The common definition for hokey is something corny or melodramatic. Mr. Ravenstahl -- a lifelong Pittsburgher like his late predecessor, Mr. O'Connor -- said people react quizzically when he uses the term for street sweepers, but it has a long history in Pittsburgh and older East Coast cities.

It refers to manually cleaning streets with a broom and barrel. And Hoky is a commercial carpet sweeper brand.

The 1950 city government guide "The Pittsburgh Manual" says streets at the time were cleaned "occasionally by shovel crews or 'hokey' patrol." Boston Mayor Thomas Menino deployed "hokey people" to clean dirty streets in 2005, according to the Boston Globe.

Like many older business districts around the city, Brookline's is now more populated with vacant storefronts than with the mom-and-pop shops that once thrived there, said Salvatore Bondi, 56, whose father opened Sal's Barber Shop in 1945.

"There's still a lot that can be done up there" on Brookline Boulevard, Mr. Bondi said. "It can't get any worse -- it would be nice to see it going uphill rather than downhill."

The bulk of the Ravenstahl initiative -- called "Taking Care of Business Districts" -- will be funded by $825,000 from the state, and the program will target 15 state-sanctioned Main Street districts citywide.

The hokey patrol will service those districts and 33 smaller business areas around Pittsburgh.

The administration has been planning the program since early this year and reached out to neighborhood leaders in April for input.

They picked from a menu of possible improvements, which included new streetlights, bike racks, street furniture, banners, welcome signs and information kiosks.

Most of the targeted neighborhoods will receive new garbage and recycling cans, trees, graffiti removal, and road and sidewalk repairs. When the so-called SWAT teams begin work in a district, they will stay for up to a week, addressing business concerns and cleaning the areas.

They also will address a list of neighborhood concerns called into the city's 311 response line.

"Right now, we're doing [the improvements] piecemeal," Mr. Ravenstahl said. "What we're going to do here is target all of our resources into one neighborhood business district for however long it takes to spruce it up."

The districts, he said, "have been neglected to some extent by city government and I felt it was appropriate to really put some tangible, solid resources into the program."

Complaints about -- and nostalgia for -- old-time Pittsburgh business districts are nothing new and commonly come up during mayoral campaigns. Using the spoils of incumbency, former Mayors Pete Flaherty, Sophie Masloff and Tom Murphy put their names on city garbage cans, street sweepers and the like.

But Mr. Ravenstahl, who confirmed he will run for re-election next year, said his name will not be affixed to the new program. (His face is already on billboards for the city's 311 line.)

Mr. Bondi hopes the timing of the program is right. With gasoline prices rising, maybe neighborhood businesses can make a comeback, just like the word hokey itself, he said.

"It would be nice to go back to the old days where everybody would do their shopping on Brookline Boulevard instead of driving off to South Hills Village," he said.

"Maybe with the way gas is going, some of the small-time places will come back, people won't travel far, and they'll stay close to the city."

The Taking Care of Business Districts plan -- and the proposed use of the state's funding -- may be introduced next week to City Council.