Not two weeks after Pittsburgh hosts the world, slapping ourselves on our collective back for great civic strides, we're told we don't even have what it takes to keep our neighborhood libraries open.

This is suddenly an issue in the mayor's race, and it ought to be. Because it encapsulates the central chore for Pittsburgh in the 21st century.

That task is simplicity itself: Keep all that is worth keeping. It is not that much of a chore when compared to our ancestors' capacity for innovation, or with their legacy of architectural and institutional treasures. Yet we're failing.

I've been saying this for years, but the announcement that the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh will close five of its 19 branches next year still hit me like an Oxford English Dictionary to the solar plexus.

We're supposed to be a "green" city. We're supposed to be pointing to a new way of living. Native son Howard Fineman of Newsweek, speaking at a journalists roundtable at Carnegie Mellon University before the G-20 summit, went so far as to say President Barack Obama was presenting Pittsburgh as Exhibit A in his case to the world to keep investing in America.

As Fineman put it, "Trust us. We can pay you back. Look at Pittsburgh."

Look at the city that is making a $40,000 annual contribution to its libraries, the same amount it made in 1895. Look at the community with a library system that projects a budget deficit of $1.2 million, and so will shut down five neighborhood branches to sustain itself.

This is complicated and has been coming for a long time. Until Regional Asset District funding began in 1995, the city was the library's main source of revenue. Mayor Luke Ravenstahl argues that city and county taxpayers contribute to the $17.6 million the library gets through RAD, "so it's wrong to suggest our contribution is only $40,000."

Mr. Ravenstahl didn't rule out finding more for libraries, but says we should audit them first to see if there are better places to cut.

Barbara Mistick, library director and president, says an independent audit is done each year as part of the RAD process and is public record.

Kevin Acklin, one of two independent challengers for mayor, says what Mr. Ravenstahl is essentially saying is, "The libraries are closing, and there's nothing I can do about it."

Mr. Acklin said he has a plan to shift $940,000 in city funds to the libraries over four years. He talked about growing up in South Oakland and having an afternoon paper route in North Oakland. He'd cut through Schenley Park and do his homework in the Carnegie's main branch. The branches are too important to lose, Mr. Acklin, 33, said.

Franco Dok Harris, also an independent mayoral challenger, said in a prepared statement that "closing libraries is not belt tightening; it's the equivalent of chopping off limbs." He urged the library board to keep branches open, but offered no funding solution.

Mr. Acklin's plan rests on the iffy premise of 4 percent interest on municipal savings, but even if a mayor could find $940,000 over four years, as he suggests, that wouldn't be enough to fill the hole in the library's budget. Ms. Mistick says the libraries expect to receive at least $1.2 million less in state funding just this year. That could be worse, depending on the state budget that gets approved, which is already 100 days late.

The library board doesn't want to get in the middle of a mayor's race, but Pittsburgh is not a green city if it's not walkable. It's not a green city if parents have to drive their kids across town to find an open library. And this vaunted city of neighborhoods can't be a desirable place to live and raise children if we allow our community centers to whither and die.

Yet that is currently the only plan. Because nobody has dedicated the money for any other.

"We want to be sustainable," Ms. Mistick said. "We're chronically underfunded. There are two alternatives:

"Find enough dollars to be sustainable at the size we are. ... If we can't find more dollars, we have to be the size that we can sustain."

The United Way number for the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh is 0816, but it would be wrong to suggest that one-time donations can solve this problem.

Pittsburgh managed its way through the Depression without closing any branches. Now we're cutting five neighborhoods off from this shiny new Pittsburgh we've been selling. That, gentle reader, is a civic disgrace.