Luke Ravenstahl (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Taylor: middle-class, sales, violent crime)

[Sealtite]

I've got to ask this......Politics, policies, and controversy aside.....Does Luke Ravenstahl strike you as possibly being mildly retarded? I can't possibly be the only person who has had this thought about the man.

[Benzman66]

Originally Posted by Sealtite

I've got to ask this......Politics, policies, and controversy aside.....Does Luke Ravenstahl strike you as possibly being mildly retarded? I can't possibly be the only person who has had this thought about the man.

I plead the fifth!

But you may be on to something!

[nuwaver88]

Politics aside. He has a college degree. Some of his decisions may seem retarted. Other decisions he has made have been pure genious. Not everybody likes his brand of politics and I respect that.

[Sealtite]

Originally Posted by nuwaver88

Politics aside. He has a college degree. Some of his decisions may seem retarted. Other decisions he has made have been pure genious. Not everybody likes his brand of politics and I respect that.

You don't have to be a "genious" to get a college degree these days.

[raubre]

I don't think he's that way. Just very young and fratboy-ish at times.

[BrianTH]

Similarly, to me his worse moments read more "young" than anything else (young men often ACT stupid even when they are not in fact stupid).

[escilade18]

It could be worse, we could have Coleman Young. But I would say that people view his age whenever something negative happens which amplifies the controversy, while if it were a 45 year old there would be other things to attack. He has his work cut out for him with the financial woes he inherited, and I think that we could be doing much much worse than what we have

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

(young men often ACT stupid even when they are not in fact stupid).

(jay5835 points at me while I sheepishly raise my hand).

[SteelCityRising]

For me I'm torn about his overall job performance. Even during the mere year I've lived in "America's Most Livable City" I've seen much progress and redevelopment, indicating that we're truly on the cusp of a renaissance. I've watched the number of bargain-basement housing prices diminish, especially in the East End, I've noticed more and more out-of-state license plates here, especially from the Pacific Northwest (hippies? Google employees?) and Greater DC (presumably those, like me, who burned out of the traffic, expense, sprawl, etc.), and there's so many new restaurants opening here I can't keep pace.

My question? Would the city's rebirth be occurring so rapidly even without Mayor Ravenstahl's leadership? My answer? Yes. Pittsburgh is the "in" city right now in America. We just hosted movie shoots for Batman, Taylor Lautner (Abduction), and Tom Cruise (One Shot), with potentially a few others on the way, including one starring Steve Carrell. President Obama personally selected us to host a major summit because he wanted to show how a city can pick itself up by the bootstraps during uncertain economic times. We are often in the Top 5 in just about every nationally-recognized quality-of-life ranking nowadays. We're the fifth-gayest city in the nation despite the fact that the majority of the rest of the state (outside Philadelphia) is socially conservative. I'm in alignment now with BrianTH in his belief that the city has indeed started to grow again in population after bottoming out in the early-to-mid-2000s.

Why is all this happening? People are tiring of the "O.C."/"Jersey Shore" lifestyle that is so pervasive nowadays in many parts of the U.S.---fake tans, fake boobs, fake personalities, and just fakeness in general. Pittsburgh is a very genuine city. It's a place where most people will tell things like they are. It's a place where people still look out for one another as if they were their own brethren. It's a place that feels "real", if that makes sense. Where I lived deep in the suburbs of Northern Virginia it felt like most people around me were all putting on an act---dressing up in stelletos to go grocery shopping, pretending they knew about politics or finance in casual conversation to try to "impress" me (even though I'd let them slide when I knew they were mistaken), and bragging about their new Audis (while not mentioning that their parents' deep pockets---not their own---helped to finance them). Outside of a few select pockets in Greater Pittsburgh, including Walnut Street in Shadyside, I don't get any of that "I wear my sunglasses on cloudy days to look cooler than you" vibe here. People just don't seem to care as much here about outdoing one another as they do elsewhere, and I cherish that here. Coupled with low violent crime, gorgeous historic architecture, and an attainable cost-of-living for the middle-class it's a no-brainer that Pittsburgh was destined for recovery with or without Mayor Ravenstahl at the helm. Urban living is "in" right now nationwide, and the sky-high demand for urban housing is related to that trend---not to the mayor.

As such I would be open to voting for another candidate whenever the incumbent mayor is open for re-election.

[gg]

I think calling the guy "retarded" is a bit much. I do think he is a bit young and not really my choice. A mayor needs to be a sales type because that what they do, sell the city of Pittsburgh. Murphy was pretty sharp, but I think he favored the North Side a bit too much. I would welcome a change, but Luke isn't horrible, so I would want a change that would make sense, not just change for the heck of it.