Cultural Policy |
Pittsburgh Mayoral Candidates Pledge Support for Arts and Culture Ahead of Primary Election
Still undecided on who deserves your vote for Pittsburgh Mayor? During a time when federal arts and culture funding is being stripped across the country, we invited the mayoral candidates to speak on the importance of supporting the arts at a local level. Before you place your ballot this Tuesday, May 20, hear directly from incumbent Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey and his democratic challenger Allegheny County Controller Corey O'Connor on the City's investment to the arts, the long-term value of a vibrant cultural sector in Pittsburgh, and what recent cultural event they attended brought them the most joy in our Q&A below.
Each candidate's answers have been published without edits. Republican mayoral candidates Tony Moreno and Thomas West were also invited to participate, but did not respond to our inquiries before publication.
The City of Pittsburgh currently supports the arts through two primary mechanisms: the Community Festival Program Grant, which reimburses up to $1,000 for free public events that promote community togetherness, and the Percent for Art Program, which allocates 1% of eligible city construction or renovation project budgets for public art. What additional investments or funding mechanisms would you consider pursuing to strengthen the city’s support for the arts — particularly given competing budgetary priorities?
ED GAINEY: Art is a fundamental part of a thriving society and the Percent for Art Program is critically important to helping realize that vision in Pittsburgh. My administration already made the program more flexible by making it one percent of overall capital budget. Moving forward, as the City moves past the lean years, we have an opportunity to grow the city budget in a way that will increase the overall pot of resources available to the Percent for Art Program. Through changes to the program we can be more intentional about not just including art and artists as part of every city construction or renovation process but on how to leverage the funding for more impactful projects in areas of the city that have limited public art. We can also continue to find efficiencies within the program to maximize enforcement and compliance with the existing program to best utilize the resources we already have available.
COREY O’CONNOR: I believe that the City should expand the grant support offered to artists to produce more public art and art within neighborhoods. Making art and sharing it with the community is difficult work, and it benefits the City to provide material support to artists. Art helps connect neighbors, beautifies our communities, and plays a major role in intentional placemaking in cities.
Furthermore, we need to make sure that the Percent for Art Program is meaningfully enforced and monitored. That means tracking compliance on eligible projects, ensuring that artists are paid fairly and on time, and engaging communities in the process of selecting and shaping public art. This program should not be symbolic, it should be a real investment in creative infrastructure across our neighborhoods.
I also believe that support from the City can come in other forms, too. For example, the City has a massive portfolio of vacant and under-utilized properties. And while it’s often discussed how these properties could be used for housing or other options, we should also be talking about how we can use them for small businesses, like those run by artists. Site acquisition is one of the largest costs in real estate development, so when we talk about making meaningful investments in economic development, we should be thinking about how we could also use these spaces for the benefit of Pittsburgh’s cultural sector. We should understand that space for artists, whether used for studios, to sell their work, or other purposes, is an important part of strengthening Pittsburgh’s artist community.
How would your administration meaningfully engage creative leaders, artists, and culture bearers — especially those from historically underrepresented communities — in shaping and implementing city policies and programs?
ED GAINEY: The Comprehensive Planning process that my administration has initiated will be a centerpiece of how we engage creative leaders, artists, and culture bearers across our city. This plan will include a specific arts & culture plan where we will have a particular focus on bringing in perspectives from historically underrepresented communities. We also see the Public Art Program in the Department of City Planning as a vehicle to source local artists for appropriate projects across city departments - striving for our art and artists to fully represent the citizens of pittsburgh. Finally, we see areas for collaboration like the Arts Landing project, where we secured state funding for a cultural strategist position for downtown, an idea that was developed in collaboration with GPAC.
COREY O’CONNOR: I believe residents like that deserve a seat at the table where decisions are made in City government. Beyond just the Public Art and Civic Design Commission, we have several impactful bodies that would benefit from the type of lived experience and domain expertise that creative leaders, artists, and culture bearers, especially those from communities that have been underrepresented in government, bring with them. The Planning Commission, Historic Review Commission, and Contextual Design Advisory Panel are all bodies that would benefit from the experiences and voices of artists in Pittsburgh.
How would you leverage Pittsburgh’s cultural assets to strengthen cross-sector collaborations — in areas such as education, public safety, mental health, tourism, or workforce development — and what role do you see artists and cultural organizations playing in those partnerships?
ED GAINEY: There are a series of opportunities in front of us to bring together many departments across the city to strengthen our cultural assets through cross-sector collaboration. One example is as we continue to grow the office of community health and safety, we can pursue collaborations between local artists and our mental health professionals to increase community safety and engagement. Another is leveraging the $600 million investment in our downtown to expand public art throughout the neighborhood. Finally, we can incorporate public art and local artists in all of our capital projects, like we pursued with the Fern Hollow Bridge restoration.
COREY O’CONNOR: Pittsburgh needs to grow. That means that, in addition to retaining the residents that we already have, we need to attract new ones. The same is true of businesses and employment centers. When we think about how we want to market Pittsburgh, we should stop only relying on the iconography of steel mills, Heinz ketchup bottles, and pierogies. We should highlight what Pittsburgh is today and the people who live here, as well as our vision for the future. Here, artists could play a powerful role in helping us articulate the version of Pittsburgh that best speaks to our residents, our culture, and our aspirations for the future.
Beyond marketing, we can also bring artists into deeper partnerships with City departments and community institutions. For example, we can work with local artists and cultural organizations to bring creative programming into rec centers, libraries, and schools, particularly those in underserved neighborhoods. This type of collaboration supports youth development, improves public safety through positive engagement, and creates opportunities for intergenerational connection.
Artists can also help lead public health and mental health campaigns through storytelling, visual design, and community-centered events that build trust and break down stigma. Cultural institutions can serve as hubs for these efforts, bridging gaps between City services and residents.
In every one of these areas — education, public safety, mental health, tourism, and workforce development — there’s a role for artists not just as creatives, but as problem-solvers and community builders.
On a scale from 0 to 10 — with 0 being the lowest and 10 the highest — how would you rate the City of Pittsburgh’s current efforts to uplift and support the arts and humanities, including artists, culture bearers, nonprofit organizations, and entertainment venues? Please explain the reasoning behind your rating.
ED GAINEY: I would currently rate the city as a 7, with a pathway to an 8 or 9 over the coming years. We listened to our cultural leaders as we emerged from Covid, heard what the needs and concerns were, and worked with our downtown cultural neighbors to address a series of concerns about safety and working to allocate ARPA funding to local artist programs. These actions helped stabilize the arts and cultural community at a critical time, and we have so much more to do. We have found ways to give local artists a platform through the Juneteenth Festival, and worked with community partners to usher through planning for the new entertainment venue in the Hill District to revitalize the community while making sure that the work is done in deep partnership with both the neighborhood and local arts community. By continuing to grow these collaborations and investments to expand the arts and humanities across our city, we can move Pittsburgh to an 8 or a 9 in the years ahead.
COREY O’CONNOR: I would rate the City of Pittsburgh’s current efforts to uplift and support the arts and humanities a 5 out of 10. We have strong foundations: a rich history, talented artists, and passionate cultural organizations, but we are underusing and underselling them. Pittsburgh has slipped in national arts vibrancy rankings (see SMU DataArts 2024), and that reflects a broader issue. We aren’t doing enough to invest in or amplify our cultural assets.
We need to improve support across the board for artists, cultural producers, nonprofits, and entertainment venues, and ensure that arts and culture are accessible to every resident in every neighborhood. That includes expanding economic opportunity in our business districts to help close racial equity gaps and making neighborhoods more welcoming and affordable for artists and creative entrepreneurs.
The City must also take a more active role in identifying new funding streams for local arts agencies, supporting pathways to arts employment, and ensuring resources are distributed beyond just Downtown. And we must work to eliminate barriers such as mobility, language, and cultural divides that prevent many residents from fully engaging in Pittsburgh’s cultural life. Strengthening the arts isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessary investment in Pittsburgh’s identity, economy, and sense of community.
What do you see as the long-term value of a vibrant cultural sector in Pittsburgh, and how would your leadership help ensure its sustainability and impact for future generations?
ED GAINEY: The cultural sector is an important economic driver and significant factor in our local tourism industry. Vibrant, thriving museums and theaters bring people to our neighborhoods and downtown from across the region and around the world. Even more importantly, the cultural sector is a critical component of helping convince people to not just visit our city but to stay and build a career here. To sustain this impact for years to come, we need to leverage all of the coming investments to our region, like the $600 million investment in downtown. This is a once in a generation public investment, and we need to ensure that this project is connected to and engaging with our cultural sector. We also see the ways that public art and creative place making is an opportunity to increase both resident happiness and visits to our city. We can make the public art process easier so that it can be more prevalent and accessible in neighborhoods throughout the city.
COREY O’CONNOR: The cultural sector plays a vital role in Pittsburgh’s vibrancy — not just in Downtown or the Cultural District, but in all of our neighborhoods. Our artists, makers, and performers enrich the communities that they live and work in. The cultural sector strengthens our local economy, draws tourism, builds community connection, and helps Pittsburgh maintain its identity as a creative, resilient, and unique place.
As Mayor, I want to be a strong partner to our cultural sector because when we invest in the arts, we invest in a future Pittsburgh that is more inclusive, more innovative, and more connected. The arts have always been at the forefront of progress. They inspire us, bring us together, and help us tell the story of who we are and who we want to be.
Too often, public art is treated as an afterthought or a box to check at the end of a development project. We need to reverse that mindset. Public art and cultural contributions should be seen as foundational to how we build stronger neighborhoods and more equitable communities. That also means expanding access, so the benefits of arts investment aren’t confined to a few areas but are felt throughout Pittsburgh.
Supporting the cultural sector also means supporting the people behind it. That includes building and protecting affordable housing, increasing access to creative workspaces, and ensuring that artists feel welcome, safe, and valued here. Artists should be able to not only create in Pittsburgh, but to live, thrive, and shape the its future future.
In the long term, a thriving cultural sector is a sign of a healthy, forward-looking city. My leadership will be about building that future with intention, one that centers creativity, equity, and community at every step.
Bonus Question: What was the last arts experience you had that truly wowed you — whether a performance, exhibition, festival, or other event — and what made that experience so memorable or impactful for you?
ED GAINEY: I attended the KAWS opening at the Warhol, which to me demonstrated the potential of our cultural institutions to offer groundbreaking and accessible materials, while bridging the gap between the cultural district and the neighborhoods on the north side. It shows how the cultural sector and investments don’t need to be just limited to our downtown core or to specific art forms, but can reach people and neighborhoods from all parts of our city.
COREY O’CONNOR: Art All Night was the last arts experience that truly wowed me. It was powerful to see a vacant space brought back to life, even if just for an evening, and transformed into a place of creativity, connection, and community. What made it so memorable was the sheer diversity of the people who showed up - artists and attendees from all backgrounds, all ages, all parts of the city, coming together to share and experience art in a space that felt open and accessible to everyone. That’s how we build a city for the future. We should have more events like Art All Night, events that activate our neighborhoods, celebrate creativity, and bring people together.