Daniel Lavelle, member of the Pittsburgh (Pa) City Council and Rita Ossolinski of the National League of Cities provided advice based on their experiences with working to achieving equity in cities to the Arlington Equity Council at their virtual meeting August 25th.

Councilperson Lavelle has been involved for several years in a similar effort in Pittsburgh called “All In Pittsburgh.” He said one of the first lessons learned was, no matter how smart the participants were, they needed to get out into the neighborhoods and listen to the needs of the communities. He said that unlike Arlington, which is the 11th most diverse city among the 100 largest cities in America, Pittsburgh is basically a black and white city.

He encouraged the Council to be guided by the data which is more objective than member’s impressions. For example they found poverty in Pittsburgh was primarily a single mom issue. He also recommended that someone on city staff be responsible for action and results. In Pittsburgh, city department heads must submit with their annual budget requests what their department is contributing to equity in the city.

Rita Ossolinski from the National League of Cities spoke from the NLC’s experience supporting 25 cities which are working on achieving community equity. She reiterated that getting out into the neighborhoods was critical. A top down effort will not work. She made the point that statistically, the number one predictor of success in America is race.

City staff has to own the process, she advised. This has to become ingrained in the work of the city and continually refreshed and sustained. She also said that when trying to understand the causes of inequity, the first answer is often not the root cause. You have to continue to keep asking “why?” until you get to the root cause. NLC has resources that will be made available including case studies from cities like Arlington.

The meeting concluded with a presentation by Council President Dr. Jason Shelton of data collected on equity in Arlington by city staff from public sources.