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Pittsburgh was a Solid GOP city from the Civil War till about 1920. On the other hand during the same period Western Pennsylvania was just as solidly Democratic. The rural areas stay Democratic throughout the 20th Century (You have to get to the Allegheny Mountains or North of Butler Pa to get into rural Republican areas even today in Western Pa).
Thus in 1920 you had a Republican city surrounded by Democratic Rural Areas. In 1912 Mellon had managed to indict 2/3 of the members of the city council (it was a 200+ member council that ran the City). Do to this "Scandal" the State adopted a new form of Government for the City of Pittsburgh, a nine person council with a mayor (all elected at large, which will stay the situation till the 1980s).
Anyway the Democrats started to gain members throughout this period (1912-1932). This accelerated in the 1920s as more and more anti-Mellon Republicans switched parties. I remember reading obituaries in the 1970s about Democratic committeemen and women who had died, but had started out as members of the GOP in the 1920s and than switched to the Democrats in the 1920s and 1930s. The switch was quite extensive.
The last GOP mayor was elected in 1928 (and he was an anti-Mellon Republican whose main source of support was from the Speak easies of the time period). He lost the Mayor election in 1928 and the last GOP member of the Pittsburgh City Council lost his seat in the election of 1932. Since 1932 NO Republican had been mayor or a member of the City of Pittsburgh City Council.
Now after WWII, Pittsburgh like every other city started to lose population to its suburbs. With just a few exceptions these Suburbs were Democratically Controlled (Through the Republicans would be on the Suburban borough council or Township board of Supervisors). Sometime these Suburban governments would be GOP dominated (Other times Democratic). The Exceptions tended to be the high end suburban housing market (Upper St Clair, Peters Township, Fox Chapel etc), but even in these communities Democrats would be elected.
Note many of the Suburban communities were old coal patches (i.e. had been formed in the late 1800s as coal towns to mine coal). As these communities converted from coal (as the coal mines closed) to being suburban commuting suburbs, they tended to stay Democratic till most the the mines were closed and the remaining retired coal miners died or moved out.
Thus you had a Democratic voting City, with Democratically voting River Towns up and down all three rivers (and Chartiers Creek), a Democratically voting Rural Areas with GOP/Democratic disputed Suburbs.
Furthermore the older residents of Allegheny County (The Pennsylvania County where the City of Pittsburgh is located) are dieing off. Starting in the 1960s a lot of young people left the County to look for work, making Allegheny county one of the oldest counties in the US (in term of average age of its residents). For time period in the 1980s Allegheny County had more elderly than any other County in the US except for Miami, and this still may be true). Starting in the 1990s these elderly, the last of the generation who had steady employment in the Steel industry, started to die of old age. Since most of these people came of age during the Great Depression, they were overwhelmingly Democratic in Voting. Thus the GOP claim to see an opportunity in Allegheny County. As these older voters died off, the percentage of Democrats in Allegheny County dropped.
In the 1990s the GOP took advantage of this change by saying the tax system was unfair and running on a anti-real estate tax platform. At the same time the Democrats decided to commit fratricide by fighting over who was to succeed the long time set of County Commissioners. In that fight one of the younger politicians made a stupid statement as to not needing the black vote to win which cause many blacks NOT to vote at all in the General Election. As a result the GOP won control of the County Commissioner for the first time since the early 1930s. They impose a "freeze" on tax assessments (later overturned) and started the process to covert Allegheny County from a 3 man Commissioner form of Government to a Government with a "County Executive" and a County Council. This was adopted but the Democrats were not yet ready to stop killing themselves. In one last piece of fratricide the Democrats put forth their most popular candidate. The problem was while Cyril Wrecht was the Most popular Democrat, he also had the most negatives (If you know Wrecht, you either love him or hate him, no one is ever neutral about Cyril).
Anyway the GOP put a lot of money into the subsequent Campaign, ran a moderate Republican, attacked Wrecht for having been found liability for taking County property (The problem was technical in nature when Wrecht was Coroner he did out of County autopsies in County facilities and than used the proceeds to improve the Coroner's office, a procedure rules illegal by the courts, the proceed should have been turned over to the County Commissioners for expenditure, not spent directly by Wrecht). The GOP kept on attacking Wrecht "Ethnics" throughout the Campaign. Kept reminding the voters that Wrecht had "Taken" their money (and ignoring the fact it had been paid back out of Wrecht's personal funds, even through the money had been spent on improving County facilities).
Anyway Wrecht lost the election and Allegheny County had a Republican as its first County Executive. On the Bright side the County Council was solidly Democratic. With the 2000 Census a new fight started over how to apportion the county for electing County Council persons. Another big fight but this time the Democrats were united and defeated every GOP attempt to set up a system to help the GOP elect members to the County Council. As a result Allegheny Council is 7 Republicans vs 8 Democrats. This sounds high for Allegheny County (and it is) but the Democrats wanted to be able to contest EVERY county council seat while the GOP wanted be able to win just 8 (i.e put as many Democrats in city related seats so they could at least be able to win the remaining 8 seats).
Anyway, given the 1990s saw the last of the WWII generation basically move off the Political stage. You now have a new generation of politicians, politicians of the post Vietnam age. The GOP tend to be suburban new comers to the area, who are funded by Andrews Mellon's Descendant, Richard Mellon-Scaife. The older generation learned during the Great Depression that the GOP lies, the younger generation have not yet learned that lesson so believe the GOP's lies. The older generation kept this area from turning Republican for they knew what that meant. The younger generation has to learn that what a Republican says is meaningless, look at what he does. Once they younger generation learn that the GOP cares less for them, the Democrats will come back in Western Pa. The key is how long will it take AND how bad does the situation has to be before Allegheny County Council follows the City of Pittsburgh Council as being 100% Democratic.
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