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In mid-November, I seized the last warm day of 2022 to visit five different parks in and around the Hill District. Few other Pittsburghers had the same idea. I only encountered two parkgoers that morning.
It quickly became clear to me why community members aren’t flocking to these parks. The infield of Kennard Park’s baseball diamond is overrun with grass. A City of Pittsburgh trash can sits where the pitcher’s mound should be. Rusted-out or boarded-up water fountains are common at most of these parks. Some basketball hoops are pristine, but many more lack nets, rims or backboards altogether.
A slim majority of residents voted in 2019 to do something about these conditions through a dedicated parks tax. To use a painfully obvious cliche (which we managed to avoid in the story), allocating this new revenue has been no walk in the park.
“We'll make sure that we have a Department of Environmental Protection that's actually on the side of the people, and actually meeting the obligation under our state constitution to provide for clean air and pure water," Gov.-elect Josh Shapiro said after receiving the endorsement of a number of environmental advocacy groups in early April, ahead of the primary. "We're going to make sure that we put these issues front and center."
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