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The Wilkinsburg Community Development Corporation (WCDC) and Wilkinsburg Mayor are promoting a ballot initiative to merge the borough of Wilkinsburg with the city of Pittsburgh.

The Wilkinsburg Community Development Corporation (WCDC) and Wilkinsburg Mayor are promoting a ballot initiative to merge the borough of Wilkinsburg with the city of Pittsburgh.

Photographer: Justin Merriman/Bloomberg
CityLab
Government

What Happens When a City Doesn’t Want to Be a City Anymore?

The mayor and business leaders of Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, are pursuing a proposal to have the struggling town annexed by Pittsburgh. But many residents are wary of the merger. 

Nick Keppler

More than 1,400 abandoned structures dwell in the 2.3 square miles that make up Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania. Along the main drag of Penn Avenue, vacant homes and storefronts roll by.

The more cared-for ones are boarded up. In others, windows reveal caches of garbage. The signage of video shops and pizzerias few can remember cling to buildings; an entire car wash is locked behind metal fencing. On the top floors of former apartment buildings, torn curtains flutter like S.O.S. flags; in residential areas, vines and weeds consume homes. The sense of atrophy from decades of depopulation and disinvestment in this borough of 15,218 bordering Pittsburgh looms like a low-hanging cloud.