CityLab Daily: How to Diversify a Trump County
Also today: “Climate Mayors” are ready for Joe Biden, and how a pistachio tycoon is straining the water supply in California.
“CommUNITY, 2020” by muralist Shane Pilster, one of 10 artists selected for a public art billboard project designed to promote diversity in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.
Photo courtesy of curator Sheila Cuellar-Shaffer and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art
Advertising diversity: In the overwhelmingly white suburbs of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, a series of billboards designed by local artists and recently installed along major highways stand out from the overflow of Trump signs on the ground. They feature messages like “Arc of Justice” and “Community,” with emphasis on the “unity” part, and are part of a project from the Westmoreland Diversity Coalition to promote inclusivity around gender, disability, age and race.
Today, only 5% of the residents there identify as Black or “other,” but the county was once a place where some Black businesses thrived and where Black families could find sanctuary from the nearby city of Pittsburgh. The billboard art campaign aims to return Westmoreland to that more cosmopolitan feel, which organizers tell Brentin Mock is not only crucial for the communities of color, but also can be an economic boon for the aging county. Today on CityLab: How to Diversify Trump County