Forging America: My Campaign Manager is Roosevelt

Chapter 406: Chapter 189: The Shadow of Prosperity (Part 2)

"I know this is hard. It’s almost like walking a tightrope."

"But if this were easy, it wouldn’t have fallen to us to do it."

"I’ll leave this to you guys."

Leo adjusted the collar of his overcoat.

"I have to step out."

"Where to?" Ethan asked, his words muffled. "There’s still a video conference about the public utilities department tonight."

"Postpone it."

Leo walked to the door.

"Frank sent me three texts. Margaret roasted a huge turkey, and if we don’t show up, she’s threatened to dump it on the steps of City Hall."

"Give Margaret my best," Ethan sighed. "Tell her I’ll come by for the leftover bones once I’m done running these numbers."

Leo pushed open the door and walked out of the conference room.

The first-floor lobby of City Hall was empty.

A security guard sat in his booth, watching a football game on a small television.

Leo pushed open the heavy main doors and stepped into the cold Pittsburgh winter.

The snow had stopped, but the wind was still fierce.

Leo tightened his overcoat and started toward the parking lot.

Just then, a figure emerged from the shadows.

It was a young woman.

She wore an old down jacket, her hands shoved in her pockets and her neck turtled down. She looked fragile against the harsh wind.

Alina Rodriguez.

The young woman who had denounced Leo at the awards ceremony, now his appointed special advisor for the community.

"Alina?"

Leo was a little surprised.

"What are you doing here? It’s Christmas Day."

Alina looked up, her face flushed red from the wind.

"I know it’s Christmas."

"I wanted to see if our dear Mr. Mayor was hiding in his warm office, drinking champagne with his staff and celebrating victories that only exist on paper."

"We were working," Leo explained. "On a two-billion-dollar appropriations bill."

"Two billion dollars."

Alina repeated the figure, her tone laced with mockery.

"Sounds like a lot. How many turkeys does that buy? How much rent does that pay?"

She took a step forward, her gaze fixed on Leo.

"Mr. Mayor, you said on TV that Pittsburgh has been revitalized. You said workers have money now, that the streets have become beautiful."

"You sit in that office, looking at the PowerPoints Ethan makes for you, at the growth rates Marcus calculates for you."

"You think you’ve saved this city."

Alina turned and pointed toward the distant blocks.

"But have you really seen the Pittsburgh of today?"

Leo frowned.

"Alina, didn’t we already talk about the community issues?"

"Talked about them? In your office?"

Alina scoffed.

"Mr. Mayor, I don’t think that was thorough enough. You just listened to my report and looked at my data, but you haven’t seen it with your own eyes."

"Not the Pittsburgh you see at ribbon-cutting ceremonies, or the Pittsburgh you see through a car window."

"I’m talking about the Pittsburgh that’s bleeding and freezing in the shadow of your revitalization plan."

"What are you trying to say?"

"Come with me."

Alina didn’t explain further.

"My car is over there. If you dare, come with me."

"A lot of my neighbors can’t celebrate the holiday. I want to show you why."

Leo glanced at his watch.

He looked into Alina’s defiant eyes.

"Alright."

Leo nodded.

"Lead the way."

The two of them went to the parking lot.

Alina drove a second-hand Ford sedan. Its engine made a terrible racket, and the heat was broken.

The inside of the car was as cold as an icebox.

Leo sat in the passenger seat, pulling his overcoat tight and watching the streetscape recede outside the window.

They crossed the Monongahela River and arrived in the Brooklyn District.

This area was once Pittsburgh’s most chaotic Latino neighborhood.

Drugs, shootings, and poverty were its hallmarks.

But now, the streets were clean, the streetlights were fixed, and the piles of trash on the corners were gone.

A few trendy cafes and galleries had opened up in the street-level storefronts.

This was the political achievement Leo was so proud of.

He had lowered the crime rate here by seventy percent. He had made it safe, made it livable.

The car stopped in front of an old, red-brick apartment building.

The sidewalk was piled high with a chaotic mess of old furniture.

A sofa with a hole in it, a few chairs with broken legs, a mattress with a corner torn off, and several black plastic bags stuffed with clothes and miscellaneous items.

Snow began to drift from the sky.

Snowflakes landed on the mattress, slowly melting into dirty water stains.

A man in a thin jacket was squatting by the roadside, smoking a cigarette.

Beside him was a woman holding a baby, and a little girl who was only five or six years old.

The little girl clutched a dirty rag doll, staring blankly at the street.

They were evicted tenants.

On Christmas Day.

"This is what you call gentrification."

Alina sat in the car, her hands gripping the steering wheel tightly.

"You fixed the roads, drove out the drug dealers, and made this neighborhood safe."

"That’s a good thing, right?"

"But what was the result?"

"The result is that the land here became valuable."

"Landlords discovered that instead of renting to these poor people, it’s better to renovate and rent to the engineers drawn in by your port project, to the tech workers from Google and Uber."

"They can afford to pay three times the rent."

Alina pointed at the family of three.

"That man’s name is Jose. He works in construction. He isn’t a salaried employee, but he’s a hard worker. He’s lived here for eight years."