Why bring it up? Because cities are special purpose vehicles to fund police/firefighter pensions which have a side hustle in providing civic infrastructure. That's quite relevant to the question of why costs are increasing (because politically powerful people got placated), whether investments in infrastructure will reduce costs (strictly impossible), and whether property developers are to blame for underfunded infrastructure (they do not receive checks from the city every month).
The article mentionedthe county of Erie. And the quote wasn't about any city in particular, just about generic "many older cities".
The city of Erie didn't come up in the article.
"Joshua Vincent’s piece on land taxation in Pennsylvania examines relative tax rates in Erie County, Pennsylvania, finding that property owners in the city of Erie proper pay close to double the taxes that those in many of Erie's suburbs pay."
The annual required contribution is a mere $4.3 million
Their pension is 99% funded. I don't know why you'd bring it up, since it is unrelated to the article.
Fixing pensions won't change the fact that neglectful landlords get rewarded under the current taxation scheme.