Pittsburgh and Birmingham (Fairfield: employment, live, moving to)

[mattm93]

I heard of Birmingham being called the Pittsburgh of the south. Does anyone know why?

[Back Again]

Maybe because of all the steel? Just a guess

[jakabedy]

Exactly. The steel and iron. The area has abundant natural resources to go into steel making - coal, iron ore and limestone.

[Threestep]

This should answer your question.

Vulcan Park and Museum - Home

[RebelPhotog]

I live just south of B'ham, but visit Pittsburgh often. Pittsburgh is B'ham's sister city. It is becaus of the steel industry, but I recently read that Pittsburgh is seeing a resugrence of art and culture similar to B'ham. Younger people are moving back to Pittsburgh and the city is growing. One thing B'ham doesn't have is the convergence of the three rivers and the rich history that Pitt. has.

[optionguy]

I was born in Pittsburgh and raised in Birmingham. The primary reason that Birmingham came to be known as the Pittsburgh of the south was the predominance of the steelmaking industry in both towns. For example; U S Steel built a plant in McKeesport PA, known as National Tube. It was the first Steel pipe plant in USA that had raw iron ore enter one end of the plant and finished pipe leave the other end. It's sister plant, known as the Fairfield Works, is located here in Birmingham.

[Neverbetter]

Originally Posted by mattm93

I heard of Birmingham being called the Pittsburgh of the south. Does anyone know why?

Hi! When I moved here in the mid-60's, there were steel mills open on both sides of the ' Viaduct'. The pollution was horrible and looked just like Pittsburgh (I have been there a lot, also). The employment of the city was primarily steel mills or manufacturing drawn from it. When the E.P.A. came in around the 70's, I think, they were so riddled with restrictions, they were forced to close and unfortunately the city really suffered. It was about that time that a whole lot of people had to re-group and they left Birmingham. The air was a lot better but the workers paid for it.

[Southlander]

It wasn't just the EPA regulations. It was also the whole nature of the business changed, with a lot of manufacturing moving to other countries, and more and more plastics being used in products in place of steel. The same thing happened in Pittsburgh, Bethlehem PA and other steel cities.