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I totally agree with the OP - the only thing wrong with Pittsburgh are the bad attitudes of the natives. My husband and I moved here 3 years ago, and LOVE it. Both of us lived in several cities and smaller towns out West, but fell in love with Pittsburgh when we moved here. Yes, it has problems, but it also has an incredible amount of potential. I wish the haters could get past their bitterness, take off their soot-colored glasses and see what a diamond in the rough they have here. I think a lot of them just haven't lived anywhere else, so they don't realize that the problems in Pittsburgh are problems that occur in big cities everywhere, and that Pittsburgh's positive qualities are one-of-a-kind. Oh, well. I guess those of us from other places will just have to fix it up with or without all of you negative people...
And the post right above this one is exactly why so many people who have tried exactly what you're talking about have thrown up their hands and moved on ; or for that matter, why people who have thought about doing what you're talking about looked around and said "no thanks, there are other places that are more ready for a transformation" and taken their pioneering spirit to some place more appreciative. Like Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Or Peoria. Or Newport/Covington KY.
I have never seen a place like Pittsburgh where there are such polar opposites at war with each other: those who refuse to give up fighting like mad to maintain and improve the liveability and vitality of the region, versus those whose whose pessimism goes well beyond beyond apathy toward downright discouragement of any change or improvement. I frankly don't know how the former group puts up with the latter. I honestly believe that the single largest impediment to the city's revival is the sheer percentage of its own residents who are certain it will never happen and their apparent psychological need to fulfill their own gloomy prophecy. The minute those people shut up, move away or die off, I move back to Pittsburgh and start buying up property.
It strikes me that Pittsburgh should be able to do both. Maintain a strong connection to its past of neighborhoods, family living, and old-time blue-collar immigrant urban charm while at the same improving and enhancing those neighborhoods that make it something other than another soulless agglomeration of post-WWII suburban sprawl. A city can be protective of its past and yet be optimistic about, and invest in its future. Frankly, I wouldn't want Pittsburgh to abandon its past, but a positive view of the future could take the city a long way if the people willed it. But it does take city and community leadership with vision, because mega-chains and strip-malls surely don't enhance the liveability and ambience of a city. It just duplicates what already exists in the suburbs.
Street trees, street life, parks, well cared for buildings from a time past or good architecture of the present and future, and unique and interesting businesses are what separate central cities that work from central cities that have become gutted shells of their former glory. Pittsburgh seems to have done enough that it won't go the way of Detroit, but it could become a Boston, or Savannah, or even a land-locked San Francisco for normal people if it wanted too. All it needs is a commitment from its citizens and its civic leaders to embrace changes that will protect its past.
Apologies for yet another long-winded two-part post...
chinenjim:
Here's the thing that's truly fascinating about you: On the one hand, your relentlessly pessimistic attitude about the region encapsulates so much of what holds its back. On the other hand, if one is to believe the bits of personal information you've made available on this forum – and I have no reason to doubt their veracity – you represent exactly what the area needs: You've put down roots there – albeit apparently with some reluctance – by buying a house & making major improvements/updates to it, and by starting a business that has taken root and is growing. You represent, in a single person, elements of both warring factions I referred to in my previous post. You are constantly down on the place and yet as a business owner you have a greater stake in its future than most of its own residents, much less us outside observers. (And while you may try to assure yourself that you're far enough away from the city center that you're not affected, the truth is the future of the entire region is influenced by the vitality of its core.) You are a walking metaphor of the region's dual personality: The pessimism that infuses and defines so much of its culture is visible from a thousand miles away while the genuinely hard work that goes on behind the scenes is not evident until one gets up close and looks beneath the surface.
Whether you keep talking or shut up, move away or stay put, is completely up to you. At the end of the day, it makes no difference to me. All of us here on this forum, be us past/present/future residents or potential investors and urban pioneers, are interested in Pittsburgh for some reason or another. We are all entitled to participate in a civilized discussion about its strengths and weakness, particularly as relates to its future. Just understand that as long as you and your fellow adherents to the School of Perpetual Pessimism keep winning the argument, those of us who can contribute a lot of financial and human capital to the improvement of your region are going to stay away. As long as you all are OK with that arrangement, so are we; and we'll all have reached an understanding.
I don't have a love affair with Pittsburgh and I'm not hell-bent on turning it into anything. Otherwise I'd still be there, humping its leg and trying to shape it in my own image. In fact, what I'm really hoping for is that Pittsburgh begins a spontaneous, organic renewal process, and not a process that chases some contrived, predetermined sense of what the city “should” become. Ironically, the city government's waste of resources in its top-down, ham-fisted attempt to dictate change will almost certainly be impediment to its actual growth and renewal. (“Since Renaissance I and Renaissance II were such smash hits, let's try Renaissance III! Stick around for the next installment Renaissance IV coming to a dilapidated city center near you in the year 2028!”)
In order for the process to be truly organic, there has to be substantial participation from within. And it has to come from the hearts and souls of the citizenry, not the dictates of the city bureaucrats. And you're right, much of Pittsburgh is not interested in or is not ready for change. So that's why it hasn't happened yet and why it doesn't look like it's going to happen any time soon. That's why I and many others have stayed out. That and the affirmative incitements of your ilk that we stay out.
Nobody is trying to turn Pittsburgh into a vacation land. Us Outsiders-Looking-In have no interest in making it into a weekend getaway playground like Cape Cod or Door County or Napa Valley. All we really want is a clean, comfortable, safe, affordable and unique place to settle down. Additionally, nobody has any illusions that Pittsburgh is ever going to become a global 24-hour city like New York, Chicago or Los Angeles. Not everyone needs or wants everything those cities have to offer. In fact, one of Pittsburgh's major attractions is its potential as an escape from the rat race (more like a maze with no exit) while still providing the basic elements of an urban and metropolitan setting. And I have no earthly idea why anyone would want to compare Pittsburgh to that bland, sprawling, soul-sapping chunk of Purgatory called Charlotte. It just goes to show you how sharp the KDKA lot is. Have any of those knotheads ever actually been to Charlotte? I'd rather live in Pittsburgh the way it is today for the rest of my life than spend 5 years in that humanity-crushing Stepford Hell.
Plenty of us are willing to trade a coastal setting for a sane cost of living. Part of the problem of the coastal areas is that they are, or are becoming, a victim of their own success. Very few people can afford to buy into coastal Florida, California, New York or New England. Many people who bought into those areas a long time ago can't afford to stay and they're looking to get out. Read the L.A. threads some day. It's sobering how people there are stempeding over each other to escape. Read the Philly or Pennsylvania statewide threads to see how many people are inquiring about the practicality of moving from the NYC area. Even the coastal South is becoming too expensive for many as it becomes overrun with resorts & golf courses and snatched up for vacation properties. I've priced properties in much of the coastal Carolinas and Georgia. After looking at the price tags, I'm not interested. The elevator already left and there's no getting in on the ground floor any more, unless you're looking strictly for investment properties; then there's still time. If you just want to afford a decent sized house to raise a family in, it's almost too late. Some of us don't care if we never live within hundreds of miles of a coast. Plenty more of us might dream of living on a coast some day, but in the meantime we need a cheaper place to settle down, raise our families and save for retirement.
The reason why potential urban pioneers have an eye on Pittsburgh is because it already has about 3/4ths of what we're looking for. We don't want to affect some kind of complete top-to-bottom makeover. In fact we want to keep a lot of it the way it is. Yeah, we'd like to sweep away as much of the urban blight as possible and put something better in its place. As for the rest, we just want to give it a new coat of paint and pull the weeds, because that's about all it needs. The one great big missing key ingredient is an economic future that's brighter and more certain than it is now. That is the main thing Pittsburgh lacks, primarily because of the regional culture of pessimism, insularity, and its stubborn unwillingness to participate in its own renewal.
It's never really easy to put a finger on what Pittsburgh thinks it wants. You illustrate this perfectly with your lament that Pittsburgh is an old city that doesn't want to change and nothing has changed, yet and find it “obnoxious” that outsiders would want to come in and change it. Well, do you want change or not? The locals aren't doing it, so what's wrong with outsiders coming in and doing it? If what you have now is so great, you all wouldn't spend so much of your spare time assuring each other how crummy it is. It's like the region practically shouts in unison, “THIS PLACE SUCKS!” and then 3 seconds later you all shout ”DON'T CHANGE IT!” Seem a little schizophrenic to you? It certainly does to those with the intellectual, human and financial capital to make a difference. Which is why many of us stay away.
And finally, I'm not moved by the “we won't sell out” load of nonsense. You're all selling out your city right now by refusing to accept that change or suffocation is an either/or proposition, and you're choosing suffocation. You can't simultaneously build a future while trying to preserve the past as if your whole city were some giant historic re-enactment. Otherwise Chicago would still be nothing but a giant stockyard and a bunch of railroad junctions; San Diego would be nothing but a bunch of naval yards; Seattle would be nothing but a logging town; Houston would be nothing but a bunch of oil wells; Florida would be nothing but a swamp; et cetera, and America would still be a primarily agrarian society. I've said it before on this forum, and it bears repeating: letting go of your past is not synonymous with dishonoring it. The sooner Pittsburgh realizes this, the sooner its renewal can begin. And once you Pittsburghers truly begin the process on your own terms, us outsiders will be glad to lend our intellectual and financial support.
Drover, your intellect far surpasses anyone else on this forum, and I'd truly like to thank you for perfectly addressing my own perspectives in a more powerful, moving manner.
Pittsburgh, "The Steel City", and Scranton, "The Electric City", have a lot in common. While Pittsburgh may be home to around 315,000 and Scranton is only home to around 75,000, both cities have faced similar struggles since the end of WWII when urban sprawl as we know it today was born and people began to leave East Coast metropolises in search of more "elbow room" in suburbia, commuting back into the city for work, shopping, dining, etc. As the years progressed, astute business owners realized that much of their clientele was abandoning the city core, and they followed suit by moving to the suburbs to be nearer to their customers. Office and industrial parks soon followed, as major companies wanted to make themselves more accessible to their employees, many of whom had fled to the suburbs. In essence, many former industrial boom towns, including Pittsburgh and Scranton, endured what I like to call the "Krispy Kreme" phenomenon, in which the once-vibrant city core became an empty void surrounded by an ever-growing ring of confectionary goodness on the suburban periphery. In recent years, areas such as Cranberry and Moon Townships have been the "hot-spots" for growth in the Pittsburgh region, and "The Abingtons" have been fleecing Scranton's upper-middle-class from within its boundaries and into its sterile cul-de-sac enclaves replete with bland, forboding McMansions in gated communities that do nothing but reverse years of efforts to "de-segregate" our society.
Traffic congestion between "The Abingtons" and Center City is often horrific, especially at rush hour, and I'm sure Allegheny County residents could attest that traffic into and out of the Cranberry and Moon areas faces similar congestion issues. "The Abingtons" have become an extremely affluent, predominantly-white, Christian area. As such, children growing up in communities such as Clarks Summit, Clarks Green, Glenburn, South Abington, or Waverly are underexposed to any form of diversity, be it racial, ethnic, religious, socioeconomic, etc. Meanwhile, Scranton is becoming home to a growing population of ex-New Yorkers, many of whom are opting to skip the hassles of the "Pocono Commute" and are settling a half-hour further from Manhattan in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area. Among these new residents are Hispanics, Jews, gays, Atheists, African-Americans, etc., all of whom are helping to infuse some much needed diversity into our region. Part of my reasoning behind wanting to raise my three children in the city of Scranton is so that they can go to public school beside diverse peers so that when they do come into contact with someone of a different race, creed, sexual orientation, etc. that they're respectful and non-hostile. In contrast, my own upper-middle-class suburban alma mater was around 99% white, non-hispanic, and straight (or "closeted") which gave me little exposure to diversity. Now that I'm going to college in a center city environment, it was a major shock to my system to walk past homeless people, blacks, Arabs, etc. on my way to campus in Wilkes-Barre, which is probably even more diverse than Scranton is. I don't want a similar "shock factor" to occur with my children; I want them to be well-exposed to being able to experience and appreciate the differences amongst us that make our nation such a wonderful "melting pot," which contributed greatly to my decision to help continue the gentrification of the Hill Section in Scranton.
Sorry to get off on a little "anti-suburban" tangent there, but urban sprawl was the main reason why both Pittsburgh and Scranton nearly met untimely deaths. Scranton hit rock bottom in the 1990s, and very few residents thought there was very little hope left that the city could recover from red ink, crime, urban blight, sprawl, poverty, and other social ills characteristic of urban cores. Nevertheless, when Mayor Chris Doherty took the helm, people began to stop their moaning and took more of a "wait-and-see" approach towards their city. As loft apartment projects were announced, art galleries opened, blighted homes were either razed or rehabilitated, parks were restored, etc., optimism began to spread throughout the city limits again after decades of despair. Scranton is actually becoming more and more of a "think tank" of sorts with each passing year, as the city recently passed a precedent-setting renegade citywide public smoking ban, and a new statewide effort to ban trans-fats was born in a local organic foods store. Scranton is now home to the hit NBC comedy "The Office", in which the city is named or referenced quite frequently (I've even fielded some inquiries from people from Harrisburg and Binghamton, NY who wanted to take a day-trip to our city just based on the show's success). Paul and Mira Sorvino have recently opened a new film office in the city, and their first movie, "The Trouble With Cali", which was almost entirely filmed in and around Scranton, is expected to debut sometime this year. Everywhere you look in our city, potholes are being filled, murals are being painted over graffiti, and loft housing is replacing blighted industrial buildings. People now proclaim "Restoring the Pride", Mayor Doherty's civic pride-building campaign, as a success, even though the city has been facing some red ink issues again as of late. The city's population continues to decline as residents are lured into housing developments just over the city line, but the sheer sense of positive revitalizing energy now present in the city abounds.
Scranton is never going to be Seattle, San Francisco, Minneapolis, or Manhattan, nor do I want it to be. I appreciate the city's wonderful history forged upon iron furnaces, coal mining, and rail transportation, (similar to Pittsburgh's past), and I'm happy to see such relics of our heritage being restored for future generations to appreciate (Steamtown National Historic Site, Lackawanna Coal Mine Tour, Electric City Trolley Museum, Historic Iron Furnaces, Huber Breaker Museum project, etc.) At the same time, we must look forward to initiatives such as "Wall Street West" and a commuter rail connection to NJ and NYC, both of which offer our local college graduates reasons to stay in our city as opposed to contribute to the "Brain Drain" that has been affecting much of the Rust-Belt.
Scranton still has a long way to go before one can truly call it a "Rust-Belt Rebounder", but the massive changes that have occurred, even just since 2000, have "put our name on the map" and have given residents and visitors alike renewed hope that our city is bouncing back. Similarly, Pittsburgh is capable of similar successes as those in Peoria, Collingswood, and Scranton if its own residents would start looking at every little scenario (a young, college-educated couple rehabbing a home in the Mexican War Streets or an empty-nester and widow opening up a new floral shop in Mount Washington) as "good news", then that would only spawn inspiration for MORE progress! Here in Scranton, we've become so jaded after decades of decline that we've begun to appreciate the beauty in every miniscule, minute effort undertaken to improve our city's vitality and quality-of-life. Just becase you're not getting a new headquarters for Microsoft, IBM, or Boeing doesn't mean that all hope is lost. Learn to embrace those from the "outside-looking-in" who want to invest in your hometown. Here in Scranton, we're beginning to get some investment from NJ/NY, and we're graciously accepting the new businesses and restored homes they're providing to our neighborhoods. Pittsburgh, it's your turn to be willing to embrace change and accept new ideas to reinvigorate your economy. Pittsburgh has so much going for it; learn to embrace all it has to offer!
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I think a lot of them just haven't lived anywhere else, so they don't realize that the problems in Pittsburgh are problems that occur in big cities everywhere, and that Pittsburgh's positive qualities are one-of-a-kind. Oh, well. I guess those of us from other places will just have to fix it up with or without all of you negative people...
Apologies for yet another long-winded two-part post...
Bravo, Drover! (Part One)
