The Mayor's Bad News for Pittsburgh

The little brouhaha over appointments to Pittsburgh's Stadium Authority and Zoning Board of Adjustment portends bad things for the City.

It's not just that by making personal loyalty a sine qua non of service on a city Board, the Mayor echoes the worst traits of government at any and every level (and indirectly questions the integrity of all remaining Board and Commission members. Well done!). It's possible, in theory, to align loyalty and competence in personal appointments.

Here, though, the Mayor shows that he just doesn't care about the competence side. When the G20 leaders show up, will they find a more or less new, gleaming, recovering city - with a musty, old-style city government at its core? My earlier Oreo cookie metaphor for Pittsburgh takes on an additional life. Impressive on the outside, mushy and forgettable on the inside.


Specifically:

From Pittsburgh's Zoning Board of Adjustment, out go Alice Mitinger and David Toal. From Alice Mitinger's law firm website:

She is a member of the firm's Land Use, Environmental, Energy & Public Law Practice Group, which focuses on real estate development, environmental, construction and regulatory practices. Ms. Mitinger has had significant experience in zoning and land use litigation, and has appeared before municipal governing bodies and zoning hearing boards throughout Western Pennsylvania. Her appellate practice has included cases before the United States Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and the Pennsylvania Supreme, Superior and Commonwealth Courts.

David Toal has his own office, so there is no website, but he is co-author of a book on Pennsylvania zoning and land use law.

In come Kirk Burkley, a lawyer whose law firm biography praises his experience in the areas of "bankruptcy, financial restructuring and creditors’ rights," and S. Manoj Jegasothy, also a lawyer, who is an experienced trial lawyer, with cases covering the gamut of "breach of contract claims, creditors' rights for large corporations, misappropriation of trade secrets, antitrust issues, declaratory judgments, defamation, tortious interference, breach of non-compete agreements, tenure issues, and insurance disputes, as well as a myriad of personal injury issues."

In other words, on a Board whose mission is "to hear appeals to consider granting variances or special exceptions to the Zoning Ordinance," the Mayor has replaced two people with abundant relevant expertise with two people with none.

Kirk Buckley and Manoj Jegasothy may be fine people and fine lawyers, but neither one got the job because he has relevant professional experience. My informal sense is that the minefield of "ordinary" land use law is even more hazardous than is typical in Pittsburgh, for both developers and neighborhoods alike. It's a step backward for Pittsburgh to have a non-expert board that rules on zoning appeals.

Don't Cross the Mayor

I made a brief and uncommon foray into local politics the other day, when I joined the chorus of criticism over the changing of the Board at the Stadium Authority, as the Mayor clashed with former chair Debbie Lestitian over plans for the North Shore.

The Mayor's office has confirmed the common reading of those events: Debbie Lestitian exercised independent judgment, and for that she was removed.

I don't know Debbie Lestitian, so in that case I'm going solely by what I read in the media. I can add a personal observation, however, to today's coverage of city boards and their members.

Debbie Lestitian isn't the only person being pushed aside; Zoning Board of Adjustment member Alice Mitinger hasn't been reappointed. Is this a case of Lestitian-like retribution, given that she wrote the opinion that concluded that the city's approval of the Grant Street electronic billboard was improper? That opinion that produced a 1-1 vote on the Board, which the Court of Common Pleas just held properly put a stop to construction of the billboard. (Did anyone put a copy of the ZBA's opinions online? Bram, at the Comet, has the ZBA opinion -- see the second image.)

The Mayor's office says "no":

Ms. Doven sought to make a distinction between the zoning board moves and the decision to end Ms. Lestitian's tenure on the stadium panel.

"The mayor didn't agree with Debbie's decisions on the board," she said. "He has a vision for development on the North Shore and she doesn't agree with his vision, so it shouldn't come as a surprise."

"I wouldn't make a similar point about the [zoning board] changes," she added.

Here's my supplement. I don't know Debbie Lestitian, but I do know Alice Mitinger. While she needs no defense from me, I'll note that she is skilled, smart, accomplished, and independent -- precisely the sort of individual that the Mayor should want to continue to serve the City. That's partly because she's committed to serving and serving with integrity, and she has done so already. It's also because inviting people of that caliber to serve the City speaks well of the City itself, as a place and as a government that isn't afraid of what intelligent, committed citizens have to say -- whether or not her not being re-appointed is payback for the billboard affair.

Pittsburgh and International Sport

Having repeatedly criticized the Post-Gazette for failing to give any meaningful coverage to meaningful international soccer football matches -- a problem that I've attributed to the paper's unwillingness to stir the region from its general lethargy when it comes to international affairs -- I need to dole out some deserved credit. The paper gave great space and art to the unexpected success that the US Men's National Team enjoyed in the Confederations Cup, now about to conclude in South Africa.

Of course, hockey season is over, and football season hasn't begun, so professional sports in Pittsburgh are suffering the summer doldrums that we've come to expect. The PG needs to put something interesting in print. And the paper is running wire service coverage; no one on its sports staff knows anything about soccer (if they do, they're not writing about it). And the prominence of the coverage owes more to bandwagon jingoism than anything else. When the US got unexpectedly bodyslammed by Brazil earlier in the tournament, the paper carried a note, but nothing significant.

Still, I'll take what I can get, and maybe this bodes well for the rest of the summer. It would be nice to see more attention in the local media to international dimensions of this about-to-host-the-G20 summit city. When I'm writing about soccer here, I'm writing about it partly because I'm a fan, but partly because of what it says about the region. Right now, the indicators are modestly positive.

As a fan, I'll make a prediction for Sunday's final. I've seen the US play Brazil, in person (1994), and I know that the Americans can bring it when they need and want to. But don't be distracted by Kaká and the samba offense. The Brazilians are fierce in the back, even if they sometimes lack discipline. The US scores first, but Brazil scores last. O Jogo Bonito 2, Americans 1.

Ambitious? You Be the Judge.

From a recent Silicon Valley news report:

To call Michael Madison ambitious is an understatement. His goal for the next
five years is simple — to dramatically change the venture capital landscape
forever.

I'd better get started.

The Californication of Pittsburgh

Bill Toland's recent Diapora Report focused on in-migration of Californians. The Golden State is falling apart, almost literally, and its middle class is seeking greener pastures elsewhere. Bill writes:

We've sent tens of thousands of Pittsburghers to California over the past 25 years, but lately, the inflow-outflow has become more balanced.

From 2000 to 2006, we sent 2,200 Pittsburghers to the Los Angeles metro area, and they sent us 2,300 Californians in return, according to IRS data. That's partly because we're running out of people to send, but maybe there's more to it than that.

When I moved here with my family 11 years ago, I had the clear sense that I was part of a California out-migration (virtually all of the families in our pre-K program vacated the state within a couple of years of the kids starting elementary school), and as I met California ex-pats in the Pittsburgh region, there were inklings that we were part of a First Wave. Now, from that report, it sounds like there is a Second Wave well under way.

But as the numbers grow, so do expectations. With Californians, will Pittsburgh get Californication? The "New Girl in Town" column in Pop City asks: what kind of amenties could Pittsburgh use? The answers -- a public market, a "living wall," a "global newsstand," a destination downtown -- sound vaguely little Pittsburgh could do to make itself a little more like San Francisco or Seattle. (That's not a complete surprise; the New Girl and her family chose Pittsburgh after living in San Francisco.)

In a couple of respects, that's fine. First, I'm for anything that brings a broader international sensibility to the region, and/or brings visibility to its existing international communities -- especially the non-European communities. I'm not waiting for anything like this to happen overnight, however, and a global newsstand is a non-starter in any case. Out of Town News in Harvard Square escaped closure earlier this year by the skin of its teeth. If times are tough for printed international news in Cambridge, then they don't stand a chance in Western PA. Second, I'm for dreaming big and pushing the envelope. If Californication brings a more robust "why not?" sensibility to Pittsburgh, I think that's great.

The broader point is that even in terms of amenities that we'd like to have more of in Pittsburgh (as opposed to, say, transparency, accountability, and fiscal sanity for local government, which are necessities that Pittsburgh truly needs), I wouldn't put "make Pittsburgh more like Seattle or San Francisco" at the top of the list. It's fine to think "why not?," but San Francisco and Seattle aren't models for me (sure, SF and Pgh both have hills, cable cars, and boy mayors, and Seattle and Pgh both have hills and company-town histories, but there the similarities largely end). Instead, I'd put "infrastructure" at the top of the local list -- public safety and public transportation being two of the most important -- so that the great people who already live and work here can make the most of the opportunities that they should have. Let Pittsburgh become Pittsburgh.

As a prescription, that's really vague, so let's make it concrete: Before we imagine building a public market, let's help Karen Lillis find a safe place to live and way to travel around the city.

Illustration: Californication, by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Mt. Lebanon and Today's Sign of the Pittsburgh Apocalypse

It's rare that anything happening out in Mt. Lebanon, PA warrants attention in the broader Pittsburgh Burgh-o-sphere, but recent happenings are just that odd.

Earlier this week, the Mt. Lebanon Commission voted 4-1 to authorize a $2 million general obligation bond issue, with a 20-year maturity, to pay for street and sidewalk maintenance. Apparently, Mt. Lebanon's regular budget just doesn't have the funds to pay to maintain all of its streets.

Over at Blog-Lebo, which stands watch over things Mt. Lebanon, the commenters thoughtfully point out that this deal is even more bizarre than it might seem initially. Most of the interest on the bonds gets paid toward the end of the bond, but it accrues throughout. Translation: the interest here is huge -- but deferred.

Why mention this here? Because I wonder whether Mt. Lebanon might be a canary in Pittsburgh's economic coal mine. I don't know why the Commissioners decided not to live within the town's ordinary budgetary means. To the best of my knowledge, none of the streets or sidewalks in question is dangerous or in need of repair that is so urgent that we can't wait to pay for repairs in the ordinary course. The fact that Mt. Lebanon decided to put the bill on the taxpayers' proverbial credit card suggests that tax revenue may have fallen to the point that Mt. Lebanon can't afford to pay all of its ordinary municipal bills without going further into debt -- and high interest credit-card style debt at that. (Too bad Mt. Lebanon couldn't really put the tab on a rewards-earning card!) If Mt. Lebanon is struggling to pay its bills -- Mt. Lebanon, which much of Pittsburgh loves to sneer at for its high living -- then there may not be a lot of cheering about the prosperity of the region as a whole by the time the G20 rolls around in September. If I'm right, then undoubtedly there will be local Schadenfreude to spare. But Mt. Lebanon won't be alone.

Of course, I may be completely wrong. Instead of being cash-poor, Mt. Lebanon may have gotten advice about how to fund municipal operations from the same folks who brought us the overheated, overleveraged housing-and-CDO market. Or the Commissioners voting for the bond issue thought that the taxpayers of Mt. Lebanon are paying just enough attention to see "street repair" and "no upfront cost to the taxpayer" in the same equation and think that nothing is amiss (or worse - that things are fine!) -- while hundreds of thousands of dollars in needless interest expense goes flying out the door over the life of the bonds. Maybe this is just the usual we-get-the-lousy-local-government-we-pay-for that Pittsburghers have gotten accustomed to. Or maybe Mt. Lebanon's tax revenue is declining - but other areas of Allegheny County haven't or won't see comparable declines.

If you're keeping score at home, you might be aware of the fact that the Mt. Lebanon School Board is finalizing a project to replace the aging Mt. Lebanon high school facility. The construction budget (that is, the tab for the taxpayers)? Whatever the amount of money that the Board is legally authorized to spend without asking the taxpayers to actually vote thumbs up or thumbs down on the project -- which is to say, somewhere in the neighborhood of $110 to $115 million. The School Board has to be thinking that if they put that project to a vote, the taxpayers of Mt. Lebanon would vote it down; that's another big bill for the government credit card. The Municipality of Mt. Lebanon and the School District are separate entities, but the bloody taxes get squeezed out of the same human stones.

I know that lots of Post-Gazette staff (even continuing Post-Gazette staff) live in Mt. Lebanon and I know that a lot of them (including the Mt. Lebanon residents) read this blog. Here's a story idea: Test the hypothesis. How are municipal economies doing around Southwest PA? Is Mt. Lebanon an outlier, a canary in the coal mine, or neither?

[Update Wednesday June 24: A resident went to the videotape, as Warner Wolf might say. The mystery in Mt. Lebanon thickens.]

Metablogging: How Will Cities Respond?

I put this up just for Bram and a few others, maybe for a few of the recently retired journalists in town... Governing has some thoughts and links titled: Microjournalism: How Will Cities Respond?

Support Your Local Libraries

Like a lot of publicly supported resources, the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh is staring at the light of an oncoming train in its budgetary tunnel..

Paging Ray Bradbury, who is speaking out for libraries everywhere!

Complicating Pittsburgh's Progressive Narrative

Once in a while, the Mayor of Pittsburgh makes a move that clealry and publicly undercuts the "Pittsburgh is moving forward again!" narrative that has dominated recent media coverage of the region. This is one of those times. The Mayor is booting Debbie Lestitian from the chair's position at the Pittsburgh Stadium Authority, over her reluctance to go along with below-market plans to develop the North Shore space between Heinz Field and PNC Park. Her replacement: local lawyer Michael Danowitz.

The Mayor's hostility to the Stadium Authority has what passes for a long history during his tenure. These pesky Boards and Commissions seem to be getting in the way of real estate developers and their partners doing deals directly with the city, with the relative absence of public scrutiny that usually accompanies that way of doing business. But the Authority and its role in the redevelopment has a history that's even older than he is, as Chris Briem points out. Read the names on the report that Chris links to. Once upon a time, and despite all of the flaws associated with redevelopment, government was seen as a way to make Pittsburgh a bigger and brighter place.

On KDKA Radio Today

I got up at the crack of down dawn this morning (Monday, June 22) to do a quick interview with KDKA radio hosts Larry Richert and John Shumway on the case of Jammie Thomas, the woman in Minnesota who was targeted by the recording industry for illegal file sharing and who was on the business end of a $1.9 million jury verdict last week.

The interesting aspect of the case and the verdict (if it stands) is the amazing amount of the damage award -- something that even the recording industry itself is somewhat embarrassed about. (The defendant uploaded roughly two albums' worth of copyrighted content -- about $30 worth -- and even given the jury's conclusion that she acted "willfully," surely no extra-special deterrent is needed to ensure that she doesn't do it again.)

On the radio, though, the question was simply how to avoid getting yourself into such a mess. That's easy: The recording industry has largely stopped suing individual file sharers, so the likelihood of getting sued for "ordinary" use of free P2P services is pretty small. If you want to eliminate even that small risk, then simply avoid using free P2P services altogether, and ensure that if you do -- download only. Don't offer your file directory to the network for others to copy from you.

There is little doubt that the copyright system has reached a consensus that "ordinary" use of those services to upload and download music, film, and computer software without permission of the copyright owners is copyright infringement, and while you're not going to get sued if you do it, whether you download or upload, eventually you may find yourself getting cut off by your ISP (including your school or employer). Enterprises that put free file sharing tools out on the Net will still come under withering fire, both here and abroad.

At least, that's the case unless and until hell freezes over Congress passes a rational copyright law.

Of course, almost none of that made the air; being a good electronic media guest means short-and-pithy answers -- lively entertainment, not informative content. I'm told that the segment will be repeated today. If you find a link (I haven't), let me know.

[Link added Tuesday, June 23]

Journalism vs. Blogging

Down in Washington DC, the Washington Post has manufactured a little maelstrom in the blogosphere by terminating the freelance deal that allowed Dan Froomkin to write White House Watch for the last several years -- White House Watch being a spectacularly successful and spectacularly thoughtful "I call B^&*s&*@" report on the exercise of executive authority and precisely the sort of thing that is missing all too often from contemporary "mainstream" journalism.

Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com has a lengthy series of posts and interviews on what this means. In short, the move reflects the core pathology of the contemporary news media. A sample of Greenwald:

At the Post, Froomkin stated when government officials were lying; applied skepticism to claims from politicians; believed journalists should do more than mindlessly recite what each side claims; and treated politicians on all sides equally. In a minimally healthy political culture, those would be the bare requirements for being called a "journalist." In the establishment media culture we have, those traits disqualify you from the term and, if they persist, get you fired.

I mention this episode only to encourage all of you who care about the future of Pittsburgh journalism to read, watch, listen, and then ponder the extent to which the region's establishment media meet Greenwald's criteria. For all of the public angst about the economics of print and the survival of the news, we should all care that there is something there to save.

Whatsamotto U?

My brother came to Pittsburgh last week for a visit -- his first ever -- and within minutes of deplaning and listening to the briefest of recitals on Pittsburgh's recent history, he came up with a motto for the region that's better (not to mention thousands of dollars cheaper) than any local branding initiative of the last decade. Ready?

It's steel good in Pittsburgh.

This doesn't work as a visual. It only works if you say it aloud, it only works if you say it aloud with your best Pittsburgh accent, and it works best if you say it aloud with your best Pittsburgh accent while wearing a Pens retro jersey and waving a Terrible Towel. Go ahead. Try it. Write a song to it; make a video about it; tell your friends. It's going to be the unofficial motto of Pittsblog (look to the right of the blog), and if someone actually takes me up on my invitation, you'll see links to YouTube galore.

Shot and a Beer

Everyone is happy in Pittsburgh these days, or so it seems, with the clear exception of the workers at Iron City Brewing. A few days ago, the troubled brewer announced that production will move from Lawrenceville to Latrobe, putting an end to well more than 100 years of Iron City brewing in the city of Pittsburgh and, the owners hope, to the last decade's worth of financial troubles.

There's no going back or re-writing recent history [the link is to a Wikipedia summary of Iron City], but it didn't have to be that way. Iron City Brewing is a dying relic of Pittsburgh's better industrial and local-brewing past. The beers themselves have a loyal following, I assume, but I've never heard anyone go out of their way to say that any Iron City brand is distinctive or great or even good. The hubbub over the move to Latrobe isn't a hubbub over loss of a distinctive Pittsburgh taste. (For example, the Church Brew Works, just up the street from Iron City in Lawrenceville, makes beer I can believe in.) It's a hubbub over one of the few remaining public connections to the region's 19th century industrial greatness (Pittsburgh was the "Iron City" in the 19th century and became the "Steel City" in the 20th), and over a dwindling number of brewery jobs.

As a non-native, I've always contrasted Iron City with the very different trajectory of my favorite beer from the West Coast, Anchor Steam Beer. Forty-five years ago, Anchor -- a dying relic of San Francisco's better industrial and local-brewing past -- was on the edge of bankruptcy and went up for sale. The brewery was bought for pennies, metaphorically speaking, by a young local entrepreneur named Fritz Maytag (part of the appliance family), who kept the brewery in San Francisco and gradually renewed the production facilities, the brand, and the quality of the product. To many people, Anchor Steam Beer is an microbrew emblem of the high-end Yuppie culture that took over much of San Francisco during the last 20 years, but the real story is one of entrepreneurship, perserverance, and craft manufacturing. Anchor is a tale of urban brewery death and rebirth. Fritz Maytag decided to make good beer, even great beer. To his fans, he's done exactly that.

Renewing the past with entrepreneurship and hard work is the sort of thing that Pittsburgh likes to think it is really, really good at. Make and market a top-quality product, respect the changing demands of the marketplace, and the money will come. But not in this case. The Iron City case shows that sometimes, the mythology is just mythology. In the mid-1980s, Pittsburgh Brewing (the earlier name of Iron City Brewing) had a successful light beer. Around the time that the microbrewing market was starting to take off, Pittsburgh Brewing went in the other direction, and the company was sold to an international syndicate. I wasn't in Pittsburgh then, but in retrospect that bid to hold on to something of a mass market seems arguably to have been the first nail in the brewery's coffin. Around that same time, Fritz Maytag's perserverance began to pay off in earnest. I remember 1985 and 1986 as the time when Anchor Steam beer caught its first modern marketing wave.

Will Iron City survive in Latrobe? Not by pretending that it's still a Pittsburgh product. Only if it makes a beer that enough people want to buy, and only if it can clear up its balance sheet. Honor the ghosts of Pittsburgh past, but don't listen to them. Listen to the marketplace.

G20, the new convention center, and the unhistory of Pittsburgh

Nothing unique about this article; it reflects most media coverage I have seen and popular sentiment I suspect. Take a look at the story today in the Trib about the convention center. What isn't mentioned in even the briefest passing syllable is a word about the person singularly responsible for getting it built. Up until the moment the G20 thing was announced he was more often than not derided for it.

I was going to leave it at that and not fill in the blank. But at this point I know there are already folks who have no idea who I am talking about, so thoroughly has he been ostracized from local history.

Love him, hate him, or somehow be indifferent toward him, but how can you write about the history of the new convention center without talking about Tom Murphy? It may be an inconvenient history for some, but it is hard to imagine there being a new convention center without him. For what is an awfully honest discussion on the topic.. see a panel discussion on this this topic at NY's New School including the former mayor and others from a few years ago. The line asking about him how the stadia and the convention center were build despite the overwhelming defeat of the Regional Renaissance Initiative (RRI) some years reads: "We sort of said we’re going to do it anyway. " When it was being attacked, most in town would have argued the 'we' could have been written in the singular.

Googlebombing Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh may be the most livable city in the United States, but the region is still painfully insecure. Or maybe not - maybe there's just a local marketing firm that is desperate for work.

A local firm called Eyeflow wants to use the power of PageRank to move "Pittsburgh" into the number one position in Google search results for the phrase "The Best City in the World."

Can words describe this adeuqately? "Foolish" comes close. Complete and utter waste of time? Ignorant? Desperate?

What's worse, the Post-Gazette fell for it and put the thing on today's front page.

Googlebombing has been tried before.

The folks at Google don't like it. They have figured out ways to stop it. Anyone who knows anything about search -- which is to say, any marketing firm that you might care to hire, in my view -- knows that it's a waste of time.

Pittsburgh as City State

If Pittsburgh were an ancient city state, which city state would it be? I suggest Corinth: wealthy, proud, and cosmopolitan in its heyday, yet unable to maintain its independence, and ultimately destroyed, later to be rebuilt.

The city-state proposition occurred to me as I thought about the Penguin-palooza that's taken place outside the Igloo/Mellon Arena during Penguins playoff games. Despite my optimism about "Penguins Nation," it's clear to me that Penguins mania is almost the perfect antithesis of Steelers mania. The Pens phenomenon is tightly concentrated in Southwestern Pennsylvania and among a narrow band of hockey fanatics elsewhere. The regional allegiance that binds Steelers fans internationally, whether or not they really care about football, seems not to map to hockey.

That's fine, of course, because the point is the metaphor, not the sport itself. In many ways, though I don't care about hockey much, I like the Penguins better than the Steelers. The Pens as a business understand their role in the region's business ecology (the link is to an earlier post that commented on a story about partnering with local entrereneurs) better than the Steelers sometimes seem to (the link is to the latest news on the Steelers' proposed state-subsidized entertainment venue next to Heinz Field).

That makes me think of the city-state analogy. In certain weird ways, the Pittsburgh region is its own country. And from Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Classicists, to arms: Which ancient city-state are we?

Utterly Opinionated

Welcome to the blogosphere to Eve Picker! Eve is president of no wall productions (real estate development focused on Downtown Pittsburgh and urban neighborhoods) and a Pittsburgh social entrepreneur par excellence. Watch her new blog at Utterly Opinionated.

Commence Commencing

My fellow law professor Jonathan Zittrain, Churchill native and Shady Side grad, delivered a fabulous commencement address at Shady Side last week. Here's the full text; below is a taste. It's wisdom that is as old as the Pittsburgh hills, in many ways, but it bears repeating and applying -- by adults no less than by children. Taking Wikipedia as an optimistic example but viewing it with a critical eye -- how might Pittsburgh wiki-fy itself?

My view is that Wikipedia and projects like it belong at the heart of a high school and college education. Instead of turning to a handful of approved sources and paraphrasing them to write a ten-page U.S. History paper that will be viewed and graded only by the teacher – who looks at a stack of papers and anticipates the same bad movie, twenty times – you can be asked to demonstrate a sustained and original contribution to a Wikipedia article on an important topic, having to contend with conflicting sources and others’ arguments, learning to discern and then defend truth amidst chaos – and to refine your own view in light of what you discover. There are few things as devastatingly disarming to others as admitting when you’re wrong.

For the world you are entering – really the one you’ve been in all along – is one swimming in received wisdom, accepted uncritically. Too easily we farm out the hard work of knowing whether our society is on a sustainable path to policymakers, experts, or the media. It’s like: Katie Couric will tell us if there’s anything genuinely worth worrying about. But these channels of authority are overwhelmed, dysfunctional, and in some cases outright corrupt.

What will reinforce them, or even take their place, is something you can help build, with tools that even ten years ago were unknown. The key is to move from the reactive, desultory world of Charlie Brown to one in which you appreciate that you are generally at least as empowered as the next person, and to realize the ethical dimension that accompanies the day-by-day as well as the landmark events in life. As my best friend at Shady Side put it, reflecting on what he knows now that he and I had missed in high school, one of the best ways to evaluate your success is the effect you have on a room of people – family or strangers – when you enter. Does it become brighter or darker? That’s something you can choose, even though too often it’s just a script followed without much thought. Enterprises like Wikipedia urge us to ask the same question in our virtual lives, knowing how often they touch real ones.

The View From the Netherlands

I've been off road-tripping around the US (more on that, maybe, in a later post). In my In-Box on my return was a link to the Dutch national TV piece about the persistence and post-steel revival of Pittsburgh. There is little new here (unless, of course, someone wants to translate a bunch of Dutch; I have no idea what the reporter is saying!), but the Dutch captured some pretty pictures on the couple of (relatively) blue days that they were in town. Interspersed with the attractive stuff are two clips of me. Hup Holland Hup!

Pittsburgh Technology Then and Now

Mikes last post on anchor tenants seems to have evolved in the comments to a short discussion on innovation in the region. Some may my oped in the PG on Sunday that talked about the G20 meeting coming up. That oped wasn’t really about the G20 at all of course (shh), but it got people’s attention. In it I talked about some of the best economic research ever done on the Pittsburgh region which dates back to the 1960’s. That research included some study of the Research and Development landscape in Pittsburgh back then. You have to believe there was some point in time when Pittsburgh had not only one of the greatest industrial concentrations in the nation, but also the greatest concentration of R&D as well. What may be the biggest question about the region’s inability to grow in the latter half of the 20th century is not why steel went away, which I think we generally understand, but why all that R&D didn’t generate new growth vectors. Let’s use the phrase of the day: green shoots, as it were. It may not be such a mystery. Others will phrase it differently, but I bet many will have answers that are corollaries to Chinitz’s hypotheses on why innovation and entrepreneurship lagged in the region.

Just for context, here is a map produced almost a half century ago showing the major R&D activities in the Pittsburgh region. If you want to see the actual list of sites plotted on that map here is both a high res and low res version of that. You can click on the map for a higher res version as well. Sorry, the HiRes versions are scanned inefficiently and are pretty big files.

A citywide open hahs

A recent trip to Toronto happened to coincide with an event they've been doing there for a decade now: Doors Open Toronto, a kind of citywide open house. All weekend, all comers are invited to step inside 175 buildings for a look around, free.

All these buildings, all over town, with all their architectural styles. The grand bank buildings downtown have a few security guards to keep an eye on things, and many venues feature special exhibits and have volunteers on hand to answer questions, conduct behind-the-scenes tours, give talks or offer other activities -- one church we went into not only had a couple performing live music but also invited visitors to go upstairs and ring the church's bell. Ask your inner child how cool that is.

Doors Open partners with Lit City -- Toronto Stories, Toronto Settings, "where books meet buildings," which produces a program of author readings and walks that highlight neighborhoods and landmarks featured in literature.

The kick-off party was held at the Royal Ontario Museum the Friday evening before: free admission, all galleries open, live music and a Lit City panel.

And for four years now, there's been a kid-friendly aspect to cater to children, with a separate guide booklet that emphasizes the open buildings and activities most appealing to the little ones.

Most buildings are open both Saturday and Sunday, roughly from 10-5, and there is no preregistration, no tickets, no admission charge. You just show up and wander around, whether you're a local who's just never seen the inside of some of those edifices you hurry past every day or a tourist who just happened to be in town and thinks, "I can go in here and it's free? Neat. What happens?"

This could translate so readily to Pittsburgh. Think of all the groovy old buildings -- and new green ones! -- we have all over town. All those lavish, ornate bank buildings and theaters/concert halls from the city's golden boom years, all the intriguing renovations and repurposings (Cork Factory, for example), all the new LEED-certified eco-showplaces, the August Wilson, the Warhol, the Kelly-Strayhorn, Byham, Benedum and Heinz Hall, the banks, the colleges and universities, the courthouse, the Cultural District art spaces ... I can't begin to name or even think of them all, but you can probably come up with a half-dozen before the next time you blink. Corporate and historic/preservation sponsorships should be easy to elicit, and the city could pony up some promotional cash. It would provide an opportunity for arts organizations to reach new audiences with some free or low-cost performances, organizations with decaying historic infrastructure might scare up some sympathy and donations, and suburban commuters might work up a little passion for the little-known treasures hidden among the potholes and construction detours and blight like pearls in oysters.

History and Landmarks? CDCP? Visit Pittsburgh? You listening?