Documenting Pittsburgh Culture

Via CityLab and the Six Percent Place experiment, Eve Picker is documenting attitudes, preferences, and beliefs in and around Garfield, which is the target of the experiment.  Her posts, summarizing the work to date, are well worth reading.

• The design of the interview project
• Who was interviewed
• Interview questions for locals
• Interview questions for incomers
• What incomers like(d)
• What incomers don't like

My takeaway of the whole thing, so far: 

Rust Belt Chic is working, up to a point.  Pittsburgh's accessibility, "authenticity," and cost of living are attracting some young creatives.  (Whether "young creatives" are keys to the region's economic future is a Floridian question that I won't address here.)  But the lack of cultural diversity in Pittsburgh and the region's relatively "closed" character are barriers to success -- personal success, and the region's success -- as they have long been.