Saturday, October 29, 2011

Pittsburgh's Mind Bank

A profile of East Liberty in the upscale British travel/culture/lifestyle magazine "Monocle" (paywalled here; an expat friend sent me the full text) asks:

Is East Liberty America's Next Silicon Valley?

The answer: a qualified "maybe." Ah, the Fourth Estate.

The piece includes a fabulous quote at the end of the following paragraph, from the Warhol's Eric Shiner. The excerpt is an accurate and pithy rejoinder to the misleading "Pittsburgh rebuilt itself!" narrative.

Buoyed by vibrant medical and academic sectors, and propped-up by well-financed family foundations, a leaner and increasingly greener Pittsburgh has emerged as a low cost/high quality of life location for knowledge industry start-ups and venture capital. As Andy Warhol Museum director Eric Shiner explains of his home town, “Although my generation all left after college, the universities and rich cultural institutions helped keep the city’s mind bank alive.

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