The New Boston

Up in Boston, folks talk about the place as "The Hub." I've never heard a straight story as to the origins of the metaphor, or as to its meaning. Hub of what? But now I'm thinking that Pittsburgh might want to lay claim to something similar. Sure, a few years ago PIT lost its hub status for USAir(ways). But the pace of talk about Pittsburgh as a something of a model city, or an anchor city, seems to be picking up. And I mean that in a good way.

I'm prompted to say this first and foremost because of Chris Briem's recent "Cleveburgh" op-ed about regional Pittsburgh/Youngstown/Cleveland collaboration/cooperation (with Pittsburgh implicitly but clearly as the dominant or leading player -- my gloss, not Chris's point). Chris was summing up for the popular press a theme that has percolated through his own Null Space and through Jim Russell's Burgh Diaspora for several years. The difference now is that the popular conversation seems to be willing to give the idea some credit. It's more than "they like us! they really like us!"; it's "there's something there worth talking about."

But the Pittsburgh hub idea is also implicit in the Burgh Diaspora theme (Pittsburgh as the center of a huge universe of expats and would-be in-migrants), which edged up another notch in popular credibility the other day, beyond Jim's blog and beyond the occasional column in the Post-Gazette, with the launch of Carl Kurlander's Six Degrees of Pittsburgh blog at the PG.  I'm hoping that Carl keeps up blogging and that the comments start to roll in, because the PG's web audience is huge.  The Diaspora is more than Steeler Nation.  Carl is making the right case:  the Diaspora, and the idea of regional, national, and global connectedness, are keys to Pittsburgh's economic future.  He's talking about entertainment and Hollywood and Pittsburgh as a storytelling and filmmaking hub.  But those are just examples of a broader model that cuts across economic sectors.

Welcome, Pittsburgh Expat Network!

Burgh Diaspora blogger, professional geographer, and Pittsburgh evangelist Jim Russell has co-founded the new Pittsburgh Expat Network. Its mission and activities have yet to take specific shape, it appears, but the idea is excellent: converting the emotional capital associated with the Pittsburgh Diaspora into tangible human and financial capital. From the PEN site: "Part alumni network, part social venture, part economic development engine, we're hoping that PEN offers an alternative to traditional thinking about talent attraction and retention." I think of it as social entrepreneurship on a massive scale. Take a look at the PEN site.


Jim is also part of the next CityLive! event: November 3 2010 at the New Hazlett Theater.

Here's a copy of the announcement for that event:

Choose Pittsburgh!
6:30PM @ New Hazlett Theater

CLICK TO RSVP [click "Events"]

In Spring 2010, the Huffington Post listed Pittsburgh as their #2 pick on their 'Best Cities for the Newly Graduated' list. “Pittsburgh seems an unlikely place for a renaissance but the city escaped the recession relatively unscathed and is moving forward in many areas," the Huffington Post noted. “Besides having bustling education and health care sectors, the city is also generous with arts initiatives.”

What is it that motivates young people to choose a city? Is it employment opportunity, cultural diversity, cost of living or quality of life? What is it that Pittsburgh does well, and what could we be doing better? How do we become everyone’s #1 pick?

Join cityLIVE! as a panel of local experts discuss why we need to be picked, what criteria young (or old) people use when selecting a city to live in, and how Pittsburgh might become more competitive in attracting and retaining young and talented professionals in our region.

Our panelists include Jim Russell, co-founder and chief strategist of the Pittsburgh Expatriate Network (PEN), Regina Koetters, an urban redevelopment consultant who chose to relocate to Pittsburgh, and Luis von Ahn, a professor in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University. Jessie Schell, CEO and founder of Schell Games will moderate the anticipated lively discussion.

Don’t be square. Be there.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CITYLIVE! IS A NO WALL PRODUCTIONS, HEINZ FAMILY FOUNDATION, NEW HAZLETT THEATER COLLABORATION

SHOW YOUR LOVE! DONATE NOW!

and is sponsored by: The Fine Foundation, The Grable Foundation, The Heinz Endowments, The Heinz Family Philanthropies, The Benedum Foundation, R.K. Mellon Foundation and Anonymous

The Diaspora Will Be Delivered

From the Trib:

First came the 45-minutes-or-it's-free wave of pizza delivery.
Now it's FedEx's turn.

From Hollywood to West Palm Beach, people in all corners of the country are experiencing pies from Mineo's Pizza House, delivered overnight by the shipping agency.

The pizza joint, which celebrates its 50th anniversary next month, has been shipping since 1999 to "bring Pittsburgh to people's hearts," owner Giovanni Mineo said. "No one ever wants to leave Pittsburgh, so if they do, they want to have a Pittsburgh memory -- and that's this pizza."

Link

Mineo's is far from the only pizza place nationwide that ships pizzas by Fed Ex. In fact, someone with a taste (!) for some off-beat data wrangling could bake up some interesting Diasporan statistics by contacting Fed Ex for information on where overnight pizza deliveries originate and land. Account for population differences (adjust for larger populations in great pizza towns like New York, Chicago, and Oakland/Berkeley - yes, Berkeley, and a smaller population in New Haven), as well as for pizza style. Mineo's is thin crust, and I suspect that it doesn't travel as well as Chicago-style deep dish or stuffed pizza.

Pittsburgh's Lost Opportunities

Do read Jim Marczak's piece in today's P-G on how Pittsburgh can grow and thrive -- if it reaches out regionally and globally. Jim is CEO of SYCOR AMERICAs. Jim Russell at Burgh Diaspora connects the dots.

Crowdsourcing Community Revitalization

Spotted at I Heart Pgh:

The communities of Braddock, North Braddock, Rankin, and Swissvale—through
the Tri-Boro Development Forum (TBDF)—are sponsoring an open contest to find
practical solutions to pressing problems. Because no matter how hard we try, the
problems we face are too large for any one community to solve on their own.

The Challenge will: · Connect people from around the region and across the
globe through public forums, multimedia technology, and social networking online
and off. · Capitalize on every person’s area of expertise, from residents and
local leaders to experts in community development, to make collaboration easier
and more effective· Take advantage of other communities’ successful efforts to
solve problems that are similar to our own. · Engage the community to make civic
affairs fun, with the chance to win cash prizes!

Interested? The Community 2.0 Challenge kickoff event is Wednesday, March
19, 2008, at the Braddock Carnegie Library. The event will include an open house
from 4:00-6:00pm to familiarize you with the history and geography of the area.
An open forum from 6:00-7:00pm will give people an opportunity to voice their
concerns. A speaker panel from 7:00-8:00pm will lend their advice on how to
articulate these concerns into practical action. And don’t worry if you’re not
from around here, all the information you’ll need will be available online at
our web site.

When: Wednesday March 19th at 4:00 pm Open House, 6:00 pm Community
ForumWhere: Braddock Carnegie Library – 419 Library Street in Braddock The
Contest runs from March 19th through May 31st Contact: Ron Gaydos, VP Community
& Economic Development
Heritage Health Foundation, Inc.
445 Fourth
Street, Braddock, PA 15104 Phone: (412) 351-0535 E-mail: rgaydos @ hhfi.org
Website: http://www.tbdfconnects.org

It all kicks off with a Community Forum for input to bring up and confirm
community priorities.

WEDNESDAY MARCH 19TH – BRADDOCK CARNEGIE LIBRARY
4:00 PM: Open House / Community Service Fair
6:00 PM: Community Forum – We need to hear from you!
7:00 PM: Focus Our Action – Short Term and Long Term Steps to Take
Next
Refreshments will be served.
For more information contact Ron Gaydos
at (412) 351-0535 or rgaydos @ hhfi.org

Does Göttingen Have a Steelers Bar?

I like the tone and spirit of today's P-G commentary titled "Germany on the Mon," though the piece disappoints for failing to refer, à la Heine, to the (in)famous Göttingen sausage. With that gustatory amendment, clearly Göttingen is a town after Pittsburgh's brat-loving heart. These are Diasporans in the making:

So what happened in Germany to bring about the "win-win" that Pittsburgh's economic development personnel and internationalists have been seeking in Germany for more than a decade? One of Pittsburgh's most recent business converts, Sycor Americas Inc., together with its German parent company, Sycor GmbH, hosted the "Göttingen meets Pittsburgh" conference to tell its business colleagues, government leaders and friends why Pittsburgh is such a great place for its American headquarters and why it chose Pittsburgh over other cities.

I only wish that One of America's Great Newspapers had the resources to assign a beat writer full-time to Pittsburgh's connections to international markets. In all seriousness, I nominate: China Millman.

Pittsburgh 2.0 Update

I've added a couple of names to the slowly-expanding roster of Pittsburgh 2.0 volunteers at the left: Jim Berardone, major domo of the Product Strategy Network, and Mike Woycheck, co-founder of Pittsburgh Bloggers and proprietor of Wear Pittsburgh. You, too, can get on this list! Commit to a pay-it-forward ethos and become part of the group of Pittsburghers who want to share the wealth hidden in the region's tacit knowledge networks.

I like the whole idea of WearPittsburgh so much that I think that the t-shirts should be the unofficial uniform of the Pittsburgh Diaspora and IntoPittsburgh.

If you're in Pittsburgh on Friday (that's this Friday, February 22), don't miss the chance to meet some of the region's finest bloggers at Blogfest 13. That's at Finnegan's Wake, the now-traditional home of Pittsburgh blogfests. Note the info and instructions here. Hoist a Guinness for me; I'll be trekking through the Middle West this weekend.

The Pittsburgh Diaspora Does a Hotel

Says Pop City:

"A new $48 million mixed-use development is coming to SouthSide Works. Spearheaded by DOC-Economou, the project will feature a 140-room upscale hotel, for-sale condos, a world-class spa, and event, office and retail space."

That's not the piece that caught my eye; Pop City didn't break this story. This is the piece that caught my eye:

The complex calls for a variety of upscale eateries, such as a sushi restaurant
and steakhouse. “We’re doing projects all over the country—Pittsburgh is my hometown. We like that we can give back and create jobs from a hospitality and career perspective,” adds [Phil Hugh, with DOC-Economou], who says that 400 temporary and full-time construction jobs and 100 hotel and hospitality jobs will be created. “We’re working in concert with SouthSide Works to deliver the best possible project to Pittsburgh."

That's a great quote, and it's something that didn't make it into the Post-Gazette report of this deal. The P-G did note that Phil Hugh is from Fairchance, Fayette County.

What Becomes a City Most?

Culled from my reading over the last month: This piece in the Economist, about the Orange County suburb of Cerritos:

Of course, many American cities have built parks, performing-arts centres and fancy libraries while struggling financially. The key to Cerritos's success may be the timing of its investments. Cities such as Cleveland and Baltimore poured money into museums and other grand projects in the vain hope that they would lure businesses and young, creative folk. Cerritos began by building pipelines and roads, then moved on to business parks, policing and schools (including California's best high school). Only when it was rolling in money did it break out the titanium.

Local officials attribute the city's success to fiscal discipline and the ability to follow a long-term plan. That, in turn, is the result of its political culture. Cerritos has a tradition of powerful, long-serving city managers, to whom local politicians frequently defer. As Laura Lee, the mayor, explains, “There are many things we, as elected officials, do not understand.” Voters, it seems, like this arrangement greatly. In a 2002 poll, an astonishing 96% of residents said they were satisfied with the provision of public services.

As a later letter writer (from Baltimore) pointed out, it's much easier to build anew than it is to rebuild the old, and places like Cleveland and Baltimore (and Pittsburgh) face the second challenge, not the first. Still, as Bill Toland puzzles through the "hotness" factor in his latest Diaspora Report, there is something to be said for the idea that foundation work (in the building sense, not the giving grants sense) is itself an attraction. In a different context last week, I wrote elsewhere that Pittsburgh may never attract that Gen Y contingent looking for cocktails and panache. Pittsburgh may and should attract that contingent looking for a place where it can lift a bucket and wield a shovel, metaphorically speaking, urban adventurers looking for a place that needs help and a place where they can make a difference.

Aren't We Special?

On another blog, I was asked to respond to this question: What makes Pittsburghers special?

Here's what I posted:

As a non-native and nine-year resident of the Pittsburgh region, I'll answer [the] "What makes Pittsburghers special?" question with some skepticism. I'm not persuaded that Pittsburghers are special, at least not in the sense that Pittsburghers generally possess some quality or set of characteristics that isn't widely shared in Cleveland or Providence or Tampa or San Diego or Des Moines.

I'm a native Californian, and I learned from a very early age that California is the American Shangri-La. There is no happier, sunnier, or more prosperous place than that anywhere in the world, and there is nowhere else that a person could live and be truly happy.

Of course, this is bunk.

Instead of asking "What makes Pittsburghers [or Californians, or Iowans, or Bostonians] special?," I'd ask "What makes Pittsburghers distinct?" That's a question that I can sink my teeth into, if only preliminarily.

-- A very unusual geography: The hills, the natural resources, the densely populated urban center (now not quite so dense), the quick transition to suburbs and rural areas

-- An unusually strong core demographic and sociological narrative over the last century: Most urban areas are blends of different narratives; Pittsburgh really only has one.

-- The diasporan connection: Partly because of the economic implosion of the 70s and early 80s, a giant distributed population of former Pittsburghers.

That combination, together with other things that I'm not thinking of right now, gives Pittsburghers a pride-of-place that is unusual in this country, even among cities and other places that are extraordinarly proud of who and what and where they are.

Nobody Asked Me, But . . .

I've been all over this great land of ours over the last month, from the Pacific Ocean to Lake Michigan to the Atlantic and home. A few random thoughts on things that I missed but wish I hadn't -- and some that I'd glad I did:

The Post-Gazette launched a new website. Dull. And even more difficult to read than the version it replaced. It's a missed opportunity. I prefer the Post-Gazette Then.

Bill Peduto and friends launched "Reform Pittsburgh Now," one Web 2.0 website to save us all. Take the photo down, BP. It's not all about you. The enterprise has a real 2001 reverse-Oreo feel to it, fluffy distributed social engineering on the surface, concentrated political rhetoric on the inside. Want to use the Net to transform Pittsburgh politics? Think BitTorrent. What we've got is Napster 1.0.

Bacn? This is going to be Pittsburgh's legacy to tech culture? We can do better.

Regionalism and the brain drain. I keep waiting for someone in the MSM to write publicly about the multi-party political power-swapping soap opera going on just beneath the surface of things like Mayor Luke's close brush with ethics. Tim McNulty called one move by the Mayor "chillingly old-fashioned," which sounds to me like code for "cynically manipulative." Does the Post-Gazette dare to pick up its own gauntlet? Instead, the same heads deal the same threads.

In better news, Sam thinks that the Diaspora/Manifesto idea -- which is gradually morphing into something more robust called "Global Connect: Pittsburgh" -- may have a little traction. In Erie. Thanks for the shout out, Sam. Can Pittsburgh out-renew Erie?

Still an Outsider After All These Years!

The following comment came in recently, and it calls for its own place in a post:

Please discuss Steely McBeam the new Steelers mascot. Why can't we let big steel go? What's your perspective as an outsider?

As to Steely: I won't demean the blog by posting a picture of this lunacy or a link to any of the news stories describing it. ("Steely McBeam" is the new name for a steelworker-inspired 3D "mascot" for the Pittsburgh Steelers.) Football is a simple game. It calls for simple measures. As a great but flawed man once said of a different sport, but in a related spirit, "'This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while." Someone in the Steelers organization should take that to heart.

But that's the easy part.

The harder part is calling me an outsider. By the bizarro rules of Pittsburgh culture, I *am* an outsider, because I'm not a native. I wasn't born in Pittsburgh. I've lived in the area only for nine years. No member of my family was living in the area when Maz and the Pirates beat the Yankees; no member of my family worked in a mill. I don't know where Isaly's used to be. (But I'm learning.)

So, yes, I get that. Native Pittsburghers are tribal, and they have their rituals, and you can "convert" if you adopt the rituals (I, too, mute the TV and listen to local radio on Sunday afternoon in the Fall), but you will never acquire a native-born belief in their true power and significance. Still, it grates on me that those people who are natives -- many of whom no longer live in the area, of course -- so obsessively impose and re-impose their tribalism on newcomers. Instead, try this. If you care about the future of this area, no matter where you live or where you were born, you're a Pittsburgher. "Insiders" take note: Accept our interest! We come in peace.

Hands Across the Burgosphere

The Diaspora at work:

The Burgher came up with a cool idea; the resulting widget -- Hands Across the Burghosphere -- appears today in the right column.

Do you want fries with that?

Just because the comment thread on the last post is getting pretty long, here's something different:

I'm in the SF Bay Area today. Here's a link to Yelp reviews of Giordano Bros., a North Beach restaurant that sells "Pittsburgh style" sandwiches.

Giordano Bros. site

More on Multiple Pittsburghs

Here's an excellent comment on my post regarding the multiple Pittsburghs. I've added some paragraphing for clarity:

It’s interesting to see how the pasts of the various Pittsburghs have
influenced how these different groups are viewing their prospects in a new regional economy.

Traditional Pittsburghers have for the most part resigned themselves to the fact that the old economy is over, and they are skeptical that anything acceptable can be developed that will help them or bring their kids back to the region. For those that have come to grips with the current economy,especially those in their golden years, prestige is more important than reinvention. Losing the status of major city is more important that developing a competitive economy.

Poor Pittsburgh never really had a shot in the region’s traditional economy, and they’re not expecting much out of the new economy either. In the meantime the social and support networks from which they’ve relied have become frayed, and their communities more fragile. In a region where opportunity is viewed in short supply, there’s always a need for someone to pick up the garbage, make beds, or clean houses and offices, and this will be needed no matter the state of the economy.

Corporate Pittsburgh sees its paternalist role as holding everything together, which mainly means keeping up appearances, keeping a lid on any potential social revolt (many remember the smoke rising from the Hill in 1968), and keeping their corporations in business. They’ve taken on the role of entrepreneurially developing regional assets in order to be economically competitive, and their lack of entrepreneurial skills is telling.

New Pittsburgh is the future, and they, along with their civic boosters, are waiting out the obstructionalists (Traditional and Corporate Pittsburgh) so that they can step forward and redefine the regional economy and its institutions.

The problem with all of this is that there has been very little work to bring these different groups together to negotiate an economic future where opportunity and wealth are expanded and shared. Part of this is because most feel that decisions about the region’s economic future isn’t, and shouldn’t, be in their hands. Economic decision-making is something best left to experts, and outside of the political process. The belief in the public’s right to consent in the region’s economic development investments is almost pre-Enlightenment in its absurdity.

But if the region is going to bring these populations together, there must be a shared agenda, and that shared agenda has to be built not from power relationships or a skepticism that change is possible, but from a sense of shared benefit from change. The institutional infrastructure to broker these kinds of discussions is really not in place. In the forties Lawrence and Mellon could engage the rank and file and the corporate leadership around a strategy to transform the city into a corporate headquarters. They were strong leaders, certainly, but they also needed consent. The plan gained consent because it was felt that this proposed future was in their best interest. When that strategy failed (as did numerous neighborhood redevelopment strategies), and folks learned what is was like to be left on the short end of what was supposed to benefit all, a distrust set in that many consider insurmountable. Absent negotiation, Pittsburgh’s economic future will depend upon endurance built from a sense of scarcity, rather than growth built from the value of contribution. Could the fruits of victory be more bitter?

Manifesto Meme

Bill Toland at the Post-Gazette puts the Manifesto for a New Pittsburgh at the center of today's Diaspora Report column. Thanks!

Link

Good News from the 'Hounds

The Resilient City Diaspora is at work already:

The Pittsburgh Riverhounds, who desire to become one of the premier soccer clubs in the United States, yesterday took a huge step toward that goal.

The Riverhounds signed a partnership agreement with the Everton Football Club of the English Premier League and will launch a soccer training academy this fall for youth players. The partnership will enable the Riverhounds to model the academy after the highly successful Everton training academy, use the same training methods and some of the same coaches.

Link

As a newcomer to Pittsburgh soccer almost 10 years ago, I'm pleased to see something like this finally start to come together. The partnership focuses on player development, not building an entertainment franchise, and that's exactly the right way to go. Suburban soccer in Pittsburgh has long lagged its counterparts in other regions, largely, I think, because the lack of meaningful foreign immigration to Pittsburgh in the latter part of the 20th century means that the player and coaching pool here didn't diversify in the way that it did in many other communities.

I grew up in suburban California in the late 1960s and early 1970s, playing with and being coached by Europeans, Latin Americans, East Asians, and immigrants from Caribbean countries, especially Jamaica. Much of that diversity was the influx of immigrants to California, but much of it was leveraging the international populations of the local universities. My guess is that Columbus soccer flourished before Pittsburgh because of the influence of the OSU population. Connecting Pittsburgh soccer to an international population, even one that's not as diverse as would be ideal, can only be a good thing. We'll be dancing and dribbling to the Merseybeat.

Moving Forward with the Manifesto, Part III

[Moving Forward, Part I, appears here.]
[Moving Forward, Part II, appears here.]

The Manifesto for a New Pittsburgh argues that in the 21st century, "connectivity is key and king." "Connectivity" means and includes lots of things, but one of them is reaching out for dialogues with other cities that share Pittsburgh's challenges -- and opportunities. Call one piece of this outreach the "Shrinking Cities" blogosphere. Or, more optimistically, a "Resilient Cities" blogosphere. For a start, consider:

Nearby -- I will shout youngstown
Farther away -- Mancubist: Life is good in Manchester. Mancubist seems to be somewhere between a cousin of Pittsblog and its doppelganger; it includes this this very timely and interesting post about a conference on the future of Manchester.

Use the comments to suggest links to other urban reinvention blogs.

Connecting a reinvented-steel-cities-diaspora-blogosphere is, of course, only the tip of a much bigger iceberg. If it chooses to, Pittsburgh can lead the creation of economic development networks and cultural development networks that focus on the histories and futures of similar communities. Put new energy into economic partnerships with industrial cities of England and Scotland. Pittsburgh Celebrates Glass! is a brilliantly conceived multi-dimensional citywide cultural event. Let's do something similar -- "Pittsburgh celebrates the future of steel" -- that puts regional and especially international connections front and center.

The Pittsburgh Diaspora Goes to Work

Jeffrey Taft is a road warrior in the global high-technology services economy, and his work shows why there are limits to the number of skilled jobs that can be shipped abroad in the Internet age.

Jeffrey Taft is a road warrior in the global high-technology services economy, and his work shows why there are limits to the number of skilled jobs that can be shipped abroad in the Internet age.

He is one of dozens of I.B.M. services employees from around the country who are working with a Texas utility, CenterPoint Energy, to install computerized electric meters, sensors and software in a “smart grid” project to improve service and conserve energy.

Read the whole story.

Meanwhile, at a July 3 party out here in the South Hills, I meet two Indians from Dallas who are working on a long-term consulting project in Pittsburgh.

Labor is mobile. Pittsburgh is everywhere.

Pirates Behaving Badly

"Fans for Change" plan a walkout at the Pirates/Nationals game on Saturday night, after the third inning, to protest the pathetic management of the franchise over the last ten-plus-plus years.

The team, ever respectful of its fans (not!), has instructed broadcasters at FSN Pittsburgh not to show images of the walkout or refer to it on air. And the team has removed discussion of the walkout from the message board at pirates.com.

Tried to remove, I should say; it's hard to keep a board completely clean. And a poster this morning has already made the suggestion that I wanted to post here: Aux armes, cell phone, PDA, and mini-cam owners! Shoot photos and videos of the walkout yourselves, and upload the results to YouTube and Flikr. (Don't shoot images of the game being played, though.) Fans for Change can aggregate the links at a site of their own. The protest will automatically get a permanent archive -- and Pittsburghers around the world (diaspora check, here) can see what's happening locally.

Bob Smizik writes: "The protest is an attempt to draw national attention to the lack of success of the team, which is in the midst of a 15th consecutive losing season. That national attention might be difficult to obtain." Show Bob that he's wrong about national (and international) attention. The Pirates and the P-G are thinking in old media terms. Who needs FSN?