How the World Views Pittsburgh

Pop City has always paid attention to the buzz about Pittsburgh. Just check out the  Buzz section, which features national media stories about our region (lately, a ton of those) along with blogs and social media reports about us. We wonder sometimes: will what we're doing here play in Portland and bring energy, business and dollars into our region?  Seeking answers, we sent our writer to Netroots Nation, the annual confab of progressive bloggers recently held in Pittsburgh and populated by young talent. 

If the best and the brightest like us, maybe we're on the right track and according to Audrey Russo, president of the Pittsburgh Technology Council, the Netroots Nation particpants are exactly the demographic we have to lure to Pittsburgh to continue to move this region forward.

In the exhibit hall, I chat up Carlos Jimenez, who's with Jobs with Justice in Washington, D.C.  Rather, he chats me up.

"I've been blessed to be in Pittsburgh three times!" he tells me.  "I'm from L.A. but now I'm in D.C. and those are two specific monsters of urban cities.  Pittsburgh feels different.  There are enclaves like the North Side but it still feels neighborhood-y.  And the steel bridges are amazing!  I love the stone and brick houses and though it's predominantly black and white, I found a small Latino community and some Mexican food in Oakland.  I'm excited to see the Warhol, I hear you have to go see it..."

At the booth around the corner, Scott Treibitz of the Alliance for American Manufacturing is lamenting the fact that "we don't make anything anymore" in America, not even iPods (made in Taiwan).  He feels more upbeat about Pittsburgh.

"It's been about five years since I've been here and it's changed," he says.  "It's grown up a lot since then.  Standing on the second level of the convention center, there's a great view of the stadiums and condos.  Nice to see the urban renewal."

Also surprised by the sights is first-time visitor Drew Lesofski of JoinPPA.org, an online poker player's alliance working to license and regulate online poker games so as to create an orderly marketplace and generate tax revenue.

"My wife's family is from here," Drew says.  "They were coal miners.  I had no idea what to expect but you have tall buildings and more bridges than you can count.  The convention center is huge and people are nice."

"Have you seen the Rivers Casino?" I ask. "It's tall, too."

Eager to talk food is Jay Harris, another first-time visitor and publisher of Mother Jones magazine in San Francisco.

"I was looking for food last night and was simultaneously attracted and repelled by the Sonoma Grille.  The food and drink were good but what's with the "e" on "Grille" – like "Ye Olde Grille?"  I don't get it.  And it so happens I had dinner in Sonoma on Sunday night."

"So how was the food in the real Sonoma?" I ask.

"The real Sonoma was considerably more creative.  I had a beet salad and a soft-shell crab dish..."

Finding himself at Primanti Bros. was Avelino Maestas of the Sunlight Foundation, which promotes openness and transparency in government.  So how was the sandwich?

"It was sumthin' else.  It was huge!  I needed a nap afterward.  And, um, people seem very into their football in Pittsburgh – you see an awful lot of jerseys."

Sans jersey and all fashion is Kathryn Carr, a marketer with the Contact Group, a green communications firm in Austin, Texas.  Her take on our city?

"It's a very seeming middle-class kind of...everything closes early.  The coffee shop closed at 6!  It's a sleepy area, it seems.  I love the Gothic architecture but it's all pretty middle America.  That's my impression.  It's Pittsburgh.  It is what it is.  People seem pretty nice if you engage them, pretty normal.  The demographic is different than what I'm used to and the socio-economic scale is vastly different.  I didn't realize how techy-Austin is till I got here."

"So we don't seem tech-y?" I ask.

"Nooo," she tells me.  "It seems pretty simple here, sleepy.  I asked some locals for directions and they didn't even know."

I pivot and bump into Nick Berning with Friends of the Earth in Washington, D.C.  I ask him about Pittsburgh and his liquid blue eyes and earnest demeanor take me right in.

"It's gorgeous!  The hills, the architecture, the bridges, the convention center...tho I'm not too keen on the coal barges floating down the river.  People are extremely friendly and happy to help and they even give directions!"

"Wow, funny you should say that," I say.  "I just spoke to Miss Texas and she said we don't know how to give directions."

"I think Texans don't know how to take directions," says Nick with a glint in his eye.

And We're Inspirational

Later that night at a mixer for Gov. Howard Dean, I meet Bill Lusk, the mayor of Signal Mountain, Tennessee, just outside Chattanooga.  Turns out the Tennessee mountains were also whip-sawed by the demise of steel and by the early 70s, Chattanooga was the third most polluted city in the country.  Like Pittsburgh, it's also transforming its riverfront.

"To see what's happened here is a wonderful thing.  It's inspirational!" enthuses Lusk.

The last event of the day is a party hosted by Shepard Fairey, the artist responsible for the iconic Obama HOPE poster.  Fairey, who will be exhibiting at the Warhol this fall, is in town painting a series of murals promoting, among other things, clean energy in America.  His event is populated by creatives and thinkers and pulsates to the rhythms of the deejay, Fairey himself.

"My impression of Pittsburgh is totally shattered," says Jason Barnett of The Uptake, an online news aggregator in St. Paul, Minnesota.  "You have this impression of it as the rust belt and you forget about the hills and the rivers.  And the public art is f***ing amazing!  I'm an artist and there are murals everywhere, and there's obviously been a lot of investment downtown."

The last word is left to the man of the hour, who is effusive in his praise for Pittsburgh.

"Every single person I've met here has been really friendly," says Fairey.  "I've met some really cool people and am very impressed with Pittsburgh.  The staff at the Warhol is great and did a terrific job getting property owners to let me put up murals.  The energy seems very positive here – everyone thinks Pittsburgh is depressed because the mills closed but groups are figuring out how to revitalize it creatively and bring in positive energy.  Compared to Boston, where everyone seemed bitter, grumpy and confrontational, here I've found the exact opposite!  Oh, and the Steelers are obviously very big."

Buy that man a Penn Pilsner.

Elaine Labalme writes a column for Pop City called New Girl in Town. To email her, click here.

Captions: The Sixth Street (Roberto Clemente) Bridge; "Arch," a transformer robot/bridge sculpture by Glen Kaino, Downtown; cruising on the Allegheny River; Shepard Fairey party

Photograph of Shepard Fairey party copyright Elaine LaBalme

All other photographs copyright Brian Cohen