Pittsburgh News and Blog Posts

UPMC: The New Steel in Pittsburgh

By Steve Hamm
Business Week
Published: September 21, 2009

The giant University of Pittsburgh Medical Center has helped make the G-20 meeting's host city a model for Rust Belt revival. View the Full Story

The revival of Pittsburgh: Lessons for the G20

The Economist
Published: September 19, 2009

The city of bridges has built a bridge from its steel past to a diverse 21st century economy. The summiteers arriving on September 24th can take note. View the Full Story

A look at green Pittsburgh: The Children's Museum

By Nick Deel
Philadelphia.com
Published: September 17, 2009

As the G-20 Summit approaches there's been a lot of talk of Pittsburgh being one of the greenest cities in the country, a claim not unfounded. The City of Pittsburgh is home to 39 LEED-certified buildings, ranking it eighth in the country for number of LEED-certified buildings. And there are 11,327,045 square feet of space in Pennsylvania's LEED-certified buildings, ranking it ninth among all 50 states.  View the Full Story

Pittsburgh Gets Ready to Take World Stage 

Voice of America
Broadcast: September 16, 2009

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is about to welcome the world as the host city of the Group of 20 economic summit. It is a town that has weathered its own economic storm by making some tough choices and embracing the future. Thirty years after the steel industry lost its glimmer, the old steel city has re-invented itself. Listen to the broadcast  (click on "Wolfson Video Report Watch (WM)" on the right-hand side)    

Beautiful Ruination: Hard-core may be the new green for a town at the end of the line

By Ginger Strand
Orion Magazine
Published: September/October 2009

Helping individuals and groups like Transformazium acquire abandoned houses and other buildings is one of the most radical parts of Braddock Mayor Fetterman's plan. He began by offering free studio space to artists in an old office building he bought himself, with financial help from his father. He lured Fossil Free Fuels-a company that makes vegetable-oil conversion kits for diesel cars-to Braddock by offering them a cheap lease on a nine-thousand-square-foot former electronics store, and free rent for a year in one of his own houses. He has purchased at least three homes and turned them over to people who couldn't otherwise afford them, providing interest-free loans and covering the cost of insurance himself. He bought an abandoned convent and maintains it as a free hostel for people looking for properties, and for AmeriCorps volunteers or those who come to work on the Grow Pittsburgh farm through WWOOF-World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms.  View the Full Story 

Pittsburgh? Yes, Pittsburgh

By Raquel Laneri
Forbes.com
Published: September 2, 2009

As cities around the world suffer from collapsing industries, spiraling real estate prices and crumbling infrastructure, Pittsburgh's persistence--if not quite "boom"--emerges as a ray of hope in this tumultuous time. And it has gone from depressed former steel town to host of the G-20 summit not by emulating other global capitals or rebuilding itself as some shiny sky-scraper-lined metropolis, but by remaining, essentially, Pittsburgh. Battered economies, take heart: If this idiosyncratic, disorganized, humble city can arise as the unlikely symbol of progress in all this mess, there is hope after all.  View the Full Story 

Bridges to the World

By Adam Bruns
Site Selection
Published: September 2009

There’s no mystery to Pittsburgh. The reversal of the City of Bridges' image problem and momentum is exactly why the city was chosen to host the Group of 20 Summit in September 2009. As corporate project counts and their sectoral diversity attest, the reversal is very real. View the Full Story

City of Steel (and Other Stuff) to Get Its Turn on the World Economic Stage

By Sean D. Hamill
The New York Times
July 18, 2009

This can be a quirky city. It has no discernable street grid in many of its 89 neighborhoods. The trademark cuisine is sandwiches with French fries as an ingredient. And the natives speak with a distinct accent and vocabulary, known as Pittsburghese, that is neither Midwest nor East Coast.  View the Full Story  

  

Pitt Stop

By Jennifer Ceaser
New York Post
Published: July 14, 2009

Along the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh, the mills, foundries and factories that once produced iron, glass and aluminum now house sleek, artsy lofts. Technology and pharmaceutical firms have replaced the city's obsolete steel industry. Boutiques and restaurants have sprung up along streets in once-dying neighborhoods. Where once there were choking fumes from coke works, today there's the smell of roasting organic coffee. Pittsburgh is looking pretty good. View the Full Story

Pittsburgh aims to strut its stuff at G20 meeting

By Jonathan Barnes
Reuters
Published: July 9, 2009

Pittsburgh is hoping the world's most powerful leaders will see more than the city's quaint funicular trains and picturesque rivers when they meet here in September.

City leaders hope their selection for the Group of 20 summit signals recognition that in difficult economic times the city has turned from a suffering steel-making center into a modern hub of education, medicine and technology.  View the Full Story

Paperless health care? A hospital's long journey

By Lauran Neergaard
USA Today
Published: July 6, 2009

Baby Riley Matthews wheezed noisily on the exam table. "He's belly-breathing," the emergency-room doctor said worriedly - Riley's little abdomen was markedly rising and falling with each breath, a sign of respiratory distress.

In most emergency rooms, the doctor would grill Mom: Has he ever been X-rayed? Do you remember what it showed? But in the new all-digital Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, doctors just clicked on a COW - a "computer on wheels" that rolls to each patient's side. Up popped every test and X-ray the 6-month-old has ever had.  View the Full Story

Going with the Flow has Served Pittsburgh Well

By Mary Mihaly
The Miami Herald
Published: June 28, 2009

Home to H.J. Heinz, the Steelers and Andy Warhol, the Iron City has morphed from smoky-industrial to vibrant and hip. You always know whether you're driving into a city with pizazz, or one whose energy is dragging. In Pittsburgh, we sensed the lively spirit of this place even before we reached our hotel. View the Full Story

Hot Spot: Pittsburgh

By Kayla Cross
The Baltimore Sun
Published: June 28, 2009

The Smoke City has come a long way since its origins as the industrial giant of the world. Trying to reverse a hazy legacy that led writer James Parton in 1868 to describe it as "hell with the lid taken off," Pittsburgh has joined the green, eco-friendly movement. View the Full Story

What Pittsburgh (Don't Laugh) Can Teach Obama

By Howard Fineman
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Published: June 6, 2009

Struggling cities like Detroit could learn a lot from the Pennsylvania city's rebirth. By most measures - unemployment and foreclosure rates, to name two - Pittsburgh is an island of calm in the raging recession. View the Full Story

Detroit's Economic Struggles Resonate in Pennsylvania

By Ben Schmitt
Detroit Free Press
Published: June 4, 2009

On the ice, their teams are enemies. But when the skates and body checks are silent, Pittsburgh and Detroit share the same blue-collar, rust-belt heritage. One city has reinvented itself through medical centers, universities and green technology, while Detroit is still viewed by many as a one-industry town. View the Full Story

Scout Pittsburgh's Emerging Art Scene

By Grace Bastidas
New York Magazine
Published: May 7, 2009

Visual artists are reclaiming the Steel City by turning its shuttered factories and abandoned warehouses into galleries and performance spaces. View the Full Story

Out of the Ashes: Pittsburgh's Lesson for Milwaukee

By John G. Craig Jr.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Published: May 16, 2009

If you have ever watched a national telecast of a Steelers home game or read a report from "the heart of the Rust Belt" on the mood of the electorate in a presidential primary, you know that the Smoky City is a shadow of its former self. People from around the world forever are coming here to discover: "This is not what I suspected at all. What a beautiful place. What happened?" View the Full Story

Diamond in the Rust

By Henry Hamman
Financial Times
Published: April 25, 2009

But the air is clearer now and the city has regrouped around its concentration of urban universities, research facilities, hospitals, health services and the headquarters of eight Fortune 500 companies. And, in a way, the departure of the big industrial employers was actually a boon, allowing Pittsburgh to avoid the latest, massive rounds of layoffs and downsizings that have brought many Rust Belt cities to their knees. View the Full Story

The Greening of Pittsburgh

By Christine H. O'Toole
New York Times
Published: March 31, 2009

In a contemporary retelling of Aesop's fable of the tortoise and the hare, Pittsburgh is finding recession-era advantages in a slow-growth legacy. The city, which has lost half its population since 1950, had a well-chronicled change of character over the second half of the 20th century: from a center of the steel industry to headquarters for many large corporations to a much more diverse economy that encompasses health care, education, finance and technology. View the Full Story

For Pittsburgh, There's Life After Steel

By David Streitfeld
New York Times
Published: January 7, 2009

This is what life in one American city looks like after an industrial collapse: Unemployment is 5.5 percent, far below the national average. While housing prices sank nearly everywhere in the last year, they rose here. Wages are also up. Foreclosures are comparatively uncommon. View the Full Story

Ten Cities For Job Growth In 2009

By Tara Weiss
Forbes.com
Published: January 5, 2009

Here are the best places to look for employment in the new year. Pittsburgh continues to have several strong industries, particularly education, health care and government. View the Full Story

  

Finding One Economic Bright Spot on Main Street

By Bill Saporito
TIME Magazine
October 9, 2008

Pittsburgh knows all about recessions. This city was left for dead when steel and heavy manufacturing were smothered by globalization that started some 20 years ago. Pittsburgh never had a housing boom. How could it, when a quarter of the population evaporated when the jobs did?  View the Full Story

Pittsburgh Forges Ahead

By Jayne Clark
USA Today
Published: July 18, 2008

This city is often overlooked and underrated as a travel destination but it has more in the way of diversions than many cities twice its size. View the Full Story

36 Hours in Pittsburgh

By Jeff Schlegel
New York Times
Published: July 5, 2008

Pittsburgh has undergone a striking renaissance from a down-and-out smokestack to a gleaming cultural oasis. But old stereotypes die hard, and Pittsburgh probably doesn't make many people's short list for a cosmopolitan getaway. Too bad, because this city of 89 distinct neighborhoods is a cool and - dare I say, hip - city. View the Full Story

Steel City Chips Away At Its Rust Belt Image

By Maura Webber Sadovi
Wall Street Journal
Published: April 8, 2008

Hockey, health care and the nuclear-power industry are giving the Pittsburgh region's commercial real-estate market some strength as the Steel City continues to chip away at its Rust Belt image.  View the Full Story