The Steel City is wrapped around the Allegheny Mountains. A river sort of meanders down the middle. But the mountains are the dominant feature, slicing neighbourhoods into valleys and slopes. Everything is either up hill or down hill. And its worse than San Francisco, where everything essentially falls towards the ocean.
The blue collar ethic is strong here. Polite, firm and willing to help their neighbours. So, in many ways its a small town with taller buildings downtown. However, it also has the world headquarters of H J Heinz, PPG Paint and a bunch of other big companies. There is a world-class art gallery or two, a symphony orchestra that is world-renown and a couple of world-class hospitals. Is it a blue collar town or a white collar town?
The air is reasonably clean, so its not really a blue collar town in the traditional definition. Most of the steel industry is gone, replaced with mini-mills that remelt scrap steel and need perhaps 1/10th of the staff and run at capacity all the time with essentially no emissions. Pittsburgh is very green along the hills, with a canopy of trees everywhere except downtown.
A city in transition with a heritage of work and effort. Is that Pittsburgh?
RoadDave 