The travel section of The New York Times just published a really odious article entitled "36 Hours in Pittsburgh" by Jeff Schlegel. The first line is laughable: "PITTSBURGH has undergone a striking renaissance from a down-and-out smokestack to a gleaming cultural oasis." (Schlegel)

All right, stop right there, buddy. I know you're a liar, because I would never trust any New Yorker who calls the 'burgh a "gleaming cultural oasis" without scoffing and rolling their eyes. That is a lie, no matter how many times you drop proper nouns like The Andy Warhol Museum, Mexican War Streets, BrilloBox, or Mattress Factory. Pittsburgh does have a lot to offer and it is a sort of a cultural center for the region, but cultural oasis? No, 'fraid not Mr. Schlegel, unless you're using that term and "renaissance" in a very loose manner.

Downtown Pittsburgh as seen from the banks of the Allegheny on the city's NorthSide.

Most livable city? Oh really?

So you've heard time and again that Pittsburgh is amazingly livable; the most livable for 2007, in fact, according to the Places Rated Almanac. (Majors) Crime rates that aren't too bad, it's a cheap city to live in, it has excellent hospital systems, several prestigious universities, etc. Well did you know that our city has 768 million dollars in debt? (Blazina) That the police have to use tanks - yes... TANKS - to patrol Homewood (a very urban, very ethnically black neighborhood) and a few other impoverished neighborhoods in the city? (Deitch) That our public transit system, once one of the best and most extensive in the nation (at number 15), is falling into shambles? (Grata) That the casino our citizens fought tooth and nail to oppose will still be built on the NorthSide? That the popular "Waterfront" shopping "district" has become nothing more than a glorified strip mall?

Pittsburgh is a great city to live in if you've money, if you're white, and if you're willing to wink at a whole boatload of problems (social, economic, and so on) that a city this size just shouldn't have. I don't think tourism or gentrification is going to solve these problems. There are reasons why Uptown is a ghost town, why the Urban Redevelopment Authority has a dozen main streets to revitalize. (Is your memory so short that you don't remember East Carson Street as the boarded-up wasteland it once was?)

Don't get me wrong, Pittsburgh is wonderful despite these and other problems. But it isn't because of a handful of art galleries, restaurants, and tourist traps. It's something a lot more substantial, less transient and ephemeral, than the cultural tourism Schlegel suggests. Although they are hokey and rather Romanticized, I would suggest watching Rick Sebak's documentaries on Pittsburgh - and not reading something like Michael Chabon's Mysteries of Pittsburgh - to begin to understand exactly what that is. (You can get these suckers for free on public access television or through interlibrary loan.)

:: Bibliography ::

• Blazina, Ed. "Ravenstahl endorses Pittsburgh-Allegheny County merger." The Pittsburgh Post Gazette, 3 April 2008. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08094/870250-100.stm (5 July 2008).

• Deitch, Charlie. "Military Police." Pittsburgh City Paper, 27 March 2007. http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=24549 (5 July 2008).

• Grata, Joe. "Port Authority transit cutbacks are biggest in history." The Pittsburgh Post Gazette, 4 January 2007. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07004/751189-147.stm (5 July 2008).

• Majors, Dan. "Pittsburgh rated 'most livable' once again." The Pittsburgh Post Gazette, 26 April 2007. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07116/781162-53.stm (5 July 2008).

• Schlegel, Jeff. "36 Hours in Pittsburgh." The New York Times, 6 July 2008. http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/travel/06hours.html (5 July 2008).

:: Further reading ::

• "How now brown town?" The Economist, 14 September 2006. http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7914950 (5 July 2008). (Note: No author listed.)