My town doesn't really have neighborhoods. There are areas with expensive homes, others with marginal housing and crime. We have a shell of a downtown. But homogeneity rules. At one time Jews lived in one place, Italians in another, African Americans of all incomes largely together. We have largely dispersed, with enclaves notable primarily for housing prices. Our major employers have succeeded in creating ethnically diverse payrolls. We do not even have a dominant university where young adults cluster.
Visiting family in Pittsburgh a few times, taking a tour by bus, and now driving around to get to different places around town, my impression is very different. My family lives in a once run down area being revitalized, but still with a ways to go. The main street, where I have walked and driven, contains small businesses. After a meal out, I counted places to eat over each of three blocks we walked returning to the house. The tally: 5-8-4. All these places are small, no chain franchises. Each restaurateur must have a dream of creating something from scratch. None seemed to be magnet eateries attracting guests citywide.
Pittsburgh has lots of schools. The closest to where I stay is Duquesne, a Jesuit university which I visited by walking tour. Not an enormous number of kids out. I went to the bookstore where I purchased a souvenir mug. Then I walked past classrooms, their relatively new Osteopathic Medical School and affiliated hospitals, probably some dorms and an athletic complex. Squeezed in were a city fire station and an aging red brick church of uncertain denomination.
After returning to my hosts, I had an event to attend in Squirrel Hill. This section remains predominantly Jewish, both by residents and by institutions. My route took me past three large synagogues, including the Tree of Life Building, where a massacre during worship occurred in 2018. It had construction fencing around it. The other two congregations have massive buildings, cramped grounds. In Squirrel Hill, I drove past two Jewish Day Schools, a Mikvah, two start-up Orthodox synagogues, but no hangouts. Housing appeared mostly single-family with two-story masonry, many fewer driveways than I would have expected, and some light shopping at its perimeter. I encountered almost no pedestrians.
My hosts recommended lunch in a section known as Shadyside. Restaurants and specialty shops without national franchises re-emerged. Few driveways but a city parking facility nearby, as street parking took me a few blocks to find. The place we visited for lunch has a specialty cuisine. At noontime most tables were filled by young adults. I found the housing more mixed. Apartment buildings and houses subdivided for tenants seemed to dominate. The buildings seemed worn but rehabbed. Few yards. Essentially no litter. And no pedestrians until arriving near the two business streets.
Driving to my host's house took us through a few more places. Carlow University I'd not heard of before but we drove past an impressive campus center. The University of Pittsburgh is well-known. They have a spiring tower at its center but hoards of young people in hurried transit at noontime on a Friday. Big football game there the next day. A little farther took us past the synagogue we would attend on Sabbath, the current home of Tree of Life. It had a cathedral appearance. As a Reform Temple, its members had no reason to walk from home on the Sabbath but those living within easily walking distance occupied mansions.
For Sunday, my hosts wanted to shop for baby clothes at a thrift store. Getting there from their South Side neighborhood brought us through two tunnels and up hills with tricky driving curves. The housing seems more spread out, likely a place where members of the United Steelworkers lived.
Downtown I saw only from the car, but tall buildings marked its place.
No doubt, places I did not drive past would house people like my wife and me. House with two-car garage and driveway. They must be there, maybe outside the city limits.
Pittsburgh's leaders seem to have thought their future through a little better than most city officials. I don't even know where the steelworks once stood. Perhaps even a few still do. Yet in the absence of a primary industry, I saw elements of commerce, hi-tech, a food industry, medical centers to match others across America. Places seemed crowded, some quite worn, but with little neglect. A Jewish enclave remains recognizably Jewish. A major and secondary universities teem with students. Big Box stores did not clutter the city landscape. A city of character attracting people of character.
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