Check out the work being done by the folks at the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, which they highlighted in this video.
Learn more about their history and their work downtown, which has gotten some recent publicity.
-KG
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Some great photos of the Steel City from my pal Estelle Tran at her new blog, Pixburgh N’at.

Recognize this spot in Oakland?

Another great street scene.

Love this one.

Make sure you read the sign.
Check more of ‘em out here.
-KG
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Last Sunday, I had the pleasure of joining a group of Pittsburghers for an Urban Hike in Swissvale, a borough just outside the city with an interesting history.
Some stops along the way included the Trundle Manor, Kopp Glass and some affordable housing for sale from the Mon Valley Initiative.

Also on the journey: The Triangle Bar, home of the famous “Battleship” (giant sub sandwich).
Urban Hike is a group that regularly organizes hikes in the city’s various neighborhoods and surrounding communities, with stops along the way so participants can learn about what …

Alaina Cauchie, creator of the Pittsburgh is Beautiful website, sent us these photos.

“I started Pittsburgh is Beautiful as a visual expression of what makes Pittsburgh so awesome – ‘gritty is the new pretty’, basically,” she said. “I love the juxtaposition of the old versus new that happens so frequently in our town. Although Pittsburgh has gone through some hard times in the past few decades, it is enjoying an urban revival and I am so glad to be here for it.”

Alaina is constantly updating the site. But she shared a few of her favorites with us.

For more than two years, Rust Wire has been inviting photographers to share their perspective on Rust Belt cities. Now, we have collected some of the best shots into a traveling exhibition.
In case you missed it in Pittsburgh in April, Rust Wire is hosting another showing of our Big Urban Photography Project in Clevelandtown! The show opens 5:30 on Thursday, July 7 at Cleveland Public Art, 1951 W. 26th Street.

The show will feature the work of nearly one dozen photographers hailing from Buffalo, Erie, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Youngstown and other cities.
We …

On Sunday I had the pleasure of touring several of Pittsburgh’s urban chicken coops.
The self-guided tour was the first of its kind in the city. Read more about the tour and its organizers here.
Check out these chicks…

This was from a backyard farm in the Highland Park neighborhood.
And

The city’s zoning code allows for three chickens per 2,000 square feet, plus one additional chicken for each additional 1,000 square feet, according to event organizers. Roosters are not permitted. Chicken farmers must also apply for a zoning ordinance.
Here’s some of the bounty, from …

Look out, Silicon Valley.
Read the report from Brookings here, which notes the success Rust Belt cities have had in attracting skilled immigrants.
The report notes:
“Perhaps most notable is the very high concentration of high-skilled immigrants in older industrial metro areas in the Midwest and Northeast such as Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Syracuse. Detroit, for instance, has 144 high-skilled immigrants for every 100 low-skilled immigrants. Immigrants in these metropolitan areas tilt toward high-skill because they blend earlier arriving cohorts who have had time to complete higher education with newcomers …

Editor’s note: This guest editorial come from Brett Wiewiora, Founder and CEO of Onlyinpgh (http://onlyinpgh.com), a tech startup creating an online system to visualize an area’s sense of place and connect people to local happenings.
Take a second to think about the favorite places in your city. What types of places are they?  Do they tend to be places unique to your town? Are they places that the locals know but are otherwise off the beaten path? I know that’s the case with me.
My favorite part of Pittsburgh is an area …

This multimedia project by student journalist Estelle Tran highlights two former church sites in Pittsburgh that have now been converted into other uses – one a brew pub and the other a concert venue and recording studio.
Places like this are what I love about Pittsburgh!
Any other good converted churches in your community?
-KG
 
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When you’re an environmentalist, like me, spring means freshening up the table display for the green fairs, energy conferences, and Earth Day celebrations that invade parking lots, LEED-certified meeting rooms, and repurposed, old brick school buildings all over the city. Native plants are for sale, Rachel Carson’s name is affixed to a march or lecture series at least once weekly, and wrists get sore from signing petitions and postcards to go to the EPA.

For the Pittsburgh region, spring also means receiving bad news from the American Lung Association’s State of the Air Report, which ranks the cleanest and dirtiest air in our cities. (Pittsburgh always gets bad news.) Angry rebuttals from editors and think tanks are released almost as quickly, questioning methodology, sampling rates, and monitor locations.