Braddock's Mayor, John Fetterman On PBS

One of the longer interviews I've seen of Braddock Mayor, John Fetterman on the PBS show, NOW. Mostly a very good job here, but honestly both the mayor and the journalist involved leave one with some pretty inaccurate impressions.

I want to watch again and come back with more thoughts but as near as I can tell, a viewer would think Braddock's huge ET works had closed. Also, no mention at all of what is likely the biggest single factor affecting the town over the last 20 years, The Mon Fayette Expressway. The threat to tear down pretty much every building along it's main street and divide the town with a wall might have had some effect?

Again, I will watch again. I drink a lot and perhaps missed some things. (OK, I just watched again and will be back with more thoughts.)

If you have thoughts or insight you want to share about art, music, film, urban design, architecture, transit or history in the Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Youngstown, Erie, Morgantown, Akron, Canton region--Cleveburgh, email me diggingpitt@gmail.com

This is not Hyper Local media, but regional media seeking local viewpoints.

The City Of The Mind

My recent posts, posts, posts, on Detroit seem important on some deep level I cant explain fully. Pittsburgh and Detroit seem to have huge amount in common. It's not just that they were industrial cities; they were the birth places of huge industries and had built there identities so completly around them that they were the global symbols of those industries. No doubt the size of the industrial complexes made them look like permanent and unmoveable forces that could not be changed. Perhaps, unwisely people built thier lives as if they could not be moved or at least never killed.

Every city is the interaction between a real place and a mythology that people build around it and with these two places the interaction is traumatic. I think that my memories of NY in the late 70's were facing that interaction. On the one hand, you knew that NY was like the greatest city in the world and yet the day to day facts showed you it wasn't that great. But, what happened to places like Pittsburgh and even more so Detroit has to be on a totally different level. New York, somehow found it's greatness again ( to a large extent imigrants came who believed in it ) and for the most part, it never really faced becoming irrelavant. But, both Pittsburgh and Detroit have faced becoming footnotes or even in the case of Detroit epic symbols of America gone wrong.

The other major thing that links the cities is their huge diasporas. So anyway, I am hoping to here from some people in Detroit and people from Detroit and perhaps involve them in my diaspora project. I am particularly interested in hooking up with artist's from Detroit and those that live there now. Please pass this post along. I still am very much looking to develop build my links to the Pittsburgh diaspora.