Rewriting The Pittsburgh Story Across the Blogosphere
Pittsburgh’s manufacturing economy is not just ancient history, but is actually growing. Don’t take my word for it, read the post Manufacturing our Future by Harold Miller at Pittsburgh’s Future.
One of the most counterproductive myths in the Pittsburgh Region is that manufacturing is dead and gone, or at best on life support, waiting for the last job to move overseas.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Manufacturing is actually the largest economic sector in our region.
MountaineerBob at WV Mountaineer Sports posted about how his life as a West Virginian living in Pittsburgh has changed over the past 6 weeks:
There has been absolutly ZERO talk or news about PITT football.
Instead of Pitt footabll news, MountaineerBob is seeing:
The Steelers are on a Bus trip across South Western PA to drum up support for Obama. You hear stories about how Dan Rooney, the Steelers owner, has endorsed Obama. You see news clips of Hillary Clinton in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and You Tube video of Bill Clinton giving speeches to little round Pittsburgh moms.
Those of us in Pittsburgh know that our sports teams are enormous institutions unto themselves. Rooting for our teams (or *gasp* in some occasions against our teams) is one of the ways that Pittsburgh builds community that cuts across geographic and economic lines.
I’ve lived in Pittsburgh for the past eight years, and the strong sense of community is one of the things that I love about the city. When Google opened an office here in 2005, it was because many of the technology workers that our universities are training wanted to live here. Pittsburgh sports culture is a great example of the community building that can bring people to (and keep people in) Pittsburgh.
Cynthia at My Brilliant Mistakes promotes this storytelling experiment over at her blog. She puts it way better than we could ever hope to:
Time is key. We have just days left until the primary when the major media is taking a fresh look at our city and region. It’s like the tiny window of attention we receive when the Steelers play Monday Night Football at Heinz Field, extended for a few more days.
Let’s see your stories!
Lindsay at IHeartPgh (and this site) posted about the birth of the emoticon in Pittsburgh. 
Pittsburgh has long been ahead of the rest of the US in technology. With Carneige Mellon and other universities – Pittsburgh is one of the hotbeds of technology development. The emoticon story is a great, fun example of a popular technology that was born right here in Pittsburgh.
See her entire post, where she re-posted this story about the emoticon’s birthday from WTAE.
Today, on All Things Considered, NPR aired a story about a Primary debate-watching party going on in my neighborhood of Lawrenceville.
Lawrenceville was described as:
A neighborhood on the edge of downtown, where generations of steelworkers raise their families. Some of their children still live here, along with newcomers who like the low rent and the short commute.
That sounds pretty accurate to me. Mark me down as a newcomer who likes the affordable housing and the central location, but I also live in Lawrenceville because of the budding arts community, the thriving business districts, the waterfront trails, and the unique neighborhood flavor.
Welcome to The Primary Pittsburgh Project. With just days left to go until the Pennsylvania Presidential Primary election this is a 5-day blogging experiment to invite the Burghosphere to re-tell the primary story story of Pittsburgh to the rest of the country.
The goal is to engage bloggers who write on many different topics to share these stories around the blogosphere and beyond. This is an invitation to get all bloggers telling their Pittsburgh story.
Pittsburgh has received a tremendous amount of national press and blog coverage, both good and bad. With just days left to the presidential primary, we are working to highlight and tell some of the stories that we know that make Pittsburgh great.
Taking a cue from Sue over at Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents, feel free to use the code below to use this button. Write your Primary Pittsburgh story on your site, and we will re-post here.
<p><a href=”http://www.primarypittsburgh.com”><img src=”http://primarypittsburgh.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/ppp-button-small.jpg”></a></p>
