Remembering when Pittsburgh's 'square white men' dropped their A-bomb of development on the city's 'Little Harlem'
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Pittsburgh and its people have pioneered a lot of important stuff over the years. Industrialism and post-industrialism are its major historical innovations. The city's fortunes -- and population -- rose and fell precipitously with the rise and fall of manufacturing and steel from the late 1800s until the 1960s, when the heavy industries that once provided one in four Pittsburghers with some of the best-paying blue-collar jobs in the world began turning to rust. Unfortunately for its poor and black residents, the city of Pittsburgh also pioneered urban renewal. After World War II the poor, blighted but bustling Hill District -- a downtown residential and commercial urban neighborhood of about 40,000 blacks and 10,000 whites -- was targeted by City Hall's Democrat machine and their corporate big-wig friends for redevelopment.
Remembering when Pittsburgh's 'square white men' dropped their A-bomb of development on the city's 'Little Harlem'
Remembering when Pittsburgh's 'square white…
Remembering when Pittsburgh's 'square white men' dropped their A-bomb of development on the city's 'Little Harlem'
Pittsburgh and its people have pioneered a lot of important stuff over the years. Industrialism and post-industrialism are its major historical innovations. The city's fortunes -- and population -- rose and fell precipitously with the rise and fall of manufacturing and steel from the late 1800s until the 1960s, when the heavy industries that once provided one in four Pittsburghers with some of the best-paying blue-collar jobs in the world began turning to rust. Unfortunately for its poor and black residents, the city of Pittsburgh also pioneered urban renewal. After World War II the poor, blighted but bustling Hill District -- a downtown residential and commercial urban neighborhood of about 40,000 blacks and 10,000 whites -- was targeted by City Hall's Democrat machine and their corporate big-wig friends for redevelopment.