Pittsburgh’s Latest Comeback
City Journal Audio
Manhattan Institute
4.8 • 615 Ratings
🗓️ 24 September 2019
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
John Tierney joins City Journal assistant editor Charles McElwee to discuss Pittsburgh's recent resurgence.
"If you want to see how to revive a city—and how not to," John Tierney writes, "go to Pittsburgh." Pittsburgh has transformed itself from the Steel City to central Pennsylvania's hub of "eds" and "meds." But before that could happen, the city nearly destroyed itself under various misguided urban plans dating back to the 1950s.
Tierney's essay, "A Renaissance Runs Through It," appears in City Journal's Summer 2019 issue; an adapted version was published in the Wall Street Journal.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the Ten Blocks Podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal. |
| 0:04.5 | Coming up on the show today, City Journal's assistant editor, Charles McElwee, will interview |
| 0:09.5 | contributing editor John Tierney about John's latest essay for the magazine called A Renaissance |
| 0:15.2 | Runs Through It, what Pittsburgh's latest comeback tells us about urban revitalization. Both Charles and John are natives of |
| 0:23.5 | Pennsylvania, and they're excited to talk about their beloved home state and one of its big cities |
| 0:28.7 | on the podcast. John's essay was recently adapted in the Wall Street Journal, and we'll link to both |
| 0:34.3 | the long piece and the adaptation in the description. |
| 0:37.9 | One announcement before we get started, City Journal readers will be happy to know that we're |
| 0:42.8 | in the middle of production of the autumn 2019 issue. |
| 0:46.5 | We have a super strong lineup for the issue, including a powerful essay by Heather |
| 0:51.1 | McDonald on homelessness and crime in San Francisco, Kay Heimowitz on a |
| 0:56.0 | remarkable trade school just outside of Philadelphia, and Eric Cobur on Long Island City |
| 1:01.6 | after Amazon, among much else. That's it for me. The conversation between Charles McAwee |
| 1:07.3 | and John Tierney begins after this. Welcome back to the 10 blogs podcast. |
| 1:23.6 | This is your host for today, Charles McAwee, Assistant Editor of City Journal. |
| 1:28.4 | Joining me on the show today is John Tierney. |
| 1:31.1 | John is a contributing editor at City Journal and a contributing science columnist for the New York Times, where he was a reporter for many years. |
| 1:39.1 | You can also follow him on Twitter at John Tierney, NYC. |
| 1:43.5 | John's here today to discuss his latest piece, which |
| 1:46.3 | appears in the summer 2019 issue of City Journal. A Renaissance runs through it. It's an essay |
| 1:51.8 | about Pittsburgh's history of rebirths and urban planning. The essay explores Pittsburgh's |
| 1:56.9 | latest comeback and what it means for other cities. John, welcome back to the podcast. |
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