Pittsburgh Skyline

Pittsburgh Skyline
Originally uploaded by esherman.

Not likely to blog til tonight. Am about to go on an all day tour of the Strip District. While driving through the streets of Pittsburgh early this morning, I was struck, as always, by the height and density of downtown (and the downtowns of other cities) compared to the relatively undense and not very tall buildings along the streets of downtown Washington, where the buildings max out at about 160 feet (with setbacked penthouses).

My thought during those early hours is that in some weird way this makes sense. Because the vital sector in this country is business. Downtowns are about vibrance, commerce, action.

Washington, politically, these days, is about inaction.

So it makes sense that the buildings in downtown Washington are pretty squat and ordinary, without that prepossessing sense of power projected even by the downtown in Pittsburgh--a city with a relatively weak economy, given rampant deindustrialization in the United States. (Did you see yesterday's news articles about the most crime-ridden cities in the U.S., and the point that crime is rising in the midwest, and that experts are wondering why. Why? It's the economy stupid... Deindustrialization has many costs.)

Another thought--given that Pittsburgh is known for the headquarters of Pittsburgh Plate Glass (glass) and Alcoa (aluminum), it makes sense somehow for the city to have a modernist downtown featuring buildings made from these materials.