Destination 2016: PittsburghBy Alison J. Stein

The air is now breathable, while once-polluted rivers are open for fishing and boating, and lined with biking and hiking trails such as the Great Allegheny Passage, whose 150 miles connect Pittsburgh to Washington D.C. The arts are thriving in the city, and real estate developers—including hotel chains—are arriving. Among them: hipster-hunters like the Ace and Distrikt hotels, the latter in a former Salvation Army headquarters downtown. “We’re an overnight success,” jokes Bill Flanagan, chief corporate relations officer for the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, “after only spending decades working on making Pittsburgh better.”

While a few good breaks didn’t hurt—its location on the Marcellus Shale, for instance, powered a recent fracking boom—luck isn’t what accounts for the city’s transformation. Some of the same factors that brought the city to its knees have helped it rise again. Although the loss of the steel and coal industries was a body blow, the geology-and banking-fueled fortunes amassed in a pre-income-tax era by the likes of Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick and Andrew W. Mellon remained—and these families shared an intensely local sense of civic responsibility. Unlike other cities, in which foundations tend to have broader geographic missions, “most of our foundations have bylaws that mandate they do most of their giving here in Pittsburgh,” says Flanagan. “We get the full benefit of an incredible concentration of assets.”

These wealthy families have a history of collaboration in their charitable dealings, helping small projects to grow. For instance, the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, founded by Heinz (ketchup) family money in 1984, purchased a historic Vaudeville-era theater to restore it to its former grandeur, and was then joined in funding its restoration by the foundation of the oil-rich Benedum family. This collaboration resulted in a new home for the city’s ballet and opera companies, the Benedum Center for the Performing Arts. Unfortunately, a red light district surrounded the theater so the Cultural Trust purchased nearby buildings and land and swiftly ushered those massage parlors and triple-X theaters out of business. These were replaced with loft apartments, restaurants, art galleries and innovative arts institutions such as the Bricolage Production Company and the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company. The neighborhood’s appeal to tourists and residents was cemented in the 1990s, when the city chose to locate its two new major league sports stadiums, Heinz Field and PNC Park, directly across a walking bridge from this curated arts neighborhood. It is now known as the Cultural District and draws some 2 million visitors a year.

Beyond bang for the charitable buck, this tradition of cooperation among the city’s wealthiest families and their philanthropies extends to especially collegial relations between local business and local government, as well as the universities. In the 1940s, such cooperation led to an all-out effort to clean up Pittsburgh’s skies and rivers, including self-imposed regulations. In the mid 1980s, local and county governments, universities, business organizations and philanthropies coordinated their state and federal lobbying efforts. These efforts secured an international airport terminal and federally funded research institutes focused on software engineering, robotics and organ transplantation—all important “gray matter” resources that have attracted tech companies to the city.

Cooperation between historic preservationists and real estate developers has also been a factor in the city’s impressive record of preserving historic buildings while keeping them for mixed use, notes Arthur Ziegler Jr., president of Pittsburgh’s History & Landmarks Foundation. One of the foundation’s early successes was the preservation of a Victorian-era neighborhood known as the Mexican War Streets, now home to the Mattress Factory, a noted contemporary art museum. This combination of historic preservation and new developments has been repeated around the city, and leads to desirable, walkable neighborhoods, notes Michael Sriprasert, president of the Landmarks Community Capital Corporation. And since such neighborhoods are very affordable compared to similar ones in larger cities, they are magnets for corporations looking to relocate or open new offices in the city—and for Pittsburgh’s many college students wanting to stay after their studies are complete.

Cooperative efforts will be key to the city’s future, says Flanagan of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, because Pittsburgh still faces big challenges. While none of these problems are as severe as they were in the 1980s, the city still confronts troubling statistical realities: Its population is aging and, though less than before, young people are still leaving. And while the cost of living is low relative to other urban centers, gentrification is inevitably pushing it up. But if the last 30 years have shown anything, it’s that Pittsburgh is used to working hard—and to working together to figure things out. So forget the question of whether this city is lucky or not. More important for Pittsburgh’s future fortunes, it’s smart.

This article originally appeared in the 2016 June/July issue of Worth.

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