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Contents
20th Century Context: Cramped Spaces and a Smoky City
A Costly Narrative
The rhetorical project of The Westinghouse Memorial’s restoration has seen greater success than the project of its commissioning. Today, Pittsburgh does indeed boast a post-industrial economy, sustained by the educational, cultural, financial, and medical sectors (Vitale 34), for whom the creative, livable, sustainable city narrative is designed. These sectors were indeed top of mind in the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy’s “Master Plan,” which mentioned focus groups conducted with “young professionals regarding the role of the parks in the new economy,” in order to best understand what appealed to a “demographic group, so important to Pittsburgh’s future” (“Executive Summary” 8). However, the narrative that appeals to these “young professionals,” tourists, and investors of Pittsburgh’s “future” is bought at the expense of today’s working-class Pittsburghers who must face the perils of job loss, displacement, and poor living conditions to make this narrative possible. Indeed, if it’s true that the “overarching objective of rhetoric in planning and design is… the creation of city-regions that are ecologically healthy, economically vital, aesthetically pleasing, socially just and politically democratic (Throgmorton, qtd. in Pojani and Stead 583), it may be difficult to truly attribute success to this narrative.
In the quest to create a visibly attractive city, “The ACCD and its members prioritized the growth of the postindustrial economy and considered visible industry, pollution, and working-class culture as inimical to this effort.” (Vitale 36). The members of this “working-class culture,” who had previously defined the spirit of the city, no longer fit into the image elites wanted to propagate. Pittsburgh’s working class simply isn’t attractive to outside investors. As a result, they continually fall prey to what Wilson calls “intense desires to visually erase any semblance of the marginalized from central creative sites” (108). In the face of disinvestment and redevelopment, industry workers are forced from their jobs, out of their homes, and into poverty at high rates (Vitale 34). So, while the Westinghouse Memorial ostensibly remains a celebration of Pittsburgh’s industry and workers, it in reality glosses over the fact that the new economy does not support either one. The ultimate result of the creative, livable, sustainable spirit of Pittsburgh is the erasure of the true reality of the city. With the erasure of industry comes the erasure of the true working class. With the promise to visitors of greenness and livability comes the invisibility of the fact that Pittsburgh residents still must contend with some of the worst air quality and water pollution in the nation (Allen 1010). Scholars of urban communication warn that “the transformation of urban space morphology into a business attraction risks destroying place identity and culture” (Pojani and Stead 607). For countless working-class Pittsburghers, these words ring painfully true.