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Marked in Pgh on Wednesday, May 21, 2008 1:51:51 PM
Pittsburgh is my home city. It's the Pgh in the display name to my blog. It used to be the "Smoky City". Not any more. We now have clean air and no real industrial base. Thanks, Environmental Nazis. I recently learned, however, that Pittsburgh has just been picked as America's Sootiest City over Los Angeles. Why?
From its peak in the early 50's when the city had 650,000 people, Pittsburgh has shrunk since then, to 500,000 in the 60's, then to around 300,000 today. Most of the people moved to the suburbs in and around the surrounding Allegheny County, but the entire metropolitan area has not grown and has suffered a net loss in the interim. Most of the mills closed during and just after the Carter adminimstration, when Pittsburgh became a testing ground for the Misery Index and the reason for the economic Diaspora that spread residents of Southwestern Pennsylvania all across America. It also partly explains the widespread popularity of America's Team, the Steelers, and all those Steelers Bars also scatteered around the country.
The Demagogic Party has had a strangle hold on Pittsburgh for over 70 years and the roads keep falling apart while the average wages are still lower here than in a right to work state like Texas. The Demagogues also continue to promise change, while they protect their victims from being victimized by the evil Republicans. Pittsburgh is dying from big city machine politics, but at least the trunks of the trees aren't so dark anymore. You can see shades of brown, gray and even recognize the bark patterns of different species. At the same time, business and people have moved out of Pittsburgh into the suburbs to avoid the taxes, the machinery of city government and the lousy schools.
Pittsburgh spends over $13,000 per year per student at last count in the Pittsburgh School System. That is far more than any of the suburban schools, and the school district still suffers from a large number of high school dropouts who see no reason to stay in school because of the substandard education they have recieved. Political correctness and environmental scams do not amount to an education. In the end, the money is not the important component to quality education; it's the expectation in the homes, the schools and the neighborhoods which are crucial. If you are not raised in that demanding a milieu, at least in the home, no amount of money being thrown at the problem will solve it. Pittsburgh even hired a direct descendent of Teddy Rooosevelt, Mark Roosevelt and a liberal, to solve the problem as the new school administrator. Good luck.
Now the Demogogue politicians in the Pittsburgh area are talking about merging Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, and with it the other 120 odd independent communities in the county, into a single political entity in order to spread the cancer and the pollution.
The Clinton administration also contributed to the problem, by creating new air pollution standards for so much particulate matter per parts per billion units, which put the last coke plant in Pittsburgh out of business, and with it, an annual payroll of around $15,000,000 per year year. That figure does not even approach or include the dollar multiplier effect of the plant on the local economy. Well, at least the air is cleaner, though no one noticed the miniscule change, if any.
That is why it's so surprising we have just been chosen as a sootier city than Los Angeles. Based on what, more microscopic standards than even the Clintons unleashed upon us? There's not enough industry in the Pittsburgh area for such a citation. However, there is still plenty of affluent matter, rather than affluence, emanating from entrenched liberal politicians and activists. Thanks, again, Environmental Nazis.