@viabeans Pittsburgh is a city that’s not quite on the American East Coast and not quite in the American Midwest, so it tries to be both while really being neither (and also being surrounded on nearly all sides by the deepest-red places imaginable)

@viabeans it’s a city that prided itself on its blue-collar steel mill jobs (even though the steel mills made the city itself unlivable), and when they left, it responded by pivoting to tech and healthcare—to the point where the largest employer is a non-union “non-profit” that doesn’t pay a cent in taxes and yet makes billions every year

@viabeans it’s a city that wants to be the next New York, while there’s still a raging racism problem bubbling under the surface once you leave the neighborhood where the two big colleges are

for example, after there was a mass shooting at a synagogue, the next sports team to play a home game honored the victims by… displaying the blue lives matter flag

the (white) mayor scored easy political points when he stood up to the Trump White House on climate, then lost them after he sided with cops

@viabeans it’s a city that still prides itself on its “tough, blue-collar” mentality, yet the two most idolized Pittsburghers for those of a certain age (read: boomers) are: 1) the billionaire owner of the local American football team (because said team won four titles in the '70s when the city was still thriving) or 2) his billionaire failson who continued to own the aforementioned football team

@viabeans things are starting to change, I think (for one thing, the aforementioned mayor got primaried after he came out against BLM), but Pittsburgh still has a long way to go before I’d consider it anywhere as good as most people here like to say it is

I know you probably weren’t expecting all this from a dumb joke, and I’m sorry—but I can’t control where the inspiration to write comes from

@nowionlywantatriumph hey, you know? I asked and I received. Th8s the internet give and take way :D

Also this is good! I 8arely know sh8 about st8s in the United States im glad to know of a way the “appeal of the worker” is twisted and turned on it’s head. Its not novel, obviously, but interesting!