A few weeks ago, I attended a poetry reading at Gist Street in Uptown Pittsburgh. While I was… A few weeks ago, I attended a poetry reading at Gist Street in Uptown Pittsburgh. While I was there, it seemed as if I’d been transported out of the city to a new, inspiring place.

However, as I drove back through the Hill District to Oakland, I realized that the empty lots and buildings in disrepair represented a very different city: one that faces dwindling populations and dying urban neighborhoods.

That’s the reason why so many people are eager to leave Pittsburgh, whether they grew up in the city or came here for college. It would seem that this place doesn’t have the ability to fulfill our dreams; that our degrees would go to waste in what some like to call a large town.

Even though we can see the faults in our city, the majority of us are more interested in fleeing them, rather than fixing them.

I’ve found myself thinking along the same lines during my time in Pittsburgh. I’ll be honest, my relationship with this city has been sugar-coated. Having grown up in the suburbs of the South Hills, I’ve never really come into contact with the problems of neighborhoods like Lawrenceville or the North Side.

When we’re faced with issues like an inexperienced mayor or a lack of jobs, our first inclination is to run from them. The truth is, only through reexamining these issues can we really begin to understand how we’ve come to this juncture and where we need to go from here.

I recently picked up Brian O’Neill’s “The Paris of Appalachia,” a biography of Pittsburgh that helps illustrate the magic of our city, in spite of its scars.

As a columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, O’Neill has been writing about the city for more than 20 years. He is a resident of the North Side and he has first-hand knowledge about the benefits and shortcomings of living within the city limits.

O’Neill’s book is a must-read for those who call Pittsburgh their home. It helped me rediscover why my family and I have decided to stay in this area. It’s also given me the motivation to explore what this city has to offer.

“The Paris of Appalachia” is sometimes used as a pejorative term for Pittsburgh, suggesting that this city is the best of the worst. But after reading O’Neill’s book, it was obvious to me that my city has more to it than just the Steelers and Pens.

By profiling various Pittsburghers, past and present, O’Neill is able to capture the depth of this city. He starts off by describing the city’s rise to prominence through the steel industry, its decline and how people have lived since then.

The stories of residents who are both friendly and hard-nosed underscore O’Neill’s title for Pittsburgh as the “third bear” of cities: not too slow and not too fast.

Many of O’Neill’s anecdotes traverse the local businesses that carry the history of this city. He finds different versions of Pittsburgh’s story in bars, restaurants and barber shops.

Once he finishes his fun-filled stories about food and beer, O’Neill assumes a more serious tone as he addresses the challenges Pittsburgh has faced in recent years. He takes particular concern with the laws regulating the annexation of land in Pa.

These laws have made expanding Pittsburgh such a difficult task that we’ve fallen from the eighth to 57th-largest American city in the years since 1910. By leaving the merger of townships up to their residents, it became nearly impossible for Pittsburgh to incorporate new areas into the city limits.

When comparing Pittsburgh to other major American cities, I see that it’s obvious why we’re so much smaller. Cities like Houston and Phoenix are nearly the size of Allegheny County. Unlike Pittsburgh, these cities have been allowed to expand tremendously.

Furthermore, the disintegration of so many areas around Pittsburgh has led to problems including high taxes and overlapping administrations.

The question is, where do we go from here? Can Pittsburgh bounce back?

According to O’Neill, we can. And doing so might just be an issue of time. Pittsburgh has been able to survive thus far. As the country faces uncertain times, past experiences might just be in our favor.

E-mail Hay at [email protected].