Brown: ‘Burgh taxes and laws ostracize college crowd

Dear Pittsburgh,

I like you, but I don’t love you. I realize that we have two more years to… Dear Pittsburgh,

I like you, but I don’t love you. I realize that we have two more years to figure out our relationship, but I don’t think much is going to change.

After that time passes, I’m through with you. I love the university you’ve given me. It lets me flourish in activities and provides me with friends. But one small aspect of your being isn’t going to keep me here.

You have a great nightlife in South Side, some of the most enthralling sports teams in the world and $10.8 billion of technological industry. And finding a job in Pittsburgh really isn’t that hard even in this tough economy. You’re a pretty cool city, so it seems.

But beneath your glimmering skyline lies a mentality that radiates with the old world, harking back to the way things were when Andy Griffith was still popular. Behind that baby-faced mayor is a system that doesn’t embrace me. Rather, it propagates an anachronistic set of politics in a city that hasn’t learned how to grip us young whippersnappers.

‘ We youngins are driven away by the insanely backward ideas that drive you, Lady Pittsburgh, much less this county altogether. Your mindset is tax now and ask questions later.

You’re taxing renting apartments an additional $12 this year. You’re taxing everyone who buys something in this county an additional 1 percent. And you tax everyone who works in the city $52 just because you can.

According to the Tribune-Review, as of this month you’re sitting on $762 million in debt. With such high taxes spreading to anyone who so much as breathes in your presence, how are you still in the red?

How is it that you need a task force from Father Harrisburg 200 miles away to come in to sort all of your mismanaged finances?

When I ask you to be fiscally responsible, even when it’s not your own money you’re spending, you go out and buy trash cans. When I ask you to make it easy to get back to school, it takes you two years to open up the Boulevard of the Allies again.

Sure, I realize you’ve come a long way. If ‘The Swan’ were around in the 1970s and 1980s when you were transforming from an ugly, old city on its last legs into a technological and research powerhouse, you most certainly would have won. To think you could’ve ended up desolate like that other steel town, Youngstown, still boggles me.

Every time I see your skyscrapers coming back into town, the rivers bordering the city or when I look up at the Cathedral, your beauty seems radiant. Unfortunately, looks are only skin deep.

Your ways of thinking are old, as if not to be questioned. City Council meetings are on weekday mornings. Anyone with priorities like work or school cannot attend them. Because so much of your legislation concerns the college population, it would serve to reason you’re trying to avoid us.

As one of the largest and most progressive populations in your borders, college students here bring hundreds of thousands of new dollars into this city’s revenue every year. Yet, we’re often underrepresented when it comes time to make decisions. We’re frequently thought of for what we do wrong instead of what we do correct.

This condescending attitude is further recognized every time the mayor or a councilman comes into Oakland for a publicity opportunity.

It says to me, ‘We value your money. We value your vote. But we really don’t care about your opinion.’ With approximately 60,000 students from the immediate area’s colleges and universities, we should carry clout.

Rather, we’re forced under the rule of newfound laws stemming from isolated incidents like SempleFest or post-game celebrations. We’re dragged under new taxes by Allegheny County — your big brother — because it’s easy to take advantage of people who frequent bars.

Having a law named after your actions, especially one that’s reprimanding, is like having a disease named after you.

Then, when it comes time to look at the census, you, Miss Pittsburgh, scratch your head every time you see your population decline in the wake of greater achievements like being named the most livable city in America in 2007 by ‘Places Rated Almanac.’

Indeed, you’re nice to be with. You’ve never done anything blatantly malicious to me, but you haven’t done much right, either.

I guess what I am trying to say is that you’re just not my type, and two years from now, I’m moving far, far away from you. I hope you have no hard feelings.

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Sincerely,

Jacob

E-mail Jacob at’ jeb110@pitt.edu

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