Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh of Appalachia a Geography of Power and Extraction
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Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh of Appalachia A geography of power and extraction February 2019 2 Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh of Appalachia: A geography of power and extraction Jason Beery, Ph.D. UrbanKind Institute Author’s Note and Disclaimer Thanks to Colleen Cain, PhD and Jamil Bey, PhD of UrbanKind Institute, Jill Kriesky, PhD of Southwest Environmental Health Project, and Blessy Bellamy, M.S., for their comments. Thanks also to Veronica Coptis, Executive Director of Center for Coalfield Justice, and Jennifer Baka, Assistant Professor of Geography at Pennsylvania State University, for early conversations about several of the themes in this paper. Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh of Appalachia is the second essay of the “Environment, Politics, and Power in Pittsburgh, not Paris” series. Support for this essay comes from a grant from the Heinz Endowments. UrbanKind Institute is a think-and-do tank advancing practices, policies, and programs that are kind to urban people and environments. Opinions or points of view expressed herein represent those of the author and are presented for informational purposes to expand the space for conversations around equity, justice, and inclusion in the Pittsburgh region. Opinions and recommendations do not necessarily represent or constitute approval, adoption, or endorsement by any of our funders or partners. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to UrbanKind Institute, 212 Brownsville Rd., Pittsburgh, PA 15210. Alternatively, you may contact UrbanKind Institute electronically: [email protected]. Pittsburgh, the Paris of Appalachia When writer Chuck Kinder was asked through Cranberry, from Murrysville why he coined the nickname “The Paris of to Hopewell, and to points beyond.3 Appalachia” for Pittsburgh, he answered O’Neill pushes the reader to think about that there was a vibrant literary scene in the many ways that the city, suburbs, and the city and there was “some sort of a region are politically, economically, and romantic aura about Pittsburgh.” He socially connected. poetically continued, likening the This broader thinking about how romantic ambiance of Pittsburgh’s old Pittsburgh, the Paris of Appalachia, is houses, neighborhoods, cultural history, connected with—and central to—the rivers, and bridges to the “glittering Appalachian region that surrounds it is romance of dark, rainy, lamp-lit Left Bank essential for understanding the city’s role cafe nights and the salon glamour” of in regional environmental politics as well. 1920s Paris.1 Indeed, the first essay in this series, The The “Paris of Appalachia” nickname Fierce Urgency of Our Environmental Now, has become a popular way of highlighting pointed out connections between the relationship between Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh, the development of the the wider region (though sometimes it is regional petrochemical industry, and used sarcastically or cynically). Some climate change. The essay explained how references to it follow Kinder’s emphasis climate change will affect both urban and on arts and culture,2 while others use it rural areas and how regional more broadly to explore other aspects of petrochemical industry facilities based the city-region relationship. Perhaps most outside of the city will affect notably, Brian O’Neill celebrates the environmental quality inside the city. everyday culture of Pittsburgh in his 2009 This essay looks at the relationship in book The Paris of Appalachia. In it, he the opposite direction. Broadly speaking, recognizes that people, money, and other what role does Pittsburgh have in shaping things move across and between multiple environmental and economic outcomes in municipalities. As he explains: Appalachia historically, today, and As anyone who has lived here for tomorrow? This essay is a response to the more than a half-hour can tell you, the tendency of politicians, policy-makers, real Pittsburgh is not confined by the city boosters, and others to promote the city limits. One of every four jobs in City of Pittsburgh as representative for the seven-county area is within three the entire region or to ignore the many miles of the Point, but most of those ways that the city and region are paychecks are spent in the malls and connected.4 For instance, writing the day superstores of the suburbs . The after Trump and Peduto’s “Pittsburgh, not real Pittsburgh stretches from Peters Paris” exchange, CityLab contributor 4 Andrew Small pointed out that Peduto’s the historical and contemporary emphasis on city limits in his tweets and connections between the city and region, television interviews that followed “blurs how power operates within those the idea that Pittsburgh’s public policy connections, and who benefits and who concerns—as a place, as an economy, and loses from economic and environmental most pertinently to this discussion, as a processes. These aspects of the contributor to climate change—extend relationship (though seldom discussed) beyond the city itself.”5 Such emphasis on are critical to how we in the city the city over the region minimizes the understand, listen to, and work with our important ways that they are connected. regional counterparts in developing How we understand this relationship healthy and secure environmental and between Pittsburgh and the region economic futures. informs two things: how we think about Illustrating this perspective, Part 1 the perceived and real tensions between explores the history of connections the two areas and how we think about between Pittsburgh and Appalachia and our environmental and economic future- how economic power led to uneven —particularly in regards to shale gas and outcomes for the two areas.7 This history petrochemical development. We need to of uneven connections provides a more recognize that: thorough context for understanding the 1. Economic processes cross city, contemporary development of shale gas county, and metropolitan statistical extraction and the petrochemical area boundaries, industry. Part 2 examines shale gas 2. Cities depend on social and extraction through this lens. The environmental processes inside and conclusion then reconsiders how we outside of their borders to function, think about Pittsburgh, the Paris of Appalachia, and what global investment 3. Resource extraction and in regional petrochemical plants may transformation are integral to mean for the relationship between the economic activity, and city, region, and our shared economic and 4. The process of resource extraction, environmental future. transformation, and flow management are filled with power PART 1 dynamics that affect who benefits A Brief History of Uneven and who loses and in what way.6 Connections Considering the city-regional relationship in this way opens an important Throughout its history, Pittsburgh, conversation about how power operates like other cities,8 has been tied to its across space and how power shapes— surrounding region. Extracting, using, and and continues to shape—Pittsburgh and managing resources from outside of the Appalachia. It enables us to think about 5 city and Allegheny County has been increased dominance of Pittsburgh, its central to the city and region’s growth.9 In companies, and industrialists over the Pittsburgh’s very early days, Pittsburgh rest of the region.12 Among other areas, and the other towns along rivers and we see this relationship in two of the roads throughout the region drew mainly most central materials in the region’s from the agricultural lands and raw history: coal and water. materials that immediately surrounded them. Although connected, they grew Coal somewhat independently.10 As trade and As the city and industry expanded in manufacturing industries developed in the mid-1800s, coal replaced timber as Pittsburgh, other cities and towns the dominant fuel source. Coal came from competed to lead the trade and industrial mines throughout the region: the development in the region. Pittsburgh coal seam extended from During the mid- and late-1800s, the Pittsburgh south to central West Virginia rise of heavy industry brought changes to and southeastern Ohio. The most refined the relationship between Pittsburgh and coal came from the Connellsville coal Appalachia. Economic and political seam in Fayette and Westmoreland leaders based in (or near) Pittsburgh Counties. With the shift to coal, the region since that time have shaped and reshaped transformed: large ovens and plants the landscape of the region to enable the opened near the mines in order to more growth and transformation of the city— cheaply transform the coal into coke, a often to their own benefit.11 Drawing on purified carbon fuel used in iron-making. the work of several historians, this There, the volatile chemicals in the coal section highlights this relationship during were burned off and released into the the region’s industrial heyday in the late air.13 1800s and the “Pittsburgh Renaissance” These ovens and plants heavily of the mid-to-late 1900s. Our history of polluted the adjacent company “patch uneven connections sets the stage for towns” that housed workers and their thinking about the city, region, and shale families in cheap wooden dwellings and gas extraction and processing today. sold them necessary goods at the Industrial expansion: late 1800s company store. Conditions were not healthy. In these towns throughout the The transformation of Pittsburgh’s region, workers and their families were economy from one based on river exposed to various forms of pollution commerce and trade to one based on from the mines.14 Once processed, the large-scale industrial production and coke was sent by river and rail to resource extraction brought changes in Pittsburgh and its neighbors for use in the relationship between the city and industrial production. As the mines, region. These changes led towards the coking plants, and iron and steel 6 manufacturing expanded in the second central to economic growth and half of the 19th century, a “regional urban expansion. In the city’s early days, the network of towns” arose to service the rivers varied from being too shallow to coal and coke industry with too high.