The Blurgh

I met with Dr. Lemley yesterday to plan out our Directed Study, and my alarm over how busy this semester will be continues to grow.  Why did I ever think my last semester at Pitt would be a cake walk?  Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and smack some sense into myself.

What gets me, though, is that everything I’ve committed to doing this semester is so interesting that I can’t bring myself to drop any of it, and the Directed Study is no exception.  The idea we had when we first discussed the project a few months ago was to take a neighborhood in Pittsburgh and track different variables over time, for example population, employment, etc.  One of the first things to figure out is what data is out there for us to track.  We did decide on a neighborhood to focus on, though: the South Side.

It’s hard to think of a neighborhood in Pittsburgh that embodies its history better than the South Side.  Even before steel came to Pittsburgh, it was the center of another industrial boom–glass production.  When steel came, mills and millworkers built the neighborhood, and when steel left, it became a ghost town.  Even before the next big revitalization, though, the South Side started to bounce back as a center for nightlife, and today, it’s one of the most happening areas in town.

So, my first job is to dive into census data as far back as I can go to see what’s there, and then report back to Dr. Lemley.  Thank god the library stays open late!