Cooperation and Collaboration Are Not Dirty Words In Pittsburgh

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An excellent opinion piece was published in Sunday’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, written by award-winning journalist and author Steven Beschloss, about how Pittsburgh has propelled itself forward during troubled periods in the city’s past.  The author suggests that in today’s troubled economic times, America look at the Pittsburgh model of cooperation and collaboration as a way forward.

Here is an excerpt from Mr. Beschloss’ piece:

We can rewind to the 1940s when Democratic Mayor David L. Lawrence allied with Republican financier Richard King Mellon to shape the city’s Renaissance Project, giving Pittsburgh a new lease on life at a grave moment of decline and worry. It’s worth recalling how Lawrence described that economic development effort to revive the city and bring together a complex coalition of interests: “This is a Pittsburgh project, not a Democratic or a Republican project.”…

The same cooperation and collaboration has enabled Pittsburgh to survive the collapse of the steel industry and reinvent itself as a city built on education, health care, computer science, biomedicine and engineering.

To read Steven Beschloss’ opinion piece, click here: http://postgazette.com/pg/11233/1168445-109-0.stm?cmpid=newspanel