Strip malls first

Author's note: I wrote the following story about a year back and posted it on Barnestormin. A bit later, I thought it was imprudent to have such a one-sided story on my blog, and I deleted the post. But now I think that the story is worth repeating, given the massive landslide caused by construction work at the proposed site of a Wal-Mart along Rt. 65.

Despite the protests of community groups across the country, the malling of America continues unabated, with the big box retailers leading the race to develop the strip mall of the future. In Pittsburgh’s North Hills, community leaders are considering changing the area’s name to North Malls, to simplify things for shoppers.
But some in North Hills are fighting back.
Avalon resident Bob Keir, spokesman for Communities First, a grassroots group opposed to Wal-Mart building a new store in Kilbuck Township on the old Dixmont State Hospital property, said that his group isn’t giving up, despite a recent ruling against them by PennDOT director Allen Biehler. He recently rejected an appeal by Communities First that had argued that PennDOT underestimated the amount of traffic that would go to the Wal-Mart development’s driveway off of Route 65. Communities First had argued that the increase in traffic on Route 65 and Interstate 79 would be far greater than PennDOT had estimated. Despite the fact that the grassroots nonprofit group has 400 members from four North Boroughs municipalities, PennDOT officials wouldn’t even recognize that the group has standing to question the development.
“While Communities First is legitimately concerned about the impact of commercial development on neighborhoods and local businesses, the Department’s highway access regulations are not intended to address those issues,” Biehler said in his ruling. “Rather, those provisions implement the Department’s power and duty ‘to regulate the location, design, construction, maintenance and drainage of access driveways … for the purpose of security, economy of maintenance, preservation of proper drainage and safe and reasonable access.’ (Emphasis added.)”
In English, that means that PennDOT only was considering the merits of the driveway to the development, which would be on a partially wooded hilltop alongside Route 65, near the I-79 junction, and not considering the merits of the development. Biehler added that Communities First members had provided no good argument at all:
“Further, although afforded a hearing, Communities First presented no evidence that it (or any of its members) was actually affected by ‘the location, design, construction, maintenance, [or] drainage’ of the access authorized by the permit in dispute,” Biehler wrote.
Keir said the issue is on the back burner while Communities First huddles with its lawyer. But Keir appeared as adamantly against the Wal-Mart as always. He noted that the approved driveway plan has some potholes in it. “The [traffic plan] does not include Sewickley Bridge, and it does not include Camp Horne Road,” he said. “PennDOT approved a flawed plan, using old data.”
Keir contends that PennDOT officials also ignored the evidence that Communities First’s former consultant presented to them. “We hired a guy who’s done millions of dollars of work for PennDOT, and he said the plan was awful,” Keir noted, adding that engineering consultant David Freudenrich said PennDOT used a 1997 formula to determine the traffic that would result from the development. “PennDOT issued the highway occupancy permit, and our engineer said he had to resign… PennDOT ignored everything we gave them, then they interfered with our traffic consultant,” he said.
Freudenrich works for McGuire Group, an engineering firm that does millions in work for PennDOT, Keir noted.
Communities First has spent $130,000 on consultants and legal fees, but it is not giving up, Keir said. “Our next step might be to sue PennDOT in Commonwealth Court.”

Blogging Rant

Last July I started Barnestormin in an effort to get my stories out to a wider audience. I have gained the attention of some of that audience, but more importantly, I’ve learned a few things about blogging and the blogosphere. I have slacked off in the past few months and have not blogged frequently, as was my habit, so I’ve had some time to think about what I’ve learned about blogging since I started Barnestormin.
I am much more optimistic about the blogosphere subculture’s present and future affect on the larger culture than I was when I began Barnestormin. I also have picked up a few blogging pointers that I want to pass on. Here are five tips on blogging:
1) Allow people their pseudonyms – I got into trouble with this one. Many folks out there want to post under a handle or tag, and such pseudonyms are part of the blogosphere. Some folks will abuse the privilege of using a tag, harshly and unfairly criticizing others who post under their true names, but those abusive types are the exception. Most folks who use a tag have a good reason to do so, and ought not to be criticized simply for using a pseudonym.
2) Assume that people are reading your web log – People may be reading your blog when you least expect it. If you post enough and write about things that are of interest, even quiet types will speak up with a comment from time to time. It’s easy to forget this fact, particularly if relatively few people are posting comments on your blog. But just like in the newspaper, where a few letters to the editor can be representative of the views of thousands, a few comments from a handful of people posting on your blog might be representative of a much larger audience.
3) Recognize that the press will notice your blog – I was pleasantly surprised to see Barnestormin mentioned in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, in the Allentown Morning Call, in the Pittsburgh City Paper, and by New York Daily News writer Derek Rose on his weblog. I solicited some of these mentions by letting folks know about Barnestormin, but I was gratified to see that some mainstream news people were willing to give my little blog a chance.
4) Don’t let the marketers get you down – If your blog is funny or well written, readers might come out of the advertising netherworld to make contact with you. They may offer you lucrative freelance writing work and flatter you by saying: “Our writing styles are exactly the same.” Consider such comments at their egomaniacal essence, and you’ll realize that, in fact, you are by far the better writer. Avoid working with such people.
5) Be humble – The minute you start to get on your high horse on your blog, some reader out there will come along and knock you to the ground. Try to be humble, and remember that blogging is as much about conversation as it is about writing and current events. Get the conversation started with a post, and encourage the comments as they come. Allow folks to take other sides of the issue, and allow them to be brutally honest. With such an approach, and some insightful readers, you are bound to learn a few things.

Still Here

I am still here, though I’ve haven’t been doing as much posting as I once did on Barnestormin.
I’m no U.S. Steel, but in some ways, we may be alike—out of sight and out of mind. U.S. Steel once was the global giant of the world steel industry, but now it’s a small fry compared to its former self. But it is not gone, neither from Pittsburgh, nor from America.
I bring this up because Pittsburgh’s young mayor, who has every reason to know nothing about the steel industry’s preeminence in Pittsburgh since he was born at the end of it, apparently doesn’t realize that the steel industry still exists in Pittsburgh. Sure, it’s a shadow of its former self, but it’s still hanging. But Mayor Luke is apparently afraid to admit this fact, since he, like many Pittsburghers, has a sort of industrophobia that makes him deny that Pittsburgh has any current connection to steel.
Letterman asked the young mayor, “Is steel all gone [from Pittsburgh]?”
“It’s all gone,” the mayor replied, as if the Mon Valley works didn’t exist, or as if the Steel Building still isn’t headquarters to U.S. Steel.
The Edgar Thompson Works, in Braddock, is state-of-the-art and was built in 1875. U.S Steel employs 4,000 people locally and 45,000 globally, and the company’s growing.
The 105-year-old company produces 4 million tons of coke annually at the Clairton works, and 2.9 million tons of raw steel each year in Braddock.
Steel is still here, young mayor.