AntiRust

The Public Health Case Against Apples. And Apricots. And Cassava.

I suppose that some people are inclined to put credence in the Post-Gazette's sense that there is no such thing as a safe dose of second-hand tobacco smoke. And that hordes of "tobacco-stained inconsiderate smokers" are putting the rest of us in grave peril.

But can it be true that there is no such thing as a safe dose? That would be very strange. Because that would make second-hand smoke worse than cyanide.

See, there is a safe level of cyanide. In apple seeds. 

But I propose a new standard. Any amount of cyanide is too much. That Hot Upside-Down Apple Pie at Mortons? Those degenerates have wrapped their dessert-stained fingers around too many throats already. Think of the pastry chefs exposed to this deadly scourge.

And those murderous Del Monte executives? Well, I think it's time to end the reign of terror they have foisted upon American babies, what with their Dutch-Apple stained fingers.

No. There is no such thing as a safe dose of cyanide. And the sooner our leaders stop kissing the feet of apple lobbyists, the better.

And of you think apples are bad, try apricots. Or Cassava.

Children are especially susceptible in all cases. Is it really too much to ask for these restaurateurs to control their produce-stained fingers? No one is calling for a ban on produce. But if you have to suck down these toxins, please do it in the privacy of your own home where you will not endanger workers and diners.

Again: There is no such thing as safe cyanide.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Editorial Board is Dishonest, Immoral and Securely in the Pocket of Special Interests. Or Stupid.

Strong charge in that headline, no? Boy. I better get busy justifying it. Or not. See, the Post-Gazette has set the bar so low in making such charges that I feel comfortable just saying it. Like the editorial board does.

The latest unjustified diatribe comes--surprise!--in yet another editorial supporting a smoking ban:

The legislators need to stop kissing the feet of these businessmen and tobacco lobbyists and focus on two points made by the surgeon general.

Kissing the feet? Look. There are hundreds of legislators who currently oppose the ban. And this editorial indicates the each and every one of them is worshiping at the altar of special interests and Big Money. According to this rubbish, not a single one of these elected officials is opposed to the ban on the grounds of property rights, concerns about individual autonomy or any other reason. Nope. They are all greedy, dishonest hacks. Or stupid.

Well that's crap. Especially since the paper can be accused of the same sin. Seriously. I hereby challenge the editorial board: Did a single member actually read the recent Surgeon General's report on which the editorial was based? Not the executive summary. I am talking about the report. You know the one. It's about secondhand smoke. According to the Post-Gazette, this report proves a whole bunch of stuff once and for all. Things like (according to the Post-Gazette): "Even brief exposures can place nonsmokers at risk."

Because one supporter of smoking bans did read it. And he thinks that claim is a big load of crap. Keep in mind that this is not some dude with a journalism degree masquerading as a public health official. He is a medical doctor who has worked to restrict tobacco for the past 20 years. A guy who holds a serious position at Boston University:

In fact, such a conclusion flies in the face of common medical sense. How could it possibly be that a brief exposure to secondhand smoke can cause heart disease? It takes many years for heart disease to develop. It takes years of exposure to tobacco smoke even for a smoker to develop heart disease. I estimate that it takes at least 25 years of exposure (based on the fact that very few smokers are diagnosed with heart disease before age 40).

So how could it possibly be that for an active smoker, heart disease takes 25 years of exposure to tobacco smoke to develop, but for a passive smoker, it only takes a single, transient, brief exposure?

It is also quite misleading to tell the public that a brief exposure to secondhand smoke increases the risk of lung cancer. There is certainly no evidence for this and the Surgeon General's report itself draws no such conclusion. In fact, the report makes it clear that most of the studies linking secondhand smoke and lung cancer studied nonsmokers with many years of intense exposure.

Re-read the beginning of that last paragraph: "It is quite misleading to tell the public that a brief exposure to second-hand smoke increases the risk of lung cancer."

Now go back to the Post-Gazette editorial:

Even brief exposures can place nonsmokers at risk.

Weird.

But how could a report from the Surgeon General's office be wrong? Don't get me started. But in this case there is an interesting development. According to the anti-smoking activist I linked to above, the report DOESN'T say that. Only the executive summary. Turns out that the official has spun the report to his own liking. Hello? Is second-hand smoke the new WMD? According to the anti-smoking doctor:

The rest of the story is that the Surgeon General's press release distorts the science presented in the report and ends up presenting misleading and inaccurate information to the public.

The press release claims that a significant finding of the Surgeon General's report is that: "Even brief exposure to secondhand smoke has immediate adverse effects on the cardiovascular system and increases risk for heart disease and lung cancer."

To re-phrase this for clarity, the Surgeon General is publicly claiming that brief exposure to secondhand smoke increases risk for heart disease and lung cancer.

But there is absolutely no evidence to support this claim. Certainly, no evidence is presented in the Surgeon General's report to support this claim. And certainly, the Surgeon General's report draws no such conclusion.

The Post-Gazette's editorial has a helpful link to the report. Perhaps the people who wrote the editorial might want to click on it and read it with a critical eye before accusing hundreds of elected officials--and everyone else opposed to the ban--of being corrupt or stupid.

If lawmakers opposed to the ban are kissing the feet of tobacco lobbyists, what body part do the editors of the Post-Gazette have their lips attached to? Because I think someone is blowing smoke out of it.

Maybe that sounds harsh. But people who live in smoke-free glass houses shouldn't prattle on about people "kissing feet."

That is dishonest, misleading nonsense and the paper ought to be ashamed.

(Thanks to Hit and Run for the link to Dr. Michael Siegel's site.)

Smoking And Banning and Hyperventilating

The frenzy to ban smoking in bars and restaurants got a major push from the US Surgeon General's office the other day. And as we all know, this has been a done deal for a while. It's only a matter of time.

It's still nonsense. Because resistance to it is not about "supporting the tobacco industry," as the guy quoted in the PG article charges. It is not about claiming smoking is good for you or convincing people to light up. The fact that people can say those things in public and get away with it--without a whiff of criticism from the region's biggest newspaper--is a major problem.

Yes smoking is bad for you. Breathing in other people's smoke is bad for you. Less bad, but probably something to be avoided. Did we need a study for that?

At any rate, if the fact that it is bad for workers means we have to ban it, what does that mean for logging and high iron work and driving a race car? Should we ban the act of guiding rafters through dangerous stretches of rapids? We all know that people will die because they do these jobs. Yet we let them.

Check out Jacob Sullum's take on this for a skeptical response to this report. Probably the only one you'll see. Follow the link through to his piece in the USA TODAY. At least that paper seems capable of thinking things through. It disagrees with him. But not in knee-jerk fashion. If only the Post-Gazette were so inclined.

At any rate, watch your Twinkies.

Economic Development and the Charlotte Experience: Why Image Doesn't Matter

Today's Post-Gazette offers the third in its series about Charlotte's banking boom. And in my mind it raises serious questions about Pittsburgh's main approach to urban redevelopment.

The article focuses on the fact that thousands of young, educated people from Western Pennsylvania have moved to Charlotte in recent years. Why? Because of more granite in the counter tops? More Tuscan tile in the hallways? Catchier slogans? No.

They moved there for jobs.

Almost all of the people in the article say that they prefer Pittsburgh. That Charlotte doesn't have enough cultural amenities. That they hate the go-go nature of the banking boom and the seemingly shallow culture it has spawned. Yet there they are. Here's a sample:

Take former Pittsburgher Linda Gregory, a Bank of America business analyst, for example. She moved to Charlotte in January 2005 because she came to the conclusion that there were "no jobs up there [in Pittsburgh]." While Ms. Gregory is still fond of Pittsburgh, she "would never consider moving north" again.

Or how about this, my favorite:

If there is a regret among Pittsburghers now stationed here, it is the soul and culture of the city they left behind.

The first time 30-year-old Jennifer Linsenmayer and her husband James, 35, moved to Charlotte, Mrs. Linsenmayer moved back after nine months. "I hated it," she said. "I hated the people, I hated where we were living. It seemed like this big party town."

But Mrs. Linsenmayer, originally from McCandless, could not find a job in Pittsburgh that paid enough. When she came back to Charlotte in 2001 for a job at Bank of America, her salary almost doubled to $45,000.

She could not find a job.

So would new condos in the Fifth-Forbes corridor have convinced her to stay? It's hard to see how. Because even if they were so heavily subsidized as to rent for $100 a month, it's tough to come up with $100 a month if you don't have a job.

I think the lesson here is critical: You can have all the cultural amenities you want. You can have fancy condos. You can have museums and symphonies and the rest. You can even have a cohort of loyal locals who are highly motivated to stay at almost any cost.

But if you don't have jobs they are going to leave. Even if they hate where they are going. Because they will move there and, eventually, build the cultural and social amenities they like.

Silicon Valley sucked. But people moved there. Charlotte, apparently, sucks for people born and raised in Pittsburgh. But they go. And I am sure Pittsburgh sucked in 1910. But people moved here. For work.

All these places had terrible, terrible IMAGES. People viewed them negatively as places. As homes. But the image didn't matter. Because these places had OPPORTUNITY.

So it seems to me that the lesson ought to be forget about image. Create opportunity. The rest will follow. Look at Charlotte. It has shed its textile and tobacco "image." By becoming something else. Not by talking about becoming something else. Or building condos. First, it attracted people to live in the condos. You know. Like a half million people in just a few years.

Look. I'm not kidding myself. I think that the powers that be, were they to focus on opportunity rather than image, would pursue it in a way that I might find objectionable. For instance, I object to spending public money on a skyscraper for PNC. But hey, that's how it goes. At least that appears to make some sort of sense.

The image stuff? Ask someone who moved to Charlotte.

Raspberry Oscar Martinis: It's A Good Thing Pittsburgh Lost the Banking Race to Charlotte

If today's Post-Gazette article about life in Charlotte, NC, is accurate, I am glad Pittsburgh lost the race to be America's second largest banking center. Do all the guys really wear flat-front pants and drink Raspberry Oscar (?) martinis? God, that sounds grim.

I understand that it is difficult to write about a "place" without resorting to stereotypes and cliches. But I wonder about how to take this kind of story. Think about where you grew up. And think about whether or not a quick article could accurately represent that place. Was Pittsburgh ever really the place depicted in popular media? For better or worse, such things have staying power. Pittsburgh is still trying to replace its old image with a new one.

At any rate, Charlotte appears to be every bit the "industry town" I asked about here. Only their Andrew Mellon [Update: I mean Carnegie, although Andrew Mellon was interesting, too] is named Hugh McColl. There are even portraits of him hanging in bars. Visual Arts centers named after him. Perhaps they should change the name of their football team to "The Bankers" to complete the parallel to "Steel City."

But here is a larger question about comparing Charlotte to Pittsburgh and how the former beat out the latter to become "number two" in banking. Go back to the graph in the original article in this series: It turns out quite a few cities beat out Pittsburgh. To become number three in banking. To become number four in banking. To become number five in banking. See, Pittsburgh is actually number 10.

So what do we learn by examining the way Charlotte rose to number two? Does it indicate what Pittsburgh should have done? Did numbers 3 through 9 do all those things, too? Or did each city take a different approach? Is there any reason to think that Charlotte's would have been most appropriate here?  And again, is there any reason to regret that Pittsburgh isn't currently teeming with flat-front-wearing, Raspberry-Oscar-drinking wunderkinds? Is there any reason to be happy about that?

It will be interesting to see if the PG series takes a look at that downside. That is, what about the people in the city who don't "go for the Osso Buco Milanese -- a favorite veal dish -- at Luce Ristorante, a bank-owned space outfitted with gold chandeliers, Italian marble and hand-painted frescoes"?

Pittsburgh is dealing with a constantly shrinking population. But are there any problems associated with this?

As the banks expanded with aggressive acquisitions of rivals around the country, the Charlotte metro area added 300,000 people in the 1990s and another 264,000 in the six years since.

Household income is up 63 percent since 1990, to $59,267, as the total number of well-paying finance-related jobs in the region doubled to about 60,000, a figure that includes mortgage banks, venture capital firms, accounting and insurance (across the country such jobs increased about 20 percent during that time).

To what extent did the rise in income accrue to families already living there? To what extent did all the money go to new people in new industries? Perhaps there are some lessons to be learned as Pittsburgh continues to expand its presence in health and education. Because if all the money goes to the new people and the cost of housing skyrockets, is there any reason for old timers to even try to bring in new industries? In fact, wouldn't there be reason to resist change? Or is there a way to spread the wealth?

And those martinis. Please, God, whatever happens with the Fifth-Forbes corridor and light rail and the rest of it, don't let Pittsburgh become known for its thirst for berry-flavored martinis. A more respectable cocktail like a Manhattan would be fine. Or something interesting like a Harvey Wallbanger. But a berry martini as the signature drink of Western Pennsylvania would signal the apocalypse. Or at least it should. 

Update: I have done some research, and it turns out that things are far more dire in Charlotte than I ever imagined. Turns out a Raspberry Oscar martini contains "Godiva White, raspberry juice and cranberry juice."

I guess I am about to reveal my sexist, paternalistic leanings, but here goes: A Raspberry Oscar martini, as described, is a fine drink for a young lady. But no man--whether he is wearing flat-front pants and an open collar shirt or not--should ever drink one. Unless he is sufficiently cool to be able to pull it off as ironic.

I don't know anyone that cool.

Baltimore Revival: Saving a Neighborhood. Or Not.

The Baltimore Sun is running a series about efforts to save a decrepit neighborhood in the city's east end. Part of those efforts involve refurbishing an old brewery building, but "experts" predict that more will be necessary. A lot more:

The experience of Baltimore and other cities demonstrates that such areas can be turned around - but at a steep price. At a minimum, urban experts say, it will take an investment of $20 million or more to revitalize the brewery area, a sum that is far beyond anything that is currently being contemplated.

Successive city administrations in Baltimore have largely agreed with Booker that the area will not improve without public intervention, although they have been reluctant to expend substantial resources there.

The newspaper sees this as quite a paradox. One requiring large words to describe:

The abandonment of the blocks around the shuttered brewery illustrates the difficulties of drawing private investment to decayed urban neighborhoods - as well as the Solomonic choice facing public officials. With limited public and private resources, which areas do you invest in and what happens to those left out?

Solomonic? Sheesh.

And at any rate, would it really have been tough to come up with $20 million? I guess so. Maybe because not so long ago the city decided to spend $300 million to build a hotel. Right next to the convention center. The same convention center that was supposed to save downtown but didn't. A downtown which has already been saved by hundreds of millions spent on the Inner Harbor and Pier Six and the Galleria and Camden Yards and Ravens Stadium, etc.

For that $300 million, the city could have "saved" 15 neighborhoods like the one surrounding the brewery.

I don't know. Maybe it's a good thing for the neighborhood that it didn't happen. City leaders built the Inner Harbor 30 years ago and the world's most successful urban revitalization STILL isn't drawing enough private investment downtown to preclude the need for a $300 million public investment in a hotel right next to all those messianic amenities.

Solomon, indeed.. 

Boom, Bust and Banking: Did Pittsburgh Lose to Charlotte, or Will We Have the Last Laugh?

Today the Post-Gazette kicked off an interesting series about how Charlotte, North Carolina, beat out Pittsburgh to become America's second largest banking city. The language is pretty stark: The headline is, "How Charlotte became a banking giant, outpacing Pittsburgh's banks."

Later we see:

But why did it happen in Charlotte? And why not Pittsburgh, which in many ways had a head start?

In a section subheaded "Pittsburgh's mistake" we see:

But Pittsburgh stumbled -- and then hunkered down -- as bad loans and poor investment choices slowed PNC and crosstown rival Mellon Bank in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

And later:

The luckiest turn for Mr. McColl and his predecessors at Bank of America was a fluke decision made by a Pittsburgh bank executive -- one that would hand Charlotte an opportunity to beat its rivals to the start of interstate banking.

I can accept that McColl got lucky. But did the people of Charlotte? Back to the story (emphasis added):

He is one of several reasons why once-sleepy Charlotte is now the nation's second-largest banking center, after New York, with $1.7 trillion in assets, and why one out of every five people in the region now has a finance-related job. Some 32,000 of them work for either Charlotte-based Bank of America, the nation's largest financial institution; or Charlotte-based Wachovia, the nation's fourth-largest.

Good stuff. But is it stable in the long term? I mean, is there any reason for people in Pittsburgh to be concerned about overemphasis on a single industry? Yes. I think so.

Anyone know what percentage of workers in the Pittsburgh region were in the steel industry in, say, the 1950s? I am sure it was pretty high.

But so is one in five in the banking industry. And so is 32,000 people working for two companies. It really sucked when Big Steel collapsed. But if you think that's bad, try this. Or this.

I thought the whole idea behind the Renaissance--one of its major success stories--was ushering in the diversification of the Pittsburgh economy. To keep it from the boom and bust that comes with being an "industry town."

I wonder how people define that now. Is 20 percent in banking too much? What about universities and health care?

These are interesting questions, because it is all to easy to forget about the whole "bust" thing in the middle of a boom.

So did we blow it? Or is Pittsburgh better off being number 10 on the banking list?

I don't know the answers. But I think they are important questions. Moreover, they pose other questions. Let's say some industry takes over Pittsburgh. Or tries. Should we resist? If five more major health companies want to move here and bring 60,000 jobs, should someone say, "No. Sorry. Not enough economic diversity"?

Or do you ride the boom? Is there a way to turn such a boom into something diverse? Or does industry concentration on that level crowd other stuff out?

Hmmm....

Downtown Living: Still Cutting Edge? A Trend? A Cliche?

The life of an idea is a strange thing. And precarious to boot. It slides so quickly from cutting-edge to general acceptance to trend to cliche.

Urban planning seems especially susceptible. Maybe its the politics involved. But in the post-war era, places like Pittsburgh were some of the first to experiment with new things, and pretty soon every hamlet in every state was ripping down old neighborhoods and building parkways. Then the flight to the suburbs spread and became a caricature of itself. Then exurbs. Etc.

Have we come to that point with the new craze for "urban living"? I think so. Take a look at this story from today's  Erie Times-News (registration required). It explores the possibilities surrounding a "new face" for downtown:

The marketing analysis concluded there is a potential demand for 200 units of new housing in downtown Erie over a four-year period, he said.

Proposals to meet that demand include:

a 90-unit townhouse development targeted to first-time homebuyers, possibly clustered in two areas, one on the bayfront and one in the midtown area from 12th to 14th streets.

a 60-unit historic warehouse condominium loft redevelopment aimed at younger singles and two-person households.

a 50-unit luxury mid-rise, waterfront-view condominium targeted for empty nesters and single professionals.

The authority has already talked to potential developers for the 90-unit townhouse development, Elliott said.

The warehouse condominium loft redevelopment could be situated in the former Mercantile Building at East 14th and State streets, which the authority bought and is hoping to convert into a restaurant, offices and residential condominiums, Elliott said.

Sound familiar? By the way, this study cost $100,000. You know, I think I am going to go into the study business. Let's say a mid-sized city--any one of them in any state, take your pick--came to me and asked for ideas. Would anyone blink an eye if I came back with a template for townhouses and condos and a supermarket downtown? It will revitalize the urban core, don't you know? What would be more surprising would be a plan that decided something different.

Is anyone aware of a recent planning study that rejected this approach in favor of something else? Anywhere?

If not, isn't that a problem? I mean, what are the odds that the problems facing Columbus and Pittsburgh and Erie and Hartford and Cleveland are all the same exact problems that will respond to the same exact solutions?

Sounds like a racket to me.

And it sounds like the kind of groupthink people regret a generation later.

We need a new Jane Jacobs. Someone with the credibility to question these ideas. At any rate, here's more from Erie if you're interested.

Mayor Joe Sinnott said he has heard only "bits and pieces" of the master plan, but he said the market analysis appears to reflect a broad trend toward downtown residential development.

"We have identified that as something we're trying to do for downtown revitalization," Sinnott said. "It sounds like we are headed in the right direction."

Sinnott said the city has plans for downtown residential redevelopment, but details are too premature to discuss publicly.

He said the proposals for a supermarket and the specialty retail stores support the trend for increased residential development.

Sinnott said he thinks the market analysis is realistic.

"I think it is," he said. "Market-rate housing development is going to be a significant part of that."

Sinnott also noted that Allentown has had tremendous success in its revitalization through residential development downtown.

Laurie Eaton, board president of the Downtown Improvement District and a downtown merchant for 24 years, said she agreed with the market analysis.

Eaton, owner of the Floral Gallary, 815 State St., said the clustering of retail businesses is important.

In Harrisburg, restaurants were clustered in an area called Restaurant Row, which has led to a dramatic increase in night life there, she said. And smaller communities are clustering retail stores.

"The only way retail is going to come back to downtown is if they cluster together," Eaton said.

Eaton also believes there is a demand for downtown housing, particularly condominiums.

A Museum on the Allegheny: If You Build it...???

Inflating revenue and/or attendance projections is a time-honored way to gain public support for a project. (I once wrote a story along those line about Maglev.) No matter what the scheme or its cost, someone will predict that scads of people will clamor to spend their hard-earned cash on the latest convention center or stadium or light-rail system. And thus economic salvation. (The Simpsons lampooned this tendency in a brilliant sendup of The Music Man.)

I think that most people associate this kind of thing with cities. But check this out. A group has been pushing for a "Pennsylvania Hunting and Fishing Museum" for a long, long time. And it is finally going to happen. In Tionesta.

Familiar with Tionesta? I love that place. It's up in Forest County, right along the Allegheny National Forest. It has about 600 people.

I don't know if they are still there, but until recently the Main Street had parking meters that took pennies.

Just to be clear, I think that the museum is a grand idea. It will be built on several islands right in the middle of the Allegheny River, and I am sure it will be beautiful and interesting and will celebrate some great history. Pennsylvania is a strange place. With lots of contradictions. A big eastern state with a huge rural population. Forests. Cities. If we can celebrate Andy Warhol with a museum, why not the people who hunt and fish? I am sure they outnumber Warhol fans. Plus the forest has been such an integral part of our culture and economy, etc. etc.

But take a look at this report in the Warren Times-Observer.  It details the museum's upcoming groundbreaking. It explains how the facility has already secured a few hundred thousand in state funding. And is looking for more. And making that pitch based on promises of... economic impact.

Economic impact to the tune of 160,000 visitors a year.

Wow. That would certainly change Tionesta. But is it realistic? Keep in mind that the Warhol Museum, whatever you think of it, is widely admired. Plus it explores the legacy of a very famous artist. And it's in a city. Near an airport. 

The Warhol Museum welcomed 67,513 through its doors in 2004.

Can a hunting and fishing museum in Tionesta more than double that attendance on a regular basis? Like I said, there are a lot of people who hunt and fish in Pennsylvania. And a lot of people go to the Allegheny National Forest. Still, it seems that even the people in charge of the museum are hedging a bit. From the WTO article:

... [I]f construction goes according to plan, the new state museum is expected to open to visitors in early 2008.

The new museum, to be located in two buildings on an Allegheny River island near Tionesta, is expected to attract almost 160,000 visitors per year.

“Even if we don’t quite reach that figure, it will still be quite a boost for the local economy,” said Julia McCray, executive director of the Pennsylvania Hunting and Fishing Museum.

I know quite a few of the folks involved with the museum and have a lot of respect for them. And I think that this is a worthwhile project. But I would be amazed if it draws anything close to 160,000. So how to view this?

Is it a case of small-town leaders learning lessons from their big-city brethren? After all, do convention centers/stadiums/hotels in Pittsburgh and Philly and Erie ever live up to the promises economic developers make? So when competing with those projects for state dollars, what else can you do but join the over-promising? That is, have small-town people finally learned to play the game?

Or has it always been this way? Is this just a function of the political process? Inevitable?

Or maybe I am nuts and the place will draw 160,000. I hope so.

I think they are still looking for a bunch of money to complete the project. Maybe someone from someplace other than Harrisburg has deep enough pockets. You never know.

By the way, half of Tionesta's downtown burned to the ground a few years back. Damn shame.

Want a Cheap House? Forget Pittsburgh...

Oh man. You don't see Canton, Ohio, profiled in the New York Times everyday. But you do today. And it ain't pretty.

This article indicates that while housing prices everywhere else are exploding, you can get yourself an address in Canton for $10,000 or $20,000. No mansions for that amount, but you can live in the nice section of town for $80,000.

Several things: First, let's do something unfair and compare Canton to Pittsburgh. (Like I said, I know it's unfair. But civic boosters feel free to compare Pittsburgh to Columbus when they want a new hockey arena, so I claim a certain amount of license.) At any rate, the cities are similar. Canton used to be an industrial powerhouse. But factories closed and the population plummeted. Sound familiar? Which of course led to a slide in housing prices. Scroll down a few posts or click here for a discussion of how those factors are playing out in Pittsburgh--especially whether it makes sense for the government to be subsidizing housing in a city that already has a lot of housing.

And now for the inevitable unfair question: What would you say if Canton's mayor started talking about dumping millions into high-end condos?

I can almost feel the derision about to be heaped upon me.

OK. So now for an even more ridiculous comparison: Let me tell you how this would play out in Washington, DC. See, Canton is 111 miles from Pittsburgh according to the Yahoo map. I have never driven it, but what's it take, two hours?

Well, if this were DC, young families looking for a place to live would move to Canton and make the commute. Two hours is NOTHING to these people. They only cover 30 miles in that amount of time, but they do it. Believe me. I know.

Not so long ago I read a story in the Washington Post about tens of thousands of people moving to the Frederick, Maryland, area, where houses are getting more and more expensive all the time. Every day they get up at 4:30 am and drive--on roads that are getting more and more congested--to the last Metro stop on the Red Line. They wait for that train, then sit on it for another half an hour. Get off and wait for a transfer. Then sit on that train forever. Then get off and either take a cab or walk to their office. Then do it all in reverse at night.

Ah, Pittsburgh.

(And again, I know Pittsburgh is not like Canton. Just like it isn't like Columbus.)