Steelers give slumping Pittsburgh a boost

It was the 1970s, and Pittsburgh's steel industry was on the decline. Mills would begin shutting down one by one along the city's three rivers.

But that's not the setting that John Vazquez remembers. Arriving from New York in 1975 to visit a friend, he stepped off a Greyhound bus to find a town pulsing with the Pittsburgh Steelers' first Super Bowl victory.

"Everyone was going nuts. I thought, 'If you can't sell [to the fans] in this town, you can't sell anywhere," says Mr. Vazquez, who relocated here and has been selling sports paraphernalia ever since.

Thirty years later, Pittsburgh is experiencing a déjà vu of sorts, with lessons for other cities in America's industrial heartland. Throughout the 70s, as the city's economic future remained uncertain, Steelers fans reveled in the glory days of legendary receiver Lynn Swann, running back Franco Harris, or quarterback Terry Bradshaw, not to mention the team's "Steel Curtain" defense, and four Super Bowl championships in six years.

Now, as Pittsburgh has lingered on the brink of bankruptcy for more than a year and residents here are set to face higher fees and fewer city services, the Steelers are once again providing salvation, coming onto the stage as the "comeback" story of 2004 football. No. 7 jerseys, in reverence for the adored rookie quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, are as ubiquitous these days as Heinz Ketchup bottles.

Yet when the roar of a packed Heinz Stadium fades away, the drumbeat of financial distress goes on in this city, once the playground of the Carnegies and Fricks and other industrialists who turned ample coal deposits into a powerhouse industry. Its woes and loss of population are symbolic of the uncertainty within Rust Belt roads, where towns born of manufacturing have been forced to redefine themselves.

After running structural deficits for years, Pittsburgh's situation came to a head in 2003, when its bond rating was lowered to junk status. It was declared a "distressed city" by the end of last year under Act 47, and oversight boards were named to revise the tax system and add new revenue. The Pittsburgh City Council finally agreed to the recovery plan and sweeping budget cuts last month.

"It's not going to be nominal. It's going to be potholes that don't get filled," says Sabina Deitrick, associate professor of public and urban affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. Already the city has shut down recreation centers and swimming pools and laid off workers. "People are going to notice it. And it's only going to get worse over time."

That's not to say the legacy of steel barons and later philanthropists has disappeared: cultural and academic institutions thrive here. So do hospitals. And the "new" Pittsburgh is one with a more diversified economy, a redeveloped waterfront, and a campaign to draw young urbanites.

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