Posts
I went shopping for a few supplies in the Waterfront today in nearby Homestead, Pennsylvania, and it was my first time going there. You can read about the interesting history of this shopping center here. One of those very interesting cases of a Rust Belt community literally reinventing itself; Homestead was for a very long time the archtypical Mon Valley steel city before a harsh period of deindustrialization. It's a story that is repeated over and over again throughout Allegheny County, the Mon Valley, and indeed much of Western Pennsylvania - to varying degrees of success, of course. I grew up in a household where these types of historical developments/trends were common dinner conversation, and for a long time Homestead - in my mind - represented unmitigated Northern industrial blight and poverty a la Youngstown, Ohio or Flint, Michigan. As I've learned since living here and visiting many of these communities, the reality is a bit more nuanced than that. Certainly there is blight and economic despair, but the reality is not nearly as ubiquitously ominous as I would have suspected with my Sunbelt perception of things. Not that I would walk around Homestead at night; but you get my point.
Focus on Florida
I was going to write a tad on my thoughts on Charlie Crist - our wonderfully amorphous "Republicrat" governor whom I have markedly mixed opinions about - but I'm rather pressed for time. So instead, I'll save that piece for next week and I'll just share some fabulous photos of various places in Florida from the Web. None of these are mine, and the copyrights are with the respective owners.
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
I can say the following without the slightest hint of reticence; all of the places I have visited in the world, all the global cities and exotic destinations, I can think of no other place that I would rather call home - and that will never change.
No comments:
Post a Comment