Metropolitan regional scale smart city approaches in a Shrinking City in the American rust belt—case of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Abstract

This chapter describes the smart city example from the City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the United States. Pittsburgh is a typical city in the rust belt of America that faced decline and shrinkage due to de-industrialization and globalization forces. The economic transformation of Pittsburgh into a post-industrial regime has brought its own set of unique challenges and represent a unique perspective of urban and regional planning approaches that met with varying degrees of success. The purpose of this chapter is to describe the smart city approaches in the context of a Shrinking City that have been shaped by forces of industrial decline, population and job loss, abundance of derelict industrial sites, suburban exodus and racial conflicts, along with shared notions of fighting back to comeback and succeed in the New Economy. After witnessing a prolonged state of industrial and economic decline since the 1980s, Pittsburgh had no choice but adopt planning strategies that would restructure its economy, and transform its large-scale abandoned brownfield sites to create places of vibrant economy and community. Pittsburgh’s proactive policies to involve local communities in reusing old and vacant lands for economic transformation and urban greening, as well as using green infrastructure for storm water management and improving the quality of its waterways, resulted in many success stories throughout the region. Thus, our study of Smart City strategies in Pittsburgh focuses on the successes and failures of economic transformation, brownfield redevelopment and urban greening. While it is in the process of coming back, the region still faces several challenges, such as a large number of vacant and distressed lands, aging population and infrastructure, which needs to be addressed in the coming decades.