About the Author

Joseph L. Scarpaci is professor of geography at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and author of Barrios and Plazas: Heritage Tourism and Globalization in the Spanish Amiercan Centro Histórico.

Reviews

Pittsburgh and the Appalachians profiles the city and its hinterland to assess what they have, and what they will need, to achieve a fresh and vigorous future. Once gateway to the West, then keystone city for American heavy industry, Pittsburgh, with its region, became a cruel postindustrial economic and environmental joke. Yet when viewed in contemporary perspective, unique urban and regional characteristics of people and place, from creative forces at the core to recreational resources across the region, provide energy, opportunity, and possibility. Scholarly and readable, this book captures Pittsburgh's promise and serves as a model for how geographers can look at and think about effects of urban, metropolitan, and regional restructuring and reshuffling in the twenty-first century.-- "Joseph S. Wood, University of Southern Maine"

During the industrial age, coal was king, steel and other mills dominated the economic landscape, and immigrants created distinctive neighborhoods. Pittsburgh and the Appalachians analyzes the transition to the landscape of the information age, facilitated by planning, community organizations, and private-public partnerships, where creative people are the most important factor of production and universities and cultural and environmental resources are critical to growth.-- "Ruth I. Shirey, Indiana University of Pennsylvania"

This volume will be of interest to scholars and a wider readesrhip interested in the region and/or in the challenges of the shifting economic and social realities of the eraly 21st century. Recommended.-- "Choice"