Where Am I Again?

        As I may have mentioned before, I was born and raised in Pittsburgh and I have lived here for most of my life. Pittsburgh is known for its rivers, steel mills, and collection of ninety neighborhoods. Formal boundaries mark where one neighborhood ends and the other begins, but if you stay long enough and talk to enough residents you will begin to notice that the borders are not as clear as depicted on paper. This phenomenon of border subjectivity extends to the suburbs surrounding the city. Imagine for a moment that you are driving through the Liberty Tunnels. You come through heading away from Downtown Pittsburgh and merge onto Route 51 South Uniontown exit. You drive for a while and as you travel you pass through Overbrook, you fly past Brentwood and into Baldwin-Whitehall, Next you look up and you’re told that you are entering “Jaguar Country”? What is “Jaguar Country?” where are you? Well, the answer most likely depends on who you are asking. Some might say that you are in Baldwin, others will say that you’re in Pleasant Hills, drive a little further and the confusion mounts. Wait…did I now enter West Mifflin? 

       This phenomena of neighborhood confusion is not only restricted to the South Hills. Drive towards the East suburbs of Pittsburgh and suddenly you will begin to wonder where exactly is Blackridge? Am I in Wilkins Township or Eastmont? Is there a difference?For clarity I'll sometimes say I am in Monroeville because I know people know where that is. Yet, this privilege of neighborhood blending and unclear delineations is not in the same respect extended to working class and poverty struck neighborhoods.
 I will again use my childhood home neighborhood of Homewood. Homewood is composed of one square mile of land. As soon as one drives across Hamilton Ave towards Penn Ave something instantly begins to change. The houses are bigger and the yards are trimmed. This change has not been lost on the residents nor is it lost when mentioning Homewood. One day I made the mistake of referring to N. Dallas Ave as part of Homewood. Immediately the person I was talking to corrected me and said no that’s Point Breeze. 

     Currently, as East Liberty is being re-developed the new buildings are not said to be part of East Liberty, no they are the East End something new and separate. The same thing has occurred with the North Side and the North Shore. This same occurrence affects Clairton. Jefferson Hills, where I spent a significant part of my life borders Clairton. Going to high school there people always warned me not to go to Clairton for fear of being shot. The borders of Clairton were clearly established. Elizabeth is Elizabeth. Floreffe is Floreffe and even though these boroughs may border Clairton they are not part of it. These delineations are key because reputation is another asset or drawback to a community. Clearly members of surrounding neighborhoods do not want to be associated with or have their real estate values affected by the reputation of Clairton’s name. So now we wait as the cycle of birth, death, and renaissance of neighborhoods moves from the suburbs into the city to see if Clairton too, or at least parts of it, will undergo a name change. To shed a reputation, but also to shed a cultural memory.