Devastation and Renewal: An Environmental History of Pittsburgh and its Region ed. by Joel A. Tarr (review)

Book Reviews Joel A.Tarr,ed. Devastation and Renewal: An Environmental History of Pittsburgb and its Region. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004. 312 pp. ISBN: 0822941562 (cloth), $ 32.00. erhaps no region of America has undergone as dramatic a change as has that area around Pittsburgh since the collapse of the steel industry in western Pennsylvania. At least on the surface visible changes have occurred,changes that have often hidden underlying problems that continue to plague the region. In September 2000, Joel Tarr, Richard S. Caliguiri Professor of Urban and Environmental History and Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, hosted a conference to examine Pittsburgh, both as an example of the many regions undergoing fundamental change and as an indepth study of one city. Most of the papers presented at that conference were reedited by Tarr for this volume. Tarr, with numerous wellre garded publications to his name, is a thoughtful editor. He has brought together a group of scholpower ,al] are tound in the pages of these essays. Farr begins with a wonderful description of the new and clean" Pittsburgh,a truly dramatic change over the last thirty years, but then sees beneath a veneer to the surviving problems. With Edward K. Muller,he then lays out the foundations of the built and natural landscape of the region. Many things, natural and constructed, had to come together t() make Pittsburgh the steel capital it once was. Once the authors have presented a framework of historical and environmental concerns, a series of essays examines the particular problems of the area. Two essays deal with Water treatment and acid mine drainage, wrapping themselves around the problems of providing clean water to the citi zens and the industries that relied on a secure water source. Three essays then deal with the many problems of smoke pollution and clean air. Angela Gugliotta does f#a fine job with the smoke history 1 of Pittsburgh,beginning with the first bituminous coal burned at 3, 1. Jlk6 , Fort Pitt in the 1750s. She make 41 *01 full use of the popular press of the 1: late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to discuss the national perception of Pittsburgh as a smoky city and the relationship with the wealthy industrialists who took the money from the region and lived it up in the East. Perhaps no more visible sign of pollution and environmental concern exists that the disposal of waste associated with the production of steel. Slag makes up by far the greater portion of production, DEVASTATION df, 4 AN ENVIROAMENTAL 1115'fORY OF Pil'· 1· SHURGIi AND ITS RE. GION RENEWAL Joel A.Tarr Ef) i·rED BY ars, several of them current or former graduate students,to take a close look at the several elements of the environmental history of Pittsburgh. Defined by the rivers and the steel industry ( and its components of ore and coal extraction and production) Pittsburgh suffered from an array of problems. Air and water pollution,acid and slag waste disposal, benign neglect and outright corruption and abuse of SUMMER 2005 85 BOOK REVIEWS e eloquent essay on the city and 0 * 4. &, Si« 1,.£. A'2. » rh , 3 ' %, 3, 4 ;%» 1* 1* late 1990s to be particularly 5% S »*, 1, 5 - =*, ': t, " '« ' %'' * 41'* 1«' 4* useful to his own work and an 35* k, » 7, 45. 2 r, *, 42,' 3 interesting way to approach f' 4, 4, I - 5 8. rox.. I I 0'. . 1 St,11'= 14* questions of urban renewal and environmentalism, deindustri and something has to be done with the material alism, and environmentalism, Andrew S McElwaine examines one waste pile, etc This volume is a very welcome addition to that 238 acres along Nine Mile Run Once open wa- format Tarr has brought together a number of wellterfront , then seventy years as a dump site, and written essays and produced a book of real value now undergoing redevelopment for housing, it is to urban,environmental,and industrial historians a fascinating example of civic irresponsibility and It should also prove valuable to city and corporate corporate abuse managers facing similar issues in their hometowns Samuel R Hays,a long time Pittsburgh resident, Many cities can learn from...