Hello, Pittsburgh. We think you’re beautiful.

We’re finally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Hurray! We’re very excited to be here, to say the least.

This city of bridges, old industry and beautiful orange and yellow oak trees has been kind to us already. We’ve been here for three days and already we’ve made a few friends, found desk space at the local newspaper, taken a tour of the regional NPR station and found apartments.

The BBC Pop Up team also held a community meet-up two nights ago at Carnegie Mellon University’s CREATE Lab. Meet-up attendees recommended the BBC crew cover stories involving air quality, area refugees and the integrity of the city’s bridges. BBC Pop Up is in Pittsburgh throughout the month of November.

The video above shows the meet-up, the video of which has been condensed from 1.5 hours to 17 seconds.

To get specific, the issues the crowd recommended include:

Refugees in the region

Problems with sewage leaking into ground water

Air quality

Vacant land

Healthy food for immigrant communities

Start-up culture

A growing art community

Pittsburgh is the ‘home of whiskey’

Crumbling infrastructure, mainly bridges

Community gardens

'Most bars per capita of any city in the US’

Healthcare

'Surprise racism: a look into the KKK in the region’

Allegheny City Cemetery

Thanks to all who attended the meet-up. It truly was an incredible success. We hope to respond to any and all follow-up emails shortly.

- Matt Danzico, BBC Pop Up bureau chief