In a contemporary retelling of Aesop’s fable of the tortoise and the hare, Pittsburgh is finding recession-era advantages in a slow-growth legacy.

The city, which has lost half its population since 1950, had a well-chronicled change of character over the second half of the 20th century: from a center of the steel industry to headquarters for many large corporations to a much more diverse economy that encompasses health care, education, finance and technology.

As it shrank, the city had relatively little new construction compared with many United States cities. But it was in the forefront of the movement to conserve existing structures and clean up the contaminated industrial sites called brownfields, becoming a leader in the field of sustainable building. That is now serving Pittsburgh well during the economic downturn.

Describing the area’s rebuilt economy, the Allegheny County executive, Dan Onorato, said: “It’s clean, it’s shiny, it’s green. Slow, steady growth is our strongest asset.”