Lena Andrews and Scott Bricker: Lena Andrews grew up in Pittsburgh, attended its public schools, went to college in New England, and came back to study public policy in a graduate program at Carnegie Mellon. Scott Bricker grew up about forty miles outside of Pittsburgh in Beaver Falls, went to college at Carnegie Mellon, spent two years in San Francisco working for a software company, and then returned to Pittsburgh in 2001.

They met years ago through their work as planners. At the time, she was with the city-planning agency (now she's a planning and development officer for a regional non-profit that develops affordable housing); he had co-founded a biking-advocacy organization that he still heads. They’re now married, both 35, and are enthusiastic boosters of Pittsburgh, saying, “The quality of life here is so amazing.”

They tick off the list of plusses: affordability; decent transit; beautiful green spaces; stunning architecture; historic housing stock; alluring topography... They laugh when I pretend to run out of fingers to count all these positives. “Well, even though we’ve lived here most of our lives, we still have days where we think ‘Pittsburgh is just so beautiful.’ We have to pinch ourselves.”

When they first came back to Pittsburgh in their early 20s, there weren’t many young people there. Andrews says Pittsburgh then "was listed as having the second-oldest population in the country after Miami-Dade County.” She laughed and said, "We'd go to these meetings where they were trying to attract young people, and we'd see that the cut-off was 50 years old, and we'd think What's going on here!?" Now, she says, they’re considered old-timers by “all these young people in their 20s” who are flooding into the city.

They understand and appreciate that influx because they’ve worked hard over the last decade as planners and advocates to enhance the city's appeal—its green spaces, its walkability and bikeability. “There’s a lot of great place-making going on here. So, people are excited and interested. They say, ‘Wait a second, this isn’t just a former steel town; this is a beautiful, green city that I can live in without a car, and it has a lot of great amenities, and I want to be a part of it.’” Andrews says it’s barely exaggerating when she notes, “Every friend who visits us here wants to start looking at houses.”

I ask them to look beyond the city’s beauty and affordability and comment on social mobility. The answer comes immediately: “It’s much easier to connect with people here than it is in other cities. In many ways it’s like a small village. It’s easier than in other places to meet people who are interested in similar things, to get patched into networks that help you achieve your goals.”

“And people have so much pride in Pittsburgh—and care so much about the city —that if you’re working on a project that helps the city get better in some way, people want to help you, people from all different sectors,” Andrews said. “I’ve hardly ever tried to reach someone—even top people in important positions–and not been able to do it, through one degree of separation.”