G-20 Host Pittsburgh Shows its Resilience

(CBS)  President Obama and other world leaders who were at the United Nations Wednesday will be moving on tomorrow to the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh.

Why Pittsburgh? CBS News correspondent Anthony Mason reports it's a model of how to turn an economy around.

On the outskirts of Pittsburgh, a robotic car gets a test run. There's no remote control. It drives itself.

Developed at Carnegie Mellon University, it's guided by radar, GPS and lasers.

"The thing that's spinning up on top is a laser, actually 64 lasers," says engineer Bob Bittner.

In a way the robocar is emblematic of the remarkable turnaround in the former steel town. Bittner used to work in a steel mill. The town's been reinvented and so has he.

The new Pittsburgh that will play host to world leaders this week is a potent symbol of economic recovery in a time of financial crisis:
"By Pittsburgh's standards, these aren't tough times," said Carnegie Mellon professor Red Whittaker. "We've been there."

Thirty years ago, 27 percent of Pittsburgh's jobs were in manufacturing. Today, it's just 10 percent, but the region now has well over a million employees - more than in the last great years of the steel industry. And the city's unemployment rate of 7.9 percent is nearly two points below the national average.

Pittsburgh is literally building its future on the ruins of its past. Abandoned steel mills, closed more than a decade ago, are being redeveloped. The plans for one such 180-acre site include a major center for the robotics industry.

Andy Hannah started a company, Plextronics, that makes inks that conduct electricity.

"I wanted to work on a business that would literally change the world," he said, demonstrating one of his products. "This is an ink that when you put it onto glass will absorb the photons from the sun or any light and then turn it into electricity."

It's used to print low cost solar panels. In seven years, the company has grown from four employees to 70.

Pittsburgh has a history of industrial innovation. It's a tough town, and says, Whittaker, "a winning town" - one that may have found a map for the road ahead.

[WilliamCDaugherty]

Katie, your performance in interviewing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was terrible. From putting words in his mouth, to making yourself look like a fool by accusing him of denying the Holocaust without submitting proof of those claims of denial, only to have him reply so sensibly to the COMPLETE horror of WWII. Nearly as many non-Jews were killed as Jews. Yet comparatively, we never hear about them. There was an ethnic component to the motive behind the killing of them as well. Is the spilling of Jewish blood more offensive to you? Do these other victims not deserve to be remembered equally? Why is it almost always only the Jews we hear about in the Nazi death camps? Weren't the other 5 MILLION victims lives worth anything? They WERE human as well. Visit www.holocaustforgotten.com/ and find out more. The site has been developed by a Jewish woman because she was so distressed by the ignorance!
Also, you probably know that in most areas of the U.S. "Incitement to riot" is a criminal offense. We are to suppose "brainwashing" is nonetheless no defense to rioting. I thought journalists were supposed to be objective. So obviously putting words in his mouth only made you look weak and desperate. We have had enough problems thanks to the media acting as lap dogs to the government line prior to the Iraq war, if those in your profession are to be of any service to the public, you are going to have to embrace objectivity. As long as you are a professional journalist, please learn to leave your personal biases aside.

Finally, these is the case of Marwa Al-Sherbini. Despite watching 1-2 hours of news a day, I hadn't heard of her until Mahmoud Ahmadinejad brought her up. She was stabbed 18 times inside a courtroom in Germany. When her husband tried to help her, the attacker stabbed him 3 times and then the court security decided the husband was the problem, and shot him in the leg. According to CNN, he ended up intensive care in the hospital of Dresden University.

This is just the kind of situation that personal biases, a lack of objectivity, cultural imperialism, and the shameful prejudice it all breeds, is guaranteed to bring about. Please stop adding to the problem.
Thank you,
William Colin Daugherty
Edmonds, Washington, USA

[stuart-johns]

Is this the part of PA where the "real" Americans live? (someday I have to ask Palin what an "un-real" American is) Is this where those that cling to their Bibles and guns live? (I can't remember who said that.)

[jimmyc1955]

Why Yes it is. Pittsburgh is a town found between the coasts - you know that area populated by those who actually read the Bible, go to church, believe that their destiny is in their own hands, not the governments, who put a gun in the rack and hunt deer in the winter, who hate those who make promises they don't intend to keep.

Yup - that's Pittsburgh