Saturday, September 09, 2006

Burgh Diaspora Anecdote

I spend Saturday evenings trolling the 'net trying to figure out the best way to find other members of the Burgh Diaspora besides the obvious Steelers touch point. I've stumbled upon some evidence, while playing around on LexisNexis, of Pittsburgh Clubs in Florida. Immigrants to the United States often established clubs for people from the same homeland. I've also heard about Vermont clubs popping up around the United States during the height of that state's exodus in the 19th century. One of my Burgh dreams includes a network of Pittsburgh clubs around the country. There are already a number of Steelers fans clubs, so I might not need to reinvent the wheel.

I can't shake my fascination with the DC Burgh Diaspora. When I stumbled upon
this blog entry, I felt compelled to write about it:

The Washington, DC area is a popular landing place for members of the Pittsburgh Diaspora- the people who grew up in the Steel City, found that they didn't particularly want to work in banking/education/medicine/biotech (the major industries that sprung up there after the closure of the steel mills), and left for greener pastures and better weather. Probably every 4th person I meet here is either from Pittsburgh, went to school in Pittsburgh, is dating someone from Pittsburgh, etc.

You can take the football fan out of Pittsburgh, but you can't take the Pittsburgh out of the football fan, and with so many Pittsburgh expats here, DC is sort of like a colony state of the Steelers Nation.

These claims are far from scientific, but I challenge anyone to find as compelling an anecdote about the presence of the Burgh Diaspora as this one. I've connected with my fair share of Burgh expats in the Front Range of Colorado, but I wouldn't go as far as the above blogger did in her description of the DC region. Regardless, the Indian Diaspora better watch out. Seriously, why can't we do what DesiPundit is doing?

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