If you haven't visited in years, you may have missed a lot of the changes. Depends on how many years. Pittsburgh may not have an airline hub or access to the o

If you haven't visited in years, you may have missed a lot of the changes. Depends on how many years. Pittsburgh may not have an airline hub or access to the ocean, but it's been a transit nexus for decades; it's the last major city anything going from the New York / Philadelphia area along I-76 will hit before crossing the Alleghenies. As such, it sees a good assortment of art events and shows as they tour; theater tours (especially with significant technical needs) tend to be convoy-of-trailers affairs. To drill in on the arts specifically: I've seen Wicked, Addams Family, and Mary Poppins without having to plan a weekend for the event. There's also a Tony-award-winner-producing college in the city, which creates some excellent local shows as a side-effect. You also may be under-estimating the effect of real estate value in a world where people can make a productive input without needing to physically geo-locate with the rest of their company. Pittsburgh is a growing location for software and other engineering. Apple, Disney, and Google all have offices in the city. Ports still matter, but not as much as they did in the days where the only meaningful value was in goods; in a service economy, things are more distributed.