My favorite sub-genre of science fiction has always been “alternate histories,” which is what happens when something goes differently at a pivot point in history, and a whole new future timeline is born.
What are the big paths not taken in Pittsburgh history? For example, what if the Steelers drafted Central Catholic/Pitt product Dan Marino, the greatest pure passer the game has ever seen? What if Barry Bonds didn’t discover money, steroids, and tape-measure dingers on the West Coast? I stayed loyal to the Pirates for 20 straight losing seasons after Bonds left, but what if that wasn’t necessary?
More relevant to housing: what if the collapse of steel didn’t happen? Or happened at a different time? What if the steel industry’s ‘70s-‘80s collapse happened in the ’30s-40s? Would we all be speaking German now? Or, what if Pittsburgh kept cranking out steel and smog like the ‘50s until now? (I’d probably have a few extra respiratory ailments; lucky me). Of course, without the collapse and destruction of hundreds of thousands of jobs, housing would cost what it does in a normal American city. Which is way too much…