A few days ago, a reporter from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review contacted me about Packer fans "intermingling" with Steeler fans in Southwestern Pennsylvania. The angle concerned consideration of a Cheesehead Diaspora laying claim to parts of Pittsburgh. I was skeptical.

I think the dramatic outmigration from Pittsburgh is unique. Perhaps the scattering of people from New Orleans thanks to Hurricane Katrina compares. I'm unaware of any acute exodus from Wisconsin. Besides, most migrants from the Northwoods wouldn't get much further than Chicago or Minneapolis.

I hypothesized that Packer Nation is full of bandwagon fans, people with no geographic claim to the team. Steeler Nation has those, too. I'm one of them, born in Erie and forever Black and Gold. I call us Steelers Nation. Or, you might term it "Steeler Nations". The point being that not all fans are economic refugees from Pittsburgh or Wisconsin.

In Wisconsin, the apple doesn't fall from the tree:

About 65 percent of fans who say the Steelers are their favorite team do not live in Pennsylvania. More than 53 percent of Packers fans do not live in Wisconsin, said Rich Luker, who conducted the fan poll.

Perhaps a difference of 12% doesn't impress you. More robust is the following analysis from Rhiza Labs, which maps Steelers and Packers bars:

• There are more Steelers bars (1710) than Packers bars (1068)
• There are more Steelers bars per capita in Wisconsin than there are Packers bars per capita in Pennsylvania

I'm convinced. There isn't much of a Cheesehead Diaspora beyond Chicago and Minneapolis. One day, I'll take a close look at the migration data. I predict that the bar map makes for an excellent proxy.

If you are an expatriate member of Steeler Nation, then you are likely tired of hearing the refrain that the football fans travel well. I live in Denver, Colorado and I see Steelers stuff everywhere, everyday. The rest of the world doesn't quite understand, as evidenced by this blog post about why last night's game was more watched in Pittsburgh than in Baltimore:

A couple of points about Baltimore vs. Pittsburgh TV viewing. The rating would undoubtedly  have been higher in Baltimore if all the fans at the game were at home watching on TV. And the Nielsen ratings cited do not measure viewing in sports bars and other local venues where fans gathered to watch together Sunday night.

The analysis offered is poor for a number of reasons. Most stark for me is the fact that the ratings in Baltimore received a huge boost from the Steeler fans living in that market. One can't assume, like you can in Pittsburgh, that all the households support the Ravens.

One way to illustrate this point is to look at teams that struggle to fill the stadium on game day (e.g. Jacksonville) and often suffer a local television blackout. When the Steelers come to town, that isn't a problem. Steeler Nation will buy up all the spare tickets. The same effect is in play for television ratings. More households will tune in for the game.

I want to recommend to you a superbly well-written piece of journalism: Believeland. Though it is written about our neighbor to the Northwest, one cannot read it without it evoking deep feelings about Pittsburgh.  

"Cleveland used to be. That's what Clevelanders will tell you, driving around the city, pointing at the remnants of a once great metropolis. It's like visiting a museum. Look, kids, this used to be America. This empty building used to be the Croatian newspaper. This empty lot used to be where John Rockefeller lived. This stadium used to be a stadium. This buried dust used to be Eliot Ness. Cleveland was home to the first home mail delivery, the first street light, the first streetcar, the first gas-powered car, the first X-ray, the first traffic light, and on and on. Life Savers were created here. So was Superman.

Yes, Cleveland used to be the center of America's rise. This used to be a factory, and these used to be jobs, and this mill used to be a future, not a silent metaphor for the past. This city used to be home to the third-largest number of Fortune 500 companies. It used to be the home of 400,000 more people. Generations of talent have left, never to return. That's what they will tell you, and you will realize that there are two Clevelands: the one that exists today and the ghost city floating just above it, in the memory of the people who've been here for a long time, and in the imagination of those who just arrived."

I read that, and images of Pittsburgh and McKeesport and Johnstown tug at my heartstrings.  This is our ethos, Pittsburgh.  We from the Rust Belt wear this pride on our sleeves.  Substitute pull tab cans, Big Macs, and polio vaccines, and it's us.  

That's not the end of the story, though. No one can deny that the ghost city exists, what we often forget is that the present one does to. Over the summer, I went to Cleveland for the first time.  It is a city with challenges, to be sure, but there is an excitement, too.  The passion, pride and chip on the shoulder about Old Cleveland exist.  The challenge is to turn that into energy, enthusiasm, and action for New Cleveland.

This same challenge exists for Pittsburgh.  Diaspora pride in Old Pittsburgh is the stuff of legends.  Our goal at PEN is to connect the expat community to New Pittsburgh.

Thanksgiving is the unofficial expatriate holiday. The migration home to see family and old friends speaks to how many Americans are economic refugees. Domestically, the US population is among the most geographically mobile in the entire world. Nowhere is that more obvious than in the Rust Belt:

These former Buffalonians meet up with friends, visit their old haunts and eat Mighty Taco and other favorite foods.

"In Buffalo, you can go into a bar and reconnect with 10 or 15 people you haven't seen in months, if not years," said Caitlin Leary, 25, a South Buffalo native now enrolled in the MBA program at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

The region might not be the center of the Thanksgiving universe, but there aren't many other cities that offer such a bounty of activities around Turkey Day, say ex-Buffalonians.

These natives retain strong ties to their hometown and return whenever they can.

"People are really passionate about being from Buffalo. They go, and they take their identity with them," said Nomiki Konst, 26, a Nichols School graduate who lives in Los Angeles and is executive director of a social advocacy and lobbying group, Alliance Hollywood.

Sound familiar? It should. Like Pittsburgh, Thanksgiving in Buffalo has a special meaning that is rare even in wayward America.

Reading stories about the Buffalo Diaspora, I feel a kinship. I start thinking about all those people who left the Rust Belt in search of opportunity. I feel our time has come. We can and should revitalize our hometowns.

Over the past few decades, Rust Belt brains have built many US boomtowns. This is testament to talent production in the shadow of crumbling factories. Talk to your fellow refugees this Thanksgiving and you'll understand the dynamism inherent in those who sought greener pastures after graduation.

Typically, the best and brightest are the ones who get out of town. They move the longest distances and are the most successful. They start and run companies. They are job creators, agents of transformation and development. Unfortunately for Rust Belt communities, the region doesn't attract enough of this top-shelf talent. Which makes the Thanksgiving homecoming a bittersweet affair.

Barring a reversal of migration fortunes, the onus of renaissance in cities such as Buffalo is on the capable shoulders of expatriates. Both PEN and BEN aim to facilitate this effort. As you enjoy the local flavors this week, think about ways you might give back to your community.

I live in Colorado, but I'm not a Pittsburgh expatriate. I'm an outsider, a non-native. The city didn't choose me. I chose it.

Pittsburgh is a seductive place. Steeler Nation isn't an accident. The Burgh Diaspora is special. The region also attracts a certain kind of zealot who has no birthright claim. I'm one of those freaks who cannot get enough of the drama and quirkiness coursing through all those neighborhoods clinging to the hillsides.

Today, I found a fellow freak:

Big shock, right? The 6-foot-4 guy who’s up around 285 pounds, that large mammal – he likes food.

He is me. And I’ve been a writer for a decade now. Just not usually about food. That changed when I moved to Pittsburgh to freelance full-time. Just a few weeks ago, actually.

I needed to find excuses to explore the city along with a reasonably good way of getting to know it, learning it, understanding it. History, culture, neighborhoods – a lot of that is a story passed around through food.

Pittsburgh being the city of entrenched, guarded traditions that it is, I thought there was room for another voice – mine, conceitedly enough – in the ongoing conversation about what folks eat around here, why, and what it means. Being a writer, my voice is Eatsburgh, a little site where I can say what I think and tell the stories that I find. My only promise is that I’m honest about what I find.

What I’m really looking for is a sense of place.

Pittsburgh oozes sense of place. It's a geographer's delight. However, the regional cuisine doesn't lend itself to Zagat. The Burgh moment:

Coffee in hand and hands full of grocery bags, I went in to Mancini’s to get bread to go with dinner that night. Just bread. Nothing fancy. And I’d heard good things.

But pepperoni rolls were coming fresh out of the oven. One after another. With that smell. That cheese-meat-oregano-bread smell.

At that point, who cares if it was like 10 a.m. Want.

I went across the street and just sat on a guardrail. Coffee, pepperoni roll and me. Light breeze, trying to keep my very necessary napkins from blowing away, watching people.

No wonder we (the unwashed) get hooked. You natives take for granted things the rest of us have never experienced. I call it Rust Belt Chic, the reason Pittsburgh finds itself at the top of list of desirable destinations.

Appropriately, I am writing this post while a storm that is uniquely Front Range Rocky Mountains tears through my city. The experience gets into your blood and when you leave, it torments your soul. My heart aches for Pittsburgh in a way that a local or true expatriate cannot understand.

Jim found an interesting story the other day, that got me thinking.  I would love to have PEN be a springboard for collecting information about businesses in Pittsburgh that expatriates frequent online (I know Jim's a big fan of Parma sausages).  But I'd also like to put together a directory of businesses across the country (Like this butcher shop in Brooklyn).  Maybe we could get some snazzy window decals...

So how about it, expats?  What are some expat-owned businesses across the country?  What are some online businesses that Pittsburghers shop from?  As we start thinking about our Christmas presents, where are the places that expats can shop while supporting Pittsburghers or the Pittsburgh region?

An unexpected trend resulting from globalization is the strengthening of sub-national identities. Regions are emerging as the homeland of choice and we've begun tracking the health of metropolitan economies as distinct from the host national economy. In that light, engaging a micro-diaspora is a logical step:

What if each village in Ireland could harness the economic power of its diaspora? What if, as a nation, we mobilised each parish in Ireland to actively research its genealogical past and identify those people who are of its own flesh and blood and reach out and engage their interest? This local-based approach is what, in another context, made the GAA one of the strongest organisations in the country. It is local pride that motivates people to get together to work in national competitions like the Tidy Towns.

After Farmleigh, the penny dropped for me. This is where the real strength lies in Ireland. Why not use this energy and local enthusiasm to build a vast network of local communities reaching out to their diaspora, to their ancestors' kin?

Together with Mike Feerick and his international advisory board, we have worked on developing this concept over the past year.

You can read more about that project here.

The scale (local/regional) of the initiative is unique. Working diaspora networking in reverse is a more common practice.  Combining the two approaches is a powerful idea that could work for Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh expatriates innately understand this kind of tribalism. It's more than being from Southwestern Pennsylvania. The next question is inevitably, "Where did you go to high school?" Far away from Pittsburgh, the parochial attitudes are a positive instead of a negative.

Pittsburgh should tap into this passion and seek out expatriates, instead of waiting for them to return. Tracking down high school alumni wouldn't be too difficult to do. The hard part is figuring out how to best use this network once the connections are made.

One of the initiatives that I'm very excited about is one of our most unique.  The consulate program is a new idea.  Our goal is to create little pockets of Pittsburgh around the country.

Organizations like the Polish Falcons and the Sons of Italy in their hey-days existed to act as social, cultural, and economic forces connecting expatriates to their homeland.  Our ultimate plan is to develop something similar to an immigrant aid society for Pittsburgh expats.

We know the Steeler bars are out there, and we're going to try to capitalize on that.  But more than just a place to watch the game, we're hoping that the consulates are a social network.  They are an opportunity for people new to a city to engage with other expats.  Even if it's just being willing to sit at a Starbucks with a newly minted expat, reminiscing about Pittsburgh and informing them about opportunities in their new city, consulates have the ability to be tremendous assets to Pittsburgh.

By the same token, these consulates will be points of contact for people who are looking to move to Pittsburgh.  Many expatriates still maintain strong connections to Pittsburgh, and might be able to help people interested in relocating to Pittsburgh get networked.  

I'd love to have dozens of consulates across the country, expats who are willing to help PEN network in new residents.  If you'd be interested in this type of programming, shoot me an email at pittsburghexpatnetwork@gmail.com.

Not all urban diasporas are created equal. That's also true for national diaspora networks. I argue that Pittsburgh is uniquely positioned to benefit from engaged expatriates. Detroit begs to differ:

There is a group of ex-pats living in and around New York City who call themselves “635 Mile Road.” The non-profit organization, which launched earlier this year, is made up of former Detroit-area residents who are “dedicated to improving the flow of funds, ideas and energy between native Detroiters now living elsewhere and our hometown.”

This is not a group that gets together to socialize, although they do that, too. This is a potential source of great hope and help for Detroit. These are people not just say they love the city, but they are actively thinking up ways to send money, resources and themselves back here. For example, a group is coming in early November to meet with local businesses and community leaders – it's a fact-finding mission to see what Detroit truly needs.

“We don't have the answers, so we're looking to see if some of the ideas we've developed ring true and if the community can help us craft that those ideas,” said organizer Rachel Jacobs. “Frankly, I'm amazed at how excited people are to talk to us. We're meeting people of a level you could never get in New York. And we all have a single goal: To revitalize our city!” ...

... I personally love Rachel's brand of optimism for Detroit. Her husband, who is from Cleveland and points beyond, noted that although he and his friends are from Midwestern towns that look like Detroit, they do not necessarily have the same connection to those towns as Detroiters have for Detroit. I wonder if this is true…but I have a feeling it is.

I've tried to figure out which cities have the best potential for a diaspora network. A Rust Belt location and shrinking population is one prerequisite. The second is cultural distinctiveness. Pittsburgh sports an identifiable cuisine as well as dialect. Two other regions compare favorably, St. Louis and Cincinnati:

"Nobody with the Chicago-Rochester dialect makes a fuss about it," Professor Labov said. "They aren't as self-conscious or aware of it. Give a New Yorker or a Southerner a piece of paper with a word on it and ask them to say it, they'll start sweating."

After more conversations and cue-card spot checks with waitresses, farmers and hunters made it clear that the Inland North accent was thriving in these small towns outside Buffalo and Rochester, it was time to look at Professor Labov's atlas again. Directly south lay the Midland, a vast accent zone that stretches from Pennsylvania to the Great Plains and borders the Ohio River to the south. A buffer between the linguistic powerhouses of the Inland North and the South, the Midland has few unifying linguistic features and in many respects is considered the default of American English: this is what American sounds like when small regional dialects have eroded.

The Midland would not hold much interest to a person searching out accents were it not for three enclaves that have retained unique speech: St. Louis, Cincinnati and, in particular, Pittsburgh, which seems to be the Galapagos Islands of American dialect.

The Chicago-Rochester dialect region is the Rust Belt. An often-used proxy is the Midwest, but most people misunderstand the extent of the cultural geography. Regardless, the above three cities have tier-1 fervent expatriates that mimic nationalism. Tier-2 cities also produce fiercely loyal natives who are more socially ambiguous (i.e. more Midwestern than Detroiter). Of this type, three stand out: Buffalo, Detroit and Louisville. Not surprisingly, all three have visible diaspora networks. Ironically, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and St. Louis do not. We here at PEN aim to change that oversight.