Does the "G" in G-20 Stand for "Ghost Town"?

By Pittsburgh Enigma

Pittsburgh will be hosting a G-20 summit this week on Thursday and Friday, but many businesses will be closing for the duration due to fears for the safety of their employees and fears of property damage. As if this should surprise any city officials. London and Seattle certainly come to mind.

Ghost Town

It was announced last week that the entire "Golden Triangle", the central downtown business district, will be closed to vehicular traffic. The only cars allowed to enter will be residents, and they will have to show ID at one of three police checkpoints. So if don't live downtown, forget going to work -- you can't enter the area.

There are seven bridges that provide access to the Golden Triangle. Only two of those bridges will allow traffic into the city. To call this a traffic nightmare would be an understatement. There have already been reports warning that neighborhoods immediately outside the triangle would be crushed with rerouted traffic. So besides the concerns about employee safety and property damage, some business may just not want to deal with the traffic headaches.

Ghost Of Things To Come

I've been collecting some eyebrow-raising G-20 news snippets for the last several weeks from local news outlets:

* Code Pink was given a permit to set up a "tent city" in Point State Park, a highly visible state park located at the confluence of the three rivers within the "Golden Triangle."

* State police have found two 50-gallon drums of urine in an abandoned warehouse along with battery powered "super soakers", which they believed might have been put there by protesters.

* Officials also found material that they thought might be used to construct a "sleeping dragon", which is a technique used by protesters to chain themselves together to make it more difficult to be disbursed by police.

* The local Central Blood Bank has been sending out e-mails asking for increased blood donation prior to the G-20 "in case of an emergency."

* A federal judge ordered the release of up to 1,000 prisoners (non-violent offenders) from the county jail to make room for protesters that may be arrested this week.

* Pittsburgh City Council rejected a safety proposal that would've disallowed protesters from wearing masks to conceal their identity. So if any news footage captures protesters in the act of vandalizing property, we may not be able to identify them.

One can't help reflecting on how interesting it is that half a million conservative protesters can descend on Washington D.C. with no violence, no property damage and no arrests, yet when the left protests in much smaller numbers, it's almost a guarantee that you will have all of these problems.

Some Mysterious and Sudden Cosmetic Improvements

I live in a part of Pittsburgh known as "Mt. Washington", which is located on a high hill directly across the river from the Golden Triangle and affords a spectacular view of the city. This area will therefore be attracting a lot of the dignitaries and journalists this week.

Back in the early summer, before I was consciously thinking about the upcoming G-20, I started noticing a lot of cosmetic improvements on Mt. Washington. First, there was the cutting of the trees to make it easier to see the city. (Yes, we killed a lot of perfectly good trees.) Then there were sidewalk improvements and street light replacements. And then, our perfectly adequate garbage cans disappeared and were replaced with brand spanking new shiny black trash cans with the words "Taking Care of Business," and under that, "Luke Ravenstahl, Mayor." (Keep in mind, we're essentially a bankrupt city, which may be why our young mayor is sometimes referred to as "The Boy Blunder.") Mrs. Enigma and myself thought that maybe young Luke is angling for the job of Obama's garbage czar.

But I digress... next, the access road connecting Mt. Washington to downtown received a shiny new coat of asphalt. Then, scaffolding appeared around the historic incline building to give the old girl a new coat of paint. And a week or two ago, a lot of "Pittsburgh Welcomes the World" banners appeared on all the light posts along Grand View avenue.

If nothing else, at least my neighborhood will have gotten some improvements as a result of the G-20. Oh wait... did I just hear that my property taxes are going up? So much for a free lunch.