HOW TO REVIVE A CITY — AND HOW NOT TO: A Renaissance Runs Through It. No city has worked so hard for so long to reinvent itself as Pittsburgh. After master planners destroyed a once-thriving business district near my parents’ home, I left town and figured the city was a lost cause, but it has made a remarkable comeback, and its lessons are useful for cities everywhere. Now that young people are coming instead of fleeing, there’s a new problem: They’re voting progressive and putting a new breed of master planners in charge.