Something very simple happened today. In any other urban neighborhood, coffee shops come and go. Here in Pittsburgh's North City Flats, a coffee shop was a long time coming.

Over the years I've heard stories about neighbors coming out to oppose coffee shops because they would attract people and bring about "loitering." These city suburbanites lost out. From today on there will be more to our neighborhoods than just decorative doors with homeowners hiding beside alarm systems.

Yesterday was the first day of operation for Beleza. This coffee shop is opening at a time when many "coasters" are looking for new cities to live in. Pittsburgh is high on the list (New York magazine recently named Pittsburgh as one of the top places New Yorkers are moving to. Many city neighborhoods are overlooked and one primary reason is because we can't always answer positively questions about whether there are grocery stores and coffee shops nearby.

From today foreward I can say "there's a great coffee shop over on Buenta Vista!"

Beleza opened at 8 yesterday morning. I arrived at 11:30. A young women was sitting out front with her dog. Three people stood on the opposite corner taking photos. Inside I was greeted with warm colors and aromas. A few sat in their solitary corners, but for many others it was like walking into a friendly living room. I had the sense that all these coffee-starved folk knew of each other, had exchanged friendly glances, but had few opportunities to interact.

"Where do you live?" the person at the counter asked. Hell, I thought, that may be a rather rude question in Starbuck's, but here it seemed normal, even welcomed. "Over by the Schoolhouse," I said. She lived up the block on Buena Vista.

Sometimes it seems day by day each of our little pockets we call "neighborhoods" are entrenched in their own provincial corners. We're stuck on Deutschtown being somehow distinct, if not better than the Mexican War Streets or Allegheny West. Today those lines were not the only ones to blur. Today those lines that kept us seperated by the sense of personal space on a city street were blurred by this third-place where we can meet and interact from today on as neighbors.

A side note, Beleza serves Peace Coffee.

With or without gambling, it may be possible for much good to come from Casino dreaming. It would seem a shame for all the plans to go to waste for lack of a casino license. Faced with the prospect of not getting a license, the dreamers seem to be asking: "do we really need a casino to make this work?"

It's a good question to ask, and more often the answer seems to be "no."

Word is Forest City may develop South Shore condos with or without the Casino license. Likewise, after pulling his bid for a North Shore Casino near PNC Park, Merrill Stabile wants to develop anyway.

According to the Post-Gazette (which undoubtably must find some joy in the new parking garage rising in front of the Tribune-Review sign), Stabile and Kratsa Properties are putting together plans for a proposed residential, retail, entertainment and hotel development at the site.

In other recent developments, the developer of the DelMonte and Equitable office buildings, Continental recently announced the addition of three restaurants in time for the All-Star game in July.

More often than not, what developers and planners are coming up with are dense mixed-use developments with casino's in them. These kinds of developments, sometimes known as cities have existed for centuries. We are perhaps now realizing they will work with or without casinos.

Just before heading out to spend an afternoon showing a New Yorker houses in Pittsburgh, I received a note from Virginia, a frequent poster to a yahoo group and a potential Pittsburgher currently living in New Jersey.

Virginia described the current New York Magazine and an article called "A Moveable Fiesta", about Buenos Aires becoming an "expat Haven", and she quotes: "New Yorkers are also Fleeing to:", the places listed were: "Shanghai, Budapest, and Pittsburgh"

Virginia just happened on the article and hey, I'm a subscriber and I didn't notice that. "I thought, (oh, God, no, not before I take a look around) Dammit, why do New Yorkers have to "discover" everything, everywhere. That's exactly what happened in Philly?" Virginia asked aloud in the email.

The magazine notes that $300,000 gets you a three-bedroom home in Pittsburgh. Hell, I think $30,000 would.

I can see the change in myself since I moved back to Pittsburgh from San Francisco. Where once I would run out the door any time of day to make a dash for Walgreen's or the organic food store around the corner, now I hop in the Beetle and head for the suburbs. In my case the reason may not be so much the built environment as a lack of retail options around me.

In any case, even life in East Allegheny is far removed from that in many a suburb. There are many occasions now where I do walk that would be lost should I move to say Cranberry. As it turns out, such a move would be bad for my health.

Researchers have shown for the first time that the same pattern of unwise land use can adversely affect a wide range of health indicators, including obesity and air pollution. This comprehensive study is the first to be commissioned by a local government to assess multiple health impacts of the built environment. The study's findings were reported in the winter edition of the Journal of the American Planning Association (JAPA), the scholarly journal of the American Planning Association.

The study examined the impacts the built environment could have on residents' health if it reduces opportunities for active transportation (walking or biking) and encourages more time spent in vehicles that can lead to an increase in vehicle emissions and air pollution. The authors explained that such a built environment could lead to an increased risk for several major chronic diseases, obesity, exposure to pollutants and risk of respiratory ailments.

"Our findings are consistent with literature suggesting that current laws and regulations are producing negative health outcomes," said Lawrence Frank, J. Armand Bombardier Chair in Sustainable Transportation in the school of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia.

The findings were generated from two studies conducted in King County, Washington. Use of the same walkability index in each study in the same region allowed for a strong comparison of association across multiple outcomes.

The first study conducted was the Neighborhood Quality of Life Study. It concentrated on the relationship of urban form to physical activity and obesity. The results from this study were consistent with findings of previous studies.

"Walkability of neighborhoods around each participant's home was significantly related to overall physical activity levels, minutes per week devoted to active transportation, and BMI," said Frank. "People living in high-walkable neighborhoods were more physically active, walked more and had lower BMI."

The second study was the King County Land Use, Transportation, Air Quality, and Health Study that assessed the effects of land use and transportation network design on travel patterns and per capita vehicle emissions, which influences air quality.

The authors found that a modest 5 percent increase in neighborhood walkability was associated with 32.1 percent more minutes per week of physically active travel, approximately a one-quarter point lower BMI (about 1.5 pounds), 6.5 percent fewer vehicle miles traveled per capita and lower vehicle emissions (5.6 fewer grams of oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and 5.5 percent fewer grams of volatile organic compounds (VOC) per capita). These compounds react in sunlight to form harmful ozone.

"These findings have begun to untangle highly complex relationships and produce some astonishing and yet practical answers for promoting healthier people," said King County Executive Ron Sims. "The studies bring clarity to the gains that can be realized by bringing all the different disciplines together, working toward a common goal. King County and its partners are already putting these findings to work in land use management and transportation policy that will have lasting rewards for our communities and the people who live in them."

Bob O’Connor has been pretty lucky. Downtown development has gained serious momentum, and now the Steeler’s victory threw the city into the national spotlight. Today’s victory rally, however has brought to light the mistakes of the past and, through poor planning has thrust the troubles of our downtown (namely the Fifth-Forbes corridor) into the national spotlight.

Instead of choosing a route that would lead the Steelers through a revitalized areas that could really show off the city, the organizers lead the thousand of fans and countless tv cameras along Fifth Avenue, past real estate signs and vacant, boarded storefronts. Today we saw the best of the city and the worst of downtown.

Why couldn’t the route have gone from the Civic Area past Mellon Park, to Fort Duquesne Boulevard or perhaps Penn Avenue? Unfortunately today’s parade likely served to reinforce an incomplete and negative image of downtown Pittsburgh to television viewers. If I were watching from another city the downtown I saw today probably couldn’t be distinguished from one in the late 70s. In fact, there are even seeminly fewer stores today.

On the good side, the thousands (I’ve heard numbers as high as 200,000) folks who went downtown for the day undoubtedly saw real changes in downtown Pittsburgh for the first time. Unfortunately television viewers couldn’t get that sense. To them it’s the same old steel town, and when the crowd goes home to Cranberry, the same old forlorn downtown Pittsburgh.

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The East Allegheny Community Council is looking for people interested in restoring an old house. There are currently four houses in the Deutschtown National Historic District (one is on the local) available for restoration. It would also be great if those wanting to restore the homes planned to live in them. More information on the homes is available at historicproperties.com or at the Deutschtown web site