When Pittsburgh refuses to see the world, the city becomes unbearably precious and self-congratulating; and when Pittsburgh refuses to see itself, it takes as truth each insult it has ever received.

The beauty Thomas and Spradlin identify in this city is not the architectural grandeur funded by steel robber barons, or city-sanctioned ‘aerosol art,’ but the interplay of the wall and the graffiti; the law and rejection of the law; the memorial and the refusal to pay homage to a memory.

Merchant demonstrates that to act as a Luddite is to be anything but out-of-touch: it is to mobilize a common sentiment that marches from the past, and to stride as part of a collective toward a more equitable future.

“Day-O,” recorded by Harry Belafonte in 1956, is one of those songs that sounds cheerful, as long as you don’t listen too carefully.