Allegheny County thrives as a gathering of communities you’ll enjoy discovering. Variety at every turn makes the county and Greater Pittsburgh an original combination.

The City of Pittsburgh lies at the heart of Allegheny County and dates its history from 1758 when the British captured Fort Duquesne, and General Forbes named the city after British statesman, William Pitt.

In 2008, Pittsburgh is celebrating its 250th birthday under the theme “Imagine What You Can Do Here.” Besides marking the long and multifaceted history of the city, the celebration aims to spur convention and tourist trade, and to prompt economic growth in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

The geography of the city owes its triangular shape to the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers into the Ohio River. Owing to its geometric shape, the city center is named the Golden Triangle.

Pittsburgh is an ideal place to live, work, and study. Places Rated Almanac ranked Pittsburgh at the top of the list of America’s 379 most livable cities. And Frommer’s, a travel guide publisher, selected the city as one of 13 places throughout the world worth visiting in 2008.  In 2006, Pittsburgh was rated the least risky market for housing. And Allegheny County has consistently ranked among cities with the lowest crime rates of cities with 300,000 or more residents. What’s more, thousands of people come here each day to work and visit. And each year, more than 100,000 students arrive to study at the area’s 33 colleges
and universities.

When residents refer to “the City,” they include an area that extends beyond the Golden Triangle and includes historic, residential areas like Point Breeze, Shadyside, and Squirrel Hill.  The City comprises 90 recognized neighborhoods, including the ever-growing Downtown Pittsburgh. The number of people living downtown has doubled in the last five years and 2,000 new residential units are expected to be added
by 2010.”

Few traces remain of Allegheny County’s storied manufacturing past. Where factories once existed along the rivers, you’ll now find trendy townhouses, restaurants, officebuildings, and lifestyle retail centers. Companies in Allegheny County like Medrad, Respironics, and Cellomics have taken the lead in healthcare technologies. Pittsburgh is a leading robotics research and application center. Nanotechnology, oncology, drug research and fabrication, and computer hardware and software now drive the economy. More important, the advances in technology by Allegheny County companies and universities now drive the global economy.

Consider the Collaborative Innovation Center (CIC) at Carnegie Mellon University, designed to respond to the changing nature of technology-based economic development. The building integrates corporate, university, and governmental research tenants with a focus on mobile computing, software, security, and robotics. CIC is home to training and conference facilities with daily instruction in Europe and Asia, including more than 600 visitors in its first year. The Collaborative Innovation Center offers space options that support labs and engineering centers and accelerator space for start-ups.

Tenants at the Collaborative Innovation Center include Apple, Google, Intel Research Lab-Pittsburgh, 3Ksoft, the Center for Innovative Robotics, the Parallel Data Lab’s Data Center Observatory, Carnegie Mellon CyLab, the Software Engineering Institute’s Network Systems Survivability Program, including the world-renowned CERT Coordination Center, and the Korean Information Security Agency.

People move to Allegheny County because of its trendiness. But make no mistake, the county continues to offer traditional advantages. Housing is still affordable and a safe investment. In Pittsburgh, you’ll find one of the lowest costs of living in the country, an arts district that attracts larger audiences than many sporting events and a 12,000-acre park system enjoyed by 11 million people each year. You’ll enjoy the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Pittsburgh Ballet, not to mention three professional sports teams – the Pirates, the Steelers, and the Penguins. ESPN has called PNC Park, the home of the Pirates, the best anywhere.

All in all, it’s a no brainer to see why so many people call Allegheny County home.mg