I spent a couple days recently seeing old friends and ambling down memory lane in Pittsburgh. What a beautiful and humane city it has become.

I sat outdoors having tea at an Italian coffee shop in the strip district with my old friend Joseph DiSarro, longtime distinguished chairman of the political science department at Washington & Jefferson College. Joe is Italian-American, so I was privy to the customs and the rhythms of the regulars. They greeted each other with old-world courtesy but did not linger or intrude. The young got their lattes to go. It was a sunny day and, though we chatted for a good two hours, I somehow felt we left early.

When I lived in Pittsburgh, many years ago, the strip district was no one's destination for anything much. There was not a lot there but dirt and abandonment. Now it is full of shops, cafes, Italian grocery stores, runners, church-goers, young lovers, old couples walking hand in hand.

It could be Brooklyn or Cambridge, Mass.

And like Brooklyn, developers may be overplaying their hand now. High rise condos are about to go up — capitalizing on but also somehow violating the vibe that has happened in the strip district so organically.

I went to Mount Washington to visit my old pal and guru Roy McHugh — dean of Pittsburgh sports writers and one of America’s greatest boxing writers. He is 99 now and still living on his own. In fact, he’s considering publishing a long dusty book-length manuscript on Pittsburgh boxers. But he does not want to do so if the publisher is going to lose money. He wants to be sure there is an audience before he gives the green light.

I stood at the lookout point of Mount Washington at night, along with many others. The view was as glorious as Paris or San Francisco at night. Thirty-five or 40 years ago, if you said that out loud, there would have been laughter.

And that many years ago, no one imagined Pittsburgh’s renaissance. Pittsburgh was almost universally viewed as a gray, economically depleted, moribund city.

How did they do it? And what lessons can Toledo learn?

Luck played a part. Pittsburgh had deep financial resources. It also had good leadership. And when it was not good, it was at least honest.

The city has two great, and booming, universities, as well as major hospitals. These are two things that have also spurred the growth of Columbus.

Toledo can copy some of these things. Others are not under our control. We could use a few billionaires. (Ten would make a difference.) And our leaders could stand to think bigger. Our universities are not on par with Pittsburgh’s. But, for a city our size, we are blessed with two up-and-coming institutions of higher learning, both of which happen to be physically impressive. I’m not sure why we have underutilized and, culturally, undercapitalized both.

Much of Pittsburgh’s renewal has been the opposite of what we once dubbed urban renewal in America. It has been human renewal — natural growth from the bottom rather than big plans from the top. But this is clear: If you make a town friendly to the young, the young will come, and stay. It will be a young town. And if you encourage the arts, all kinds of people will come.

Pittsburgh is not a perfect city. Driving and parking there is a nightmare. Driving at night is a George Romero horror movie.

But it is a vital city. A great city.

Grit and pride have something to do with that too. Pittsburghers never apologize for the city or feel sorry for themselves, any more than Chicagoans would. When Mr. McHugh was in the hospital recently, he was told he would be discharged to a rest home for therapy. No, he said, he would discharge himself and his therapy would be moving around his apartment on Grandview, where he has lived since 1975. “You can’t do that,” said the nurse in charge. “Who’s gonna stop me?” he replied.

That’s Pittsburgh.

Keith C. Burris is a columnist for The Blade.

Contact him at: kburris@theblade.com or 419-724-6266.

First Published October 19, 2014, 4:22 a.m.