From ‘Steel City’ to ‘eds and meds’: As Pittsburgh welcomes NFL Draft, it isn’t so easily defined anymore

When a Pittsburgh sports team appears on national television, it’s a sure bet that one of the commentators will refer to the team’s hometown as “the Steel City” in one way or another.

But even as the Steel Curtain defense was helping propel the Steelers to the first of four Super Bowls in the 1970s, the industry for which it was named was well into decline.

“It’s been nearly 40 years since the nadir of job destruction in the wake of heavy industry,” said Chris Briem, a regional economist at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Social and Urban Research. “The peak of those steel jobs was probably in the 1950s, honestly.”