How will the G-20 summit affect Homewood?

It will give the children of Homewood two days off from school.

Yep - Pittsburgh's school board decided to close the city's schools during G-20, citing safety concerns and transportation issues.

If I were a parent, I would be hopping mad. First, because I would consider it the board's job to figure out how to optimize the educational opportunity presented for my kids by the summit, and that closing the schools will absolutely not do that. Second, because now I have to figure out what to do with my kids for those two days.

As a mere resident of Homewood, my feeling is that Homewood's children do not need two new days off from school in September. But I'm not a parent. Those of you who are, what do you think?

When the selection of Pittsburgh for next month's summit was announced, politicians and businesspeople alike, not to mention the media, fell over themselves to proclaim how great G-20 would be for the city. I expected that from that point on, there would be a steady stream of news stories about people who have made two questions their primary concerns:

1) How do we make our visitors feel welcome?

2) (to put it bluntly) How do we take their money?

Instead, we as a city seem to be preoccupied with the dangers, real and imaginary, of hosting a gathering of world leaders - so much so that we will deny those leaders the opportunity to hear a world-class orchestra (they were going to perform Beethoven's 9th, for crying out loud - my inner marketer drools). Restaurants and other businesses that one might expect to make a killing during the summit (not just from the delegates, but from their entourages and from the throng of media types who will swarm around them) are instead choosing to shut down until the scary people go away.

It's like Pittsburgh is an adolescent who desperately wants to treated like an adult, but isn't ready for the reponsibility. Hey, 'Burgh, this is what world-class cities do: they host world leaders, without stopping everything else they're doing to do it.

Who's afraid of the big bad summit? We are.

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