Pittsburgh hosting G-20 summit has been relative success — so far

On a vastly larger scale, the 1999 Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) was seriously disrupted by enormous demonstrations involving approximately fifty thousand people. Keynote speaker President Bill Clinton, usually insightful in sensing public opinion movement, was taken by surprise by the scale and intensity of the demonstrations. His failure in this case testifies to the speed as well as success with which activist sentiment congealed against the diplomatic delegates assembling in Seattle.

A decade ago, the U.N. economic institutions, which include the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank as well as the WTO, were much less transparent in dealing with the public at large, fueling conspiracy theories and making themselves ready targets for activists of all stripes. By contrast, these global organizations and gatherings are much more open today. Transparency in banking and related industries was on the G-20 agenda in Pittsburgh, further encouraging the trend for governments to do the same.

Pittsburgh was once the nation's premier center of steel manufacturing. Enormously effective industrial development in Asia drastically changed this landscape. Current attention is focused on conflict within the WTO between China and the U.S. related to steel, but India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea and other nations in the region play important long-term roles in Asia dominance of this industry.

The dramatic demise of the U.S. industry since World War II could have created a major battleground in an intense economic war, but instead local leaders have also done a stellar job of adjusting effectively to challenging change. President Obama selected Pittsburgh as the site of the summit because of this remarkable success in creating what he terms “a bold example of — a 21st century economy.”

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