Duquesne Students Plot Asset Map of the Hill District

The first asset map of Pittsburgh’s Hill District was unveiled Tuesday, as Duquesne University students under Acting Liberal Arts Dean Dr. Evan Stoddard presented their findings on the community’s resources at the Duquesne Towers. Stoddard says his University and Community class, an honors college seminar, read multiple studies on the region, only to find that the majority of them focused on negative statistics such as poverty and crime. Stoddard asked his students to find out what is positive in the neighborhood and to present it to the University and the community. The result is an online, interactive map that points out over 68 assets of the Hill, including the new Consol Energy Center, a plethora of churches, the YMCA, and much more. “We’re told here at Duquesne University to avoid going into the Hill District, but we think there are some positives here, because we’re reading about the arena development, the community development agreement… Let us document what is positive, and by doing that perhaps we can encourage more visitors, more investment, and more interest in the Hill,” says Stoddard. The map will be presented to the community at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Hill District Branch on Wednesday, May 6 at noon.