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So I already made a post about the birdies. I don’t think you can talk about Pittsburgh without talking about their sports teams. I don’t think there is a city in the US more intertwined with its pro sports teams.
I also think when talking about history we need to consider in detail the Scotch Irish who settled Western PA. Geographically Western PA isn’t close to Tennessee but the cohort who settled it most certainly fits Appalachia. It is different from Tennessee as there isn’t a large black population AND due to the steel mills there was an influx of Eastern Europeans. But the founding cohort impacts the history and today of the city strongly. It isnt surprising that the Whiskey Rebellion was a Pittsburgh thing. In less historical terms, you need to discuss yinzer culture
The Knoxville Metro Area is (from a bit of googling) only 5% black, Nashville and Chattanooga are about 15% black, whereas Memphis is 47% black. There is a distinct west-to-east gradient across Tennessee where as you go east, the state gets a lot more Appalachian and a lot less black, especially in Knoxville butting up against the Smoky Mountains.
I've lived in both Knoxville and then other deep South parts of America, and at least in my experience, Knoxville was way less invested in typical Southern cultural topics (antebellum South + Civil War), and much more culturally invested in Bluegrass, Davy Crocket, Daniel Boone, and the early settling of the frontier. And if memory serves, eastern Tennessee almost went the way of West Virginia during the Civil War, and for similar reasons.
Pittsburgh and eastern TN have significant differences, of course, but I think there are distinct similarities.
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