Top 50: In 1758, it was all about the land  Share with others:
Print Email Read Later  Before the great buildings, boulevards
and busy sidewalks that define this city, and long before our
contemporary struggles with business and personal finance, the
economic landscape here and around the world was based on the
ownership of land.  When the city of Pittsburgh was established
in 1758 it was, in the words of Charles Dickens, the best and
worst of times for those early settlers who started with nothing
but pushed their way across the country in a mad rush to acquire
cheap land and great wealth.  "One could easily argue that
things were better then because you were your job security,"
said Paul Brahim, executive vice president of BPU Investment
Management, Downtown. "You can't lose a job when you're a farmer
and when you own land. Where you got into trouble is if you
borrowed too much money to manage that land and you didn't have
a good year."  So much has changed and so much has stayed the
same.  In the year Pit