Of all the things to love about Pittsburgh, its bridges are perhaps the most visible. There are over 440 bridges, an astounding number for a city of 300,000 people — hence its nickname City of Bridges. I was standing on the Roberto Clemente Bridge, named after the great Pirates outfielder, looking up the Allegheny River at two other huge, majestic steel bridges: the Andy Warhol and the Rachel Carson. The three pale-mustard-color suspension bridges, known as the Three Sisters, are part of a system without which Pittsburgh, which meets at the convergence of the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio Rivers, would be a fractured collection of neighborhoods.

Pittsburgh is also known as Steel City, and while United States Steel still has its headquarters there, the industry collapsed in the 1980s, a devastating blow. But given two options, evolve or perish, Pittsburgh began growing in a new direction. Today, tech companies like Google, Intel and Uber have invested in the city, which has had a real effect on its citizens’ lives: According to a 2014 study, Pittsburgh is ranked second in intergenerational upward mobility. I arrived merely as a tourist, though one with a specific modus operandi — finding the best the city has to offer without straining my frugal budget. What I found was a city that has transformed itself into a vibrant cultural and artistic hub, all while remaining true to its Rust Belt roots.

There are still visual remnants of heavy industry, like the smoke stacks at the Waterfront in neighboring Homestead, Pa., the former site of Homestead Steel Works (now a shopping mall), but the steel mills are mostly gone.