The Jitney Revolution: How Pittsburgh’s Underground Economy Outsmarts Big Tech.
-And Could Reshape the World
Feature story by Jon Forrest Little
August Wilson (1945–2005) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright from Pittsburgh, renowned for his ten-play Century Cycle chronicling Black American life, most set in the city’s Hill District
Foreword:
The Origins and Meaning of "Jitney"
The term jitney originally referred to a nickel (five-cent coin) in American slang, with its etymology likely tracing back to the Louisiana Creole French word jetnée, itself derived from French jeton (“token, coin-sized metal disc”).
The word emerged in the late 19th century, particularly in the southeastern United States among Creole-speaking African Americans.
By the early 20th century, jitney came to describe an informal, low-cost taxi or bus service because the fare was typically a nickel.
Jitneys in Pittsburgh: A Deep-Rooted Tradition
While Pittsburgh did not invent the jitney, it has become one of the few American cities where the tradition remains deeply embedded and highly visible. Jitneys in Pittsburgh have operated openly for over a century, primarily serving Black and low-income neighborhoods that were historically underserved or outright ignored by licensed taxi companies.
August Wilson’s play Jitney immortalizes this tradition, set in the Hill District, a hub for Pittsburgh’s jitney culture.
Pittsburgh’s jitney system is notable for its resilience and community integration:
Community Service: Jitneys provide essential, affordable transportation, especially for grocery shopping, medical appointments, and late-night travel, filling gaps left by public transit and taxis.
Underground Economy: The system is informal and largely unregulated, relying on word of mouth, cash transactions, and neighborhood trust networks.
Cultural Significance: For many, jitneys are more than transportation-they are a symbol of self-reliance, mutual aid, and resistance to exclusionary practices in mainstream transit
The Jitney Revolution: How Pittsburgh’s Underground Economy Outsmarts Big Tech-And Could Reshape the World
Pittsburgh’s streets hum with a secret. For over a century, an illegal car service-jitneys-has thrived in the shadows of Yellow Cab monopolies, Uber algorithms, and Lyft’s venture capital blitz. These unlicensed drivers, charging nickels to ferry Black grandmothers to grocery stores or shift workers to night jobs, aren’t just surviving. They’re thriving.
Why? Because Pittsburgh’s jitney network isn’t a gig economy gimmick-it’s a blueprint for a peer-to-peer rebellion that could dismantle corporate giants, from Amazon to your local police department.
The Jitney Model: Cash, Trust, and No Bosses
Jitneys operate on three rules: cash only, word-of-mouth referrals, and zero overhead.
Drivers are often retirees earning under $10K a year, dodging PUC regulations and insurance mandates. They’ve outlasted streetcars, taxis, and now Uber-not through Silicon Valley disruption, but through sheer necessity. As Otto Davis, a Carnegie Mellon economist who studied Pittsburgh’s jitneys, bluntly put it: “They provide a service that’s very badly needed-and very badly wanted”.
But what if this model-rooted in community trust and decentralized control-could scale beyond rides?
What if we weaponized Pittsburgh’s underground playbook to rebuild housing, retail, healthcare, even security?
Housing: Airbnb’s Nightmare
Imagine a housing market where neighbors-not algorithms-set rents.
Peer-to-peer platforms like Homelend already use blockchain to connect borrowers and lenders directly, cutting out banks.
In Pittsburgh’s jitney tradition, this could mean block-level networks where landlords trade vacant units for childcare or plumbing help-no Zillow, no 20% fees. After all, jitneys succeeded by ignoring regulators; why can’t housing?
Retail: The Amazon Jitney
Amazon killed mom-and-pop stores, but Pittsburgh’s jitneys hint at a workaround. During the pandemic, P2P payment apps like Venmo and Cash App let small retailers bypass credit card fees.
Now picture a “retail jitney”: street vendors using encrypted group chats to coordinate bulk purchases, then redistributing goods via bike couriers. No Prime membership, no warehouse surveillance-just cash, camaraderie, and a middle finger to Jeff Bezos.
Security: Defunding the Police, Jitney-Style
In 2016, ransomware hackers paralyzed U.S. police departments, demanding Bitcoin ransoms.
But what if communities built their own security? Jitneys rely on reputation; drivers with bad reviews vanish. Apply that to neighborhood watch programs: decentralized patrols funded by microtransactions, with accountability via social credit scores. Mess up, and your “license” evaporates-no qualified immunity required.
Supply Chains: The Black Market’s Comeback
Healthcare’s supply chain crisis-driven by hospital markups and distributor greed-could crumble under a jitney-inspired fix. During COVID, nurses traded PPE via WhatsApp groups, bypassing red tape.
Formalize this, and you get a peer-to-peer medical supply network: hospitals bartering ventilators for vaccines, with blockchain tracking to ensure safety.
Food and Water: The Ultimate Disruption
Peer-to-peer dining platforms already let home chefs sell meals globally-a $6.48B market by 2025.
Now scale it. Imagine water-sharing cooperatives in drought zones, where households trade rainwater credits via smart contracts. Or “food jitneys”: urban gardeners converting vacant lots into produce hubs, distributing harvests via e-bike caravans.
The Burning Question
Pittsburgh’s jitneys survived by ignoring rules. But could this model-radical self-organization-actually rebuild a broken world? Or would it collapse under the weight of human greed? The answer lies in the Hill District, where drivers still quote August Wilson’s play Jitney: “You got to take care of your own.”
Big Tech monopolizes. Pittsburgh’s underground collaborates. In the battle for the future, bet on the nickel-not the algorithm.
end of segment
For more on write Jon Forrest Little (biography below)
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