It was a golden September evening, the kind where the interplay between the Downtown lights, the setting sun against the deep green shadows of the hillsides and the reflections on the water combine to create that unique Pittsburgh magic. The Super Bowl-champion Steelers were playing their home opener and the Black Eyed Peas were performing for a record crowd in Point State Park to mark the occasion. The Golden Triangle was flooded with people. Picnic blankets were spread on the riverfront lawns and boats were moored four-deep along the riverside promenades.

I was walking across the Clemente Bridge with Alex Krieger, the renowned urban planner who came to Pittsburgh in 2000 to help Riverlife formulate a vision for the city's riverfronts. "Do you know how remarkable this is?" he asked me, his eyes wide at the party boaters and throngs of people strolling the North Shore. "Any city would be proud of this scene, and none of this was here 10 years ago."

It's true, amazingly. For those who say change in this city takes place at a snail's pace, look to the riverfronts for evidence of the contrary.

Ten years have gone by in the blink of an eye, and today 65 acres of green space line our Downtown waterfront -- all of it accessible to the public by foot, by bike, by boat, by bridge, by bus or by train.

A decade ago, on the North Shore we had a decrepit sports stadium and parking lots as far as the eye could see -- no Heinz Field, no PNC Park, no hotels, few restaurants, little riverfront access. We had no revamped Point State Park or Strip District trail. No riverfront parks linking us to retail or entertainment destinations along the rivers like SouthSide Works, Station Square or Rivers Casino. No riverfront apartment towers and no cranes constructing a new waterfront landing at the convention center. The Mon Wharf was a cracked parking lot where cars had the best river views instead of a green trail for joggers, cyclists and boaters.

We now have reached a "tipping point" by completing more than two-thirds of Three Rivers Park, a 13-mile interconnected loop of riverfront parks and water landings throughout Downtown.

In a twist that seemed unthinkable 10 years ago, Pittsburgh is now looked to as a model of waterway development, a Cinderella story of a city that has overcome years of decline to stabilize its economy and uplift its quality of life. Officials from half a dozen American cities with similar demographic profiles have come to Pittsburgh this year to study the transformation process.

Pittsburgh's riverfront boom has also caught the attention of the global community. Last year's G-20 Summit allowed Pittsburgh to reintroduce its rebirth to the world. The U.N. World Environment Day Programme in Pittsburgh on Saturday will have the world looking to us for ways to improve water quality. And Riverlife's invitation to present Pittsburgh's story at the Transatlantic Cities Forum on Waterfront Development in Genoa, Italy, last week confirms that other waterfront cities near and far are interested in hearing our story.

It's a compelling tale. More than $4 billion has been poured into the local economy through the process of reclaiming our riverfronts, wiping them clean of past industrial grime and making them accessible again. New businesses, families and young professionals are drawn to move here or stay here because beautiful riverfronts help make Pittsburgh a great place to live.

Thanks to the foresight in 1999 of community leaders like Teresa Heinz, Paul O'Neill and the late Post-Gazette Editor John Craig, who hosted a "task force" of 44 citizens to start reconceiving our city's riverfronts, and thanks to the thousands of citizens who came forward to share their hopes and ideas, we developed a holistic vision for an interconnected riverfront that is almost fully realized in 2010.

I represented Pittsburgh at last week's international forum in Italy, where 40 leaders in waterfront development from Europe and the United States were gathered by the German Marshall Fund. As I walked through the streets of Genoa, my head buzzed with interesting parallels.

Once the center of the commercial maritime world, Genoa has fallen, adjusted and morphed but, like Pittsburgh, has never lost her unique architectural sensibility. The unselfconscious style and the distinguished grit of her streets and squares becomes her now. And like Pittsburgh, Genoa re-embraced her working port and her people have reclaimed their waterfront as a renewed focus of life and activity.

Our riverfront reclamation story is one of colossal efforts by politicians, property owners, businesses, citizen nonprofit groups and remarkably generous foundations, buoyed by the enthusiasm of thousands of participants, advocates and users. Our river renaissance is being achieved through coordinated investments, many of which were unprecedented and most of which have run counter to market trends. Our progress is a testament to Pittsburgh's roll-up-your-sleeves and get-it-done culture.

While I was surrounded in Genoa by colleagues from many great cities, I thought about the term "world-class" and wondered why we ever doubt that Pittsburgh is worthy of the title.

Our rivers have provided a palette to transform and re-brand Pittsburgh for all the world to see. They allow us to showcase our unique combination of waterways and green hillsides, our distinctive architecture and collection of neighborhoods, our soaring bridges and engineering prowess. Nowhere is it more obvious that we have pushed far beyond H.L. Mencken's damning description of a city of "unbroken agonizing ugliness."

As Riverlife celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, we realize we must continue to answer the challenge posed a decade ago by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Pittsburgh native David McCullough to "seize a once-in-a-century opportunity" to make the waterfront "a place where you want to bring the people you love."

We still have work to do: to complete Three Rivers Park, yes, but also to up the ante in terms of greening our landscape, restoring more of our land to nature and cleaning more thoroughly our water and air. We must attract additional investment to develop more economic activity and leisure opportunities along our greatest natural resource.

But for the moment, let's enjoy the praise being heaped upon us as a world-class destination. We have earned it.

Cartoonist Rob Rogers does "Rob's Rough," an early look at his work and his creative process, exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.