Pittsburgh, a renewed city
Sunday I returned from Netroots Nation 2009 held this year in Pittsburgh at the Lawrence Convention Center. It was my first visit to the Steel City and I can attest it really should consider changing its name to Phoenix since it has risen from the ashes of the bust in the steel industry. Pittsburgh really is a model city for others in America who are wrestling with the changing economy. Looking out across the Allegheny River towards the northern shores I regularly saw people rowing on a river that once was so polluted that it only supported a few species of fish. Now the three rivers of Pittsburgh are models of recovery as is the city. But how did it change its course in history?
Pittsburgh was once known as the steel capital of America and was heavily dependent on the steel industry. It was in the heart of the Rust Belt and grew as America’s steel industry boomed. Andrew Carnegie helped start an industry in the city that at one point supplied from one third to half the country’s steel. This boom not only helped grow the city into the 8th largest city in the nation but also one of the most polluted from coal burned to produce the steel. When the steel industry fell into decline in the mid 80′s Pittsburgh recognized the decline and began to change the business core of the city to something other than steel.
Through a series of revitalization efforts and changed the economic base to education, tourism, and services, largely based on healthcare, medicine, and high technology such as robotics. Over the course of the next decade while the nation was prospering Pittsburgh took advantage of economic programs to help retool the workforce from steel to the other industrys. In an article in the New York Times this reskilling is directly attributable to the success and growth of Pittsburgh over time.
While the rest of the nation is in economic decline Pittsburgh is growing and thriving with unemployment rates at 7.7 percent and is currently ranked 7th lowest in the nation in major metropolitan cities. In comparison San Antonio is ranked 3rd with 6.9 percent. What makes Pittsburgh’s rate significant is that it has the lowest rate of Rust Belt cities by a full percentage point.
But what really stood out about Pittsburgh during my visit was how clean and busy the downtown area of the city was. Starting with the Lawrence Convention Center, a beautiful facility overlooking the Allegheny River to PNC Park across the river, you could see how the city has experienced a renaissance of sorts. One of the reasons Netroots Nation selected Pittsburgh was the fact that it was the first and largest “green” convention center in the world. From simple things like water distribution to composting of boxes used for lunch the Lawrence Convention Center practices green every day. It is something San Antonio could explore to drive our own convention center and city approach to green. San Antonio has taken steps and become a member of the Convene Green Alliance but doesn’t seem to promote it as strongly as Pittsburgh.
Regarding Pittsburgh’s economic base it is now home to a wide variety of corporations such as U.S. Steel, PPG, H.J. Heinz, PNC Financial, and many more. Pittsburgh has also focused on healthcare as a core industry with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center being the largest employer in Pittsburgh at over 48,000 employees. Interestingly as Pittsburgh has grown in economic diversity it has also shrank to a more manageable population at over 300,000. The metro area is still large at over 2.4 million. In 2007 it was tied with several other cities as the 10th cleanest city in the world.
Based on what I saw of Pittsburgh and what I didn’t see it is definitely a city to return to. In some ways Pittsburgh and Allegheny County could serve as a model for San Antonio in terms of diversifying the economy. It’s something to explore.
Hey…great post idea! (inside joke)
Anyways, I’m definitely intrigued by this so-called Pittsburgh transformation. All my friends who live on the East Coast have attested to the fact that Pittsburgh is, for a lack of a better term, “a really nice place to live”. Perception lags behind reality and so I don’t think it is common knowledge just yet that Pittsburgh is no longer a Rust Belt declining city.
I was doing some research on which cities/metro areas San Antonio can look to leapfrog in heirarchy of American cities. That’s how I first become familiar with the Pittsburgh transformation. I quickly discovered both empirically and anecdotely (from friends) that Pittsburgh was the “anti-Rush Belt City” if there ever was one. The leadership there has done more than clean up its image, it has cleaned up its environment. The city is definitely smaller but it is also more vibrant. It offers the closest thing to a socioeconomic roadmap for other towns like woeful Detroit.
I’m not sure if you’re familiar with Richard Florida. He is professor who focuses on urban studies especially metro economics. He wrote an article in March, in the midst of the economic meltdown, that mentioned how American cities will redefine themselves. He also mentions Pittsburgh…
“Many second-tier midwestern cities have tried to reinvent themselves in different ways, with varying degrees of success. Pittsburgh, for instance, has sought to reimagine itself as a high-tech center, and has met with more success than just about anywhere else. Still, its population has declined from a high of almost 700,000 in the mid-20th century to roughly 300,000 today.”
I would consider metros like Pittsburgh to be benchmarks for San Antonio. Surely, we can’t aspire to be the next LA or even Houston at this point, but our leadership needs to look at other cities like Pittsburgh and investigate what works in developing a viable urban core with vibrant economy and high standard of living.
You’re damn right. And latest stats from zillow.com state that the City of Pittsburgh’s home values are up almost 6%! How’s the rest of the country doing *sarcasm*.