Newsweek Article: Detroit could learn a lot from Pittsburgh's rebirth (McKeesport: 2010, houses)

[kramhorse]

I just read this newsweek article regarding Pittsburgh's recovery from the 70's steel industry collapse.

When the industry faltered—hit by cheap imports, lax management, labor strife and declining domestic demand—steel's leaders sought and won years of tariff and quota protection. So to that extent, the city and its leading industry did turn to the feds.
But ultimately a sense of realism—a trait of the city that sometimes borders on bitter cynicism—won out. The locals realized that the old steel industry was a lost cause, and they moved on.


A way of making a living ended, but not a way of life. The old determination found a new focus, which wasn't anymore a lifetime job in the mill, but a college education—and more education.
And that, above all, has been the key to the city's survival: pride in and commitment to local education. The city school system avoided the kind of collapse that faced other urban centers; schools in surrounding suburbs of Allegheny County have risen in stature. This was largely a local choice, with local and state money.

I've only lived in PGH for about a year, so I can't evaluate the accuracy of the author's description of Pittsburgh's recovery (though my kid will be going to public school in the city, I do think the writer is a bit too quick to praise the city's schools). Does anyone whose lived in the area for a couple decades want to share their thoughts? For example what was the mood like in the 70s and 80s? How intentional was the city's move towards "the eds and meds"? What was, say, downtown or lawrenceville/bloomfield like during the worst economic times? Etc.

[nuwaver99]

Originally Posted by kramhorse

I just read this newsweek article regarding Pittsburgh's recovery from the 70's steel industry collapse.

I've only lived in PGH for about a year, so I can't evaluate the accuracy of the author's description of Pittsburgh's recovery (though my kid will be going to public school in the city, I do think the writer is a bit too quick to praise the city's schools). Does anyone whose lived in the area for a couple decades want to share their thoughts? For example what was the mood like in the 70s and 80s? How intentional was the city's move towards "the eds and meds"? What was, say, downtown or lawrenceville/bloomfield like during the worst economic times? Etc.

Well, Pitt has always been a leader in the medical field going back Jonas Salk and the polio vaccine in the 1950s. That just continued. Carnegie-Mellon has always been a great engineering school and was there in the early days of computer programming. Both these great universities took the bull by the horns in their respective fields and became leaders in these burgeoning fields. Fortunately, they are both located in the city of Pittsburgh.
As for Lawrenceville and Bloomfield. I am too young to remember L'villes heyday. I used to go through there on my way to Stanton Heights to see my grandmother in the 1970s. My impression was that it had a lot of people down on their luck. There were a lot of bars where people would drown their sorrows where they once went for a beer after working in one of the the mills lining the riverfront. I understand that artists are starting to move in and there are not as many nuisance bars as there were a decade or so ago.
I lived and worked in Bloomfield in the late 1980s. It was much more stable than Lawrenceville. In fact, L'ville was made fun of in Bloomfield at the time. I thought then and still feel that Bloomfield is Pittsburgh's most underrated neighborhood for various reasons. I think that Lawrenceville is seeing more drastic change similar to South Side circa 1980s, while Bloomfield is seeing changes too, just less drastic. Many feel that the massive new Children's Hospital will change both neighborhods in the coming decade between 2010 and 2020.

[Katiana]

I've been out of the area for quite a while, though I still have family there and visit regularly. I don't have a good sense for how intentional the move to "eds and meds" was, but as nuwaver99 said, these have always been big in Pgh. Pitt has one of the oldest graduate schools of public health in the country. CMU has always been one of the "top tier" colleges in the country for engineering, etc. My own take on it is that when steel collapsed, the others gained in prominence by just being there.

[BrianTH]

I also think it is true that health care and higher education have long been part of the economic mix in Pittsburgh, but I think it is also worth noting that those are growth areas in the U.S. economy in general, so I think there has both been a paring away of some other sectors and growth in those sectors.

In fact, I think if you traced the history of UPMC, it would be quite illuminating. I believe it was actually founded as Presbyterian Hospital around the turn of the century, and became affiliated with the University before WWII. But it has only been in recent decades that UPMC has built an international empire with $7 billion in annual revenues, employing more people in Pennsylvania than anybody but WalMart.

So yeah, they were here, but they have also been growing and transforming themselves along the way.

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by kramhorse

For example what was the mood like in the 70s and 80s?

Unemployment was staggering. People who lived in nice suburban neighborhods were mowing lawns to put food on the table for their children. I can't even begin to describe the sad state of the vehicles in the area. Many people did their own bodywork for their cars to pass inspection --- lots of different colored primer and differernt colored auto body parts on the same vehicles. Bumper stickers were used to cover up rust holes. This was the norm. People managed to do with less.

The unemployment office on Federal Street in North Side was an all day event. The lines stretched down the street for blocks. It was quite the social occassion. You'd run into so many people you knew that you hadn't seen in years. Many people moved from Pittsburgh to find employment. Other people remained here and took advantage of the displaced worker education programs and obtained bachelors degrees.

I had recently finished college. I was competing with people who had 30 years experience for jobs that paid only 12k a year. The jobs paid handsomely prior to the collapse, but corporations were taking advantage of the downturn to get cheap labor.

Originally Posted by kramhorse

How intentional was the city's move towards "the eds and meds"?

Pittsburgh always had a strong education and medical industry. Where Pittsburgh was intentional was its attraction of the film industry. It was also smart to take advantage of CMU's strengths and become a strong city for research, science and technical industries.

Originally Posted by kramhorse

What was, say, downtown or lawrenceville/bloomfield like during the worst economic times? Etc.

Downtown was actually better back then. It was before companies started leaving the cities for the suburban areas. It took longer for the retail businesses to leave downtown.

Lawrenceville/bloomfield weren't any different than they were prior to the collapse of the steel industry. There weren't many steel workers living in those areas.

The crash of the steel industry really affected the suburbs, where many steel workers lived. (They made outrageous money back then.) Amazingly, housing prices didn't drop much in the suburbs. But many of the residents struggled to keep their homes and did odd jobs and worked minimum wage to keep their families together.

Of course, the actual steel towns where the mills were located took a huge hit. Those towns literally died. The supporting businesses in the areas closed up and housing prices hit rock bottom and have never recovered.

[Katiana]

Good description of the 70s and 80s, Hopes. I was living there some of that time. That is how I remember it.

We moved to Colorado in 1980, and I remember coming home to visit in 1982. The headline article of the Sunday Beaver County Times was the location of the food banks around BC and who qualified. The steelworkers unions were running food banks for their members. There were houses in the nice little burb where my parents lived boarded up, the owners gone to Florida or Arizona or somewhere for work, becuase they couldn't sell. By the late 80s things had gotten a little better.

[BrianTH]

Thanks for the first-hand descriptions, Hopes and Katiana.

[fleetiebelle]

It was also smart to take advantage of CMU's strengths and become a strong city for research, science and technical industries.

And keep in mind that CMU was a trade school/technical school until after WWII, really, when they opened the business school and began the trend toward computer science.

[Katiana]

Originally Posted by fleetiebelle

And keep in mind that CMU was a trade school/technical school until after WWII, really, when they opened the business school and began the trend toward computer science.

My father got a BS in engineering there in 1943. At the time, they had the engineering school, the drama school (or dept., I'm not sure what they called it), and the "Margaret Morrison School for Women" which offered social work, home economics, and other "women's" majors. One of my dad's cousins majored in home ec there well before WW II, was a home ec teacher at Beaver Falls HIgh School during the depression.

[Geeo]

I had just come home from college in 1981 and couldn't get a job in my major. I ended up as a security guard in 1982 and was working with middle-aged managers who had been laid off from US Steel and other companies. It was a rude awakening. I remember the shock in towns like McKeesport and Homestead. People always thought that those mills would never "go down." But they did and those towns really suffered. I believe that in just one day in December 1983 (right after Christmas), US Steel announced 15,000 layoffs in the Mon Valley alone. The current recession is nothing compared to what Pittsburgh went through 25 years ago.