Pittsburgh will get plenty of new people in town (Oklahoma: 2013, hotels)

[I_Like_Spam]

Hopefully a lot of engineers and other technical staff to develop and man the expanding gas sector and related manufacturing industries.

If the new people are from Asia or Latin America, or from the great American Southwest, it will provide a lot more diversity to the area as we don't have many folks of any of those backgrounds in the Pittsburgh area.

The idea that racial diversity is the only kind of diversity that is worthwhile isn't correct, and even if all of the new people coming in are from Oklahoma or Texas, they'll still bring in their own religious and cultural traditions as well as their own cuisine heavy on beef and TexMex flavorings.

[Pitt Chick]

IDK...
The ones I know who moved here are more interested in learning about us and our way of doing/eating/etc. than they are about bringing TexMex here.
And many families joined my Methodist church, even though they are Baptists, etc.

Granted, I only know about two dozen families, but still....

[Goinback2011]

Won't they all move to places like Peters and Cranberry?

[I_Like_Spam]

Originally Posted by Goinback2011

Won't they all move to places like Peters and Cranberry?

Not necessarily, if the city of Pittsburgh reaches out to the new migrants, we might be able to get some of them to move here as well.

[trackstar13]

Are the majority of natural gas people staying long term?

[Pitt Chick]

I know two families who already went home, and one who is moving next month... all back to Texas.
Their husbands were on the front lines of fracking, and their jobs here are done and/or they trained locals to do their job.

I really cannot see much in the way of long-term residents.

[PITairport]

Originally Posted by Pitt Chick

Their husbands were on the front lines of fracking, and their jobs here are done and/or they trained locals to do their job.

I really cannot see much in the way of long-term residents.

While good for local hotels and restaurants, one of the initial complaints regarding the shale revolution was that employees were being sent in to do the job without hiring locals in any significant numbers. So if locals are now being hired and trained to do the job in greater numbers, then that is great news.


On another note, fracking is so much more to Pittsburgh than just the front line well jobs. The Pittsburgh region has become the administrative/corporate center of the Marcellus/Utica shale activity. That means the region is seeing companies and jobs associated with geologists, legal services, corporate executives, safety industries, university programs, etc all set up local operations. One needs to look no further than the Southpointe area to see this. With the recently announced extension of the Southern Beltway to I-79, this will create an "energy corridor" from Southpointe to the Shell cracker, with PIT airport in the middle including a new regional headquarters for Chevron. These are the jobs worth getting excited about and is what will add new people and grow the local economy, more so than the front line drilling.

[trackstar13]

I wonder if there is a report showing the net gain or loss of the population related to natural gas drilling in western PA or Pittsburgh specifically.

[zman63]

Originally Posted by Pitt Chick

I know two families who already went home, and one who is moving next month... all back to Texas.
Their husbands were on the front lines of fracking, and their jobs here are done and/or they trained locals to do their job.

I really cannot see much in the way of long-term residents.

I have seen this as well unfortunately. I have put in for jobs with chevron, cabot and some of the other companies. If you do not have 2 years of experience with drilling then you will never get an interview for an office or management job. How many locals actually have that experience? If they are hiring locals it is for the truck driving and back breaking manual labor. Out of town folks are getting the small number of cushy office jobs or they remain unfilled as drilling has slowed.

Once the wells are drilled and setup all of those workers move onto the next place. There is a skeleton crew that maintains and oversees the wells once they are setup.

I know a young couple that was relocated for his job. He worked for a gas company out in colorado and they pretty much gave him no choice in the matter. Move to pittsburgh or go on unemployment. He is in Pittsburgh but probably travels out of state 50 percent or more of the time.

In addition, natural gas prices are at their lowest in years. The market is flooded with shale gas and another mild winter will set back the drilling even further. Companies aren't going to drill because the high profit is not there.

Ohio and west virginia have the more valuable utica shale wet gas, which can be can be used to make other things. We have the dry marcellus shale gas, which can only be used for heating and power. If all vehicles would go to natural gas power then this area would boom.

[Moby Hick]

Originally Posted by trackstar13

I wonder if there is a report showing the net gain or loss of the population related to natural gas drilling in western PA or Pittsburgh specifically.

There is very clear evidence that at least the jobs directly related to drilling have dropped. And you may recognize a guy in the comments.

Nullspace: Long past inflection