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I think he's talking about good employment prospects drawing people to the area, not improved food/drink options in Observatory Hill. I'd agree the restaurant scene has improved in the past five years, but people are still complaining about lack of good employment with a career path for new grads/real Pittsburghers who don't have robotics expertise. I seem to recall a fair few people really trying to make the job market work, and ultimately relocating to Columbus or Houston or Charlotte rather than plod along at subsistence-level dead end jobs. If this is still a problem, it's a drag on population growth. I'm happy to read the Pittsburgh success stories but it sounds like there are still people struggling.
My partner and I each earn <$15/hr. with our degrees. We're still making a go of it here, though. It is what it is. He's a supervisor at a company he's been at since 2009. I work for the city police. We love Pittsburgh. We just wish Pittsburgh's employers would recognize the rising cost-of-living here and compensate us appropriately and respectably.
I think he's talking about good employment prospects drawing people to the area, not improved food/drink options in Observatory Hill. I'd agree the restaurant scene has improved in the past five years, but people are still complaining about lack of good employment with a career path for new grads/real Pittsburghers who don't have robotics expertise. I seem to recall a fair few people really trying to make the job market work, and ultimately relocating to Columbus or Houston or Charlotte rather than plod along at subsistence-level dead end jobs. If this is still a problem, it's a drag on population growth. I'm happy to read the Pittsburgh success stories but it sounds like there are still people struggling.
You understand exactly what I am saying. The article I posted in the south side thread rehashes this. Keep in mind the article is written by a professor in Connecticut. The same people who have been able to find gainful employment have for the last 50 years. While the majority of people have been left behind. Rogersand eschan echo exactly what the article says. There are coffee shops and fancy boutiques in one neighborhood so it must be growing. The wealth doesn't grow in Pittsburgh it shifts between neighborhoods and whatever the new flavor is. The city has an excellent marketing ploy to paint Pittsburgh as this rebirth city flush with jobs. It is so successful that it has been used multiple times since the 1950s. It sucks you in and then the answer is if you can't find a job here it is your fault.
A lot of people it doesn't suck in. They leave for better opportunities elsewhere. Ones that stay end up depressed because it has them thinking that the world economy ends in Pittsburgh and there are no other affordable cities elsewhere where you can make a good living.
My point about the coffee shops and breweries is that they are all small local businesses run by people who live here. I'm not talking about a new Starbucks catering to the newcomers; I am talking about young people in the community becoming entrepreneurs. They can afford to do this because the property values and rents are reasonable. If we had thousands of new people moving in, they would not be able to do what they are doing. I want to see SCR get a raise and buy a house, and that's not going to happen nearly as quickly if there were suddenly a ton of high-paying jobs and my neighbor's house was priced at $175k instead of $75k. I agree that "the majority of people have been left behind" and people are still "struggling" here; I just don't see why sudden population growth from transplants making higher salaries would make this problem better and not worse.
My partner and I each earn <$15/hr. with our degrees. We're still making a go of it here, though. It is what it is. He's a supervisor at a company he's been at since 2009. I work for the city police. We love Pittsburgh. We just wish Pittsburgh's employers would recognize the rising cost-of-living here and compensate us appropriately and respectably.
Learn to program (python or javascript, C# or PHP or something similar) via online classes that are free, this should take about 3 to 6 months even though you may have little software experience. (I am assuming you have basic math skills and you can apparently navigate a computer reasonably well.) Then get a job in the software industry. You can do better than $15/hour, and over time you should be able to double then triple that rate. I'm not saying everybody can do this, but you can.
There are a lot of opinions on population growth. I am trying to be realistic in my comparisons.
Note the population growth occurring in the following cites. These places are growing but may not get the press that Pittsburgh does.
1. Nashville
2. Columbus
3. Charlotte
4. Raleigh
5. Richmond
Will Pittsburgh ever be able to attain the population growth occurring in these cities. Why or why not?
If you're talking about cities, not metros, you need to take into account the city limits of each of these being broader than those of Pittsburgh. Nashville is a consolidated city-county. Columbus, Charlotte, and Raleigh have continued to annex new undeveloped territory. Richmond is the closest analogue out of the five to Pittsburgh, but even Richmond annexed about half of its territory south of the James River in 1970. Really in all cases the question isn't how the city limits performed, but how the most "Pittsburgh-like" portion of each city (e.g., the 19th and early 20th century core) performed relative to Pittsburgh. Eyeballing maps of population change by census tract, the answer is generally not that differently. There's a few areas right around the CBD which tend to show strong growth, then a lot of neighborhoods which are stagnant or declining in population surrounding them.
I think he's talking about good employment prospects drawing people to the area, not improved food/drink options in Observatory Hill. I'd agree the restaurant scene has improved in the past five years, but people are still complaining about lack of good employment with a career path for new grads/real Pittsburghers who don't have robotics expertise. I seem to recall a fair few people really trying to make the job market work, and ultimately relocating to Columbus or Houston or Charlotte rather than plod along at subsistence-level dead end jobs. If this is still a problem, it's a drag on population growth. I'm happy to read the Pittsburgh success stories but it sounds like there are still people struggling.
I'm sure we can come up with anecdotes, but I'm honestly not sure that our domestic migration outflow is all that different from anywhere else in the Northeast or Midwest. Chicago's is significantly higher now, even though it has in most respects a much healthier regional economy. The reason we're not growing at a slow pace like most other Northeastern and Midwestern cities is mostly because we don't get immigrants in appreciable numbers.
There are a lot of opinions on population growth. I am trying to be realistic in my comparisons.
Note the population growth occurring in the following cites. These places are growing but may not get the press that Pittsburgh does.
1. Nashville
2. Columbus
3. Charlotte
4. Raleigh
5. Richmond
Will Pittsburgh ever be able to attain the population growth occurring in these cities. Why or why not?
No. Except for Columbus, all these cities are in the southern US. People do show a preference for warm weather. Most of the population growth in the US is in the sunbelt.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sealie
Why do people worry so much about explosive Houston-style growth in a city that last posted population gains in the Eisenhower administration? Charlotte is what it is today because of BoA. We are nowhere near that being a concern.
Yes, and Pittsburgh was competing with Charlotte for a while to be a big finance center. Pittsburgh got the short end of that stick.
Quote:
Originally Posted by eschaton
If you're talking about cities, not metros, you need to take into account the city limits of each of these being broader than those of Pittsburgh. Nashville is a consolidated city-county. Columbus, Charlotte, and Raleigh have continued to annex new undeveloped territory. Richmond is the closest analogue out of the five to Pittsburgh, but even Richmond annexed about half of its territory south of the James River in 1970. Really in all cases the question isn't how the city limits performed, but how the most "Pittsburgh-like" portion of each city (e.g., the 19th and early 20th century core) performed relative to Pittsburgh. Eyeballing maps of population change by census tract, the answer is generally not that differently. There's a few areas right around the CBD which tend to show strong growth, then a lot of neighborhoods which are stagnant or declining in population surrounding them.
Not this stuff again! We just talked about this a couple days ago. The state with the most lenient annexation laws is NEBRASKA, not Tennessee, Ohio or North Carolina. (See my post in the other thread for the link.) Plus the population of most of the surrounding counties is also dropping in the Pittsburgh MSA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_city-county "Currently, the largest consolidated city-county in the United States by population is Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, while the largest by land-area is Sitka, Alaska."
https://citiesspeak.org/2015/08/12/h...ed-government/ "In 1963, Nashville’s elected, business and civic leaders worked together to consolidate local governments within Davidson County to create the Metropolitan Government of Nashville."
Quote:
Originally Posted by RogersParkTransplant
The population loss is not a "problem" and there is plenty of land being developed on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, including everyone's favorite destination strip mall on the other side of the county line. Look, Oakland: you left, and it looks like we're all happy for you, so why do you need to come back and argue with us online? Eschaton started this thread, so I don't see the point in telling him his opinions are wrong.
Yes, population loss is a "problem" all over the Pittsburgh MSA. Pittsburgh region's population decline continues, Census shows | TribLIVE "Only a few municipalities, largely located along the Allegheny-Butler County line, are growing amid the Pittsburgh region's overall population decline. Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland counties all lost residents between 2015 and 2016. Butler County, home to some of the region's only growing municipalities, bucked the trend."
No. Except for Columbus, all these cities are in the southern US. People do show a preference for warm weather. Most of the population growth in the US is in the sunbelt.
Yes, and Pittsburgh was competing with Charlotte for a while to be a big finance center. Pittsburgh got the short end of that stick.
Not this stuff again! We just talked about this a couple days ago. The state with the most lenient annexation laws is NEBRASKA, not Tennessee, Ohio or North Carolina. (See my post in the other thread for the link.) Plus the population of most of the surrounding counties is also dropping in the Pittsburgh MSA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_city-county "Currently, the largest consolidated city-county in the United States by population is Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, while the largest by land-area is Sitka, Alaska."
https://citiesspeak.org/2015/08/12/h...ed-government/ "In 1963, Nashville’s elected, business and civic leaders worked together to consolidate local governments within Davidson County to create the Metropolitan Government of Nashville."
Yes, population loss is a "problem" all over the Pittsburgh MSA. Pittsburgh region's population decline continues, Census shows | TribLIVE "Only a few municipalities, largely located along the Allegheny-Butler County line, are growing amid the Pittsburgh region's overall population decline. Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland counties all lost residents between 2015 and 2016. Butler County, home to some of the region's only growing municipalities, bucked the trend."
Since when is it not OK to disagree with an OP?
The population density, annexation and what is urban is a strawmans losing argument. Pittsburgh began losing population in the 1920s. It was masked by the annexation of the southern neighborhoods like overbrook and western ones like westwood. The population losses were such a huge problem by the 1950s the URA was created to give people money to fix homes and redevelop the city. Basically pittsburghs economy was old and outdated nearly 90 years ago now. The steel mills and manufacturing plants were old and outdated in the 1930s. The same can be said with the infrastructure. The north side was forced to annex into Pittsburgh. Allegheny City had a population of 132,000 residents and third largest city in pa. Today there is less than 40,000 living on the whole north side. Was annexation good for Allegheny city? Nope. It was the wealthiest part of Allegheny county. Once annexation was complete they made it look like the rest of pittsburgh
I don't see the city growing because it is just a shifting of wealth from whatever neighborhood is hot at the time. The south side was hot and now it is back to stagnation or and/ decline. Pittsburgh has the lowest amount of small business startups of the 40 largest metros. Also how much has the enrollment declined in the city schools from 2010 to2017? That could be another I'd of how much population loss there will be. Without jobs there will be no growth.
As far as Columbus is poised to add 9 square miles to its city limits from 2000 to 2020. It is the smallest amount of annexation in 20 years in the history of the city. I guess they are able to stuff a lot of new people in those 9 square miles! 717,000 in 2000 and 860,000 in 2017. Their data site debunks the myth of annexation being the main reason the city has grown faster than ever in the 21st century. Most of the land annexed by Columbus was pre 1980.
Nashville was talking about deannexation. The city would lose 110,000 residents. I wonder if any Pittsburgh neighborhoods would vote to De annex from the city if given a chance? Nashville hasn't annexed in a long time
Raleigh hasn't added one acre of land to its boundaries since 2010.
Annexation or not, Pittsburgh is just de-densifying, with smaller families replacing the larger families of yesteryear. Southside is still WAY more expensive now than it was in 2000, and Lawerencville is way more than 2010. Southside isn't collapsing back to 2000 level values, its just not appreciating as much. As areas get popular and built out, the focus turns to the next neighborhood. Its the natural cycle. The southern and western cities will start to see the same issues as their infrastructure ages and population shifts. I'd rather be in a smaller, more robust Pittsburgh 20 years from now than a bloated, underfunded, suburban style cities of the south and west.
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