Working from home and effects on downtown Pittsburgh (Philadelphia, Greensburg: hotel, homes)

[OyCrumbler]

What are the other main white collar job clusters in the Pittsburgh area? Are these places also allowing a lot of work from home flexibility?

[bradjl2009]

Originally Posted by Jbraybarten65

Allegheny started to slide a little if the annual estimates are accurate, but also if accurate, the decline will be very modest compared to previous decades. It will take a lot of jobs to gain enough people to offset deaths each year. I find interesting that PNC may be doing something new downtown with state of offices everywhere chaotic. I expect some return to normalcy, but any company that can, will likely do some hybrid and I know some people who expect that office space needed will shrink and there will be more shared cubes etc for when people come in.

Sure it did, but the estimates also claimed PA as a whole was losing people over the last few years so it's not a stretch at all to think that they undercounted by something like 10,000 here which would mean Allegheny County gained a couple thousand people during the 2010s. By share of the states population at around 9%, Allegheny County could hypothetically have 18,000 of those undercounted.

With work from home though, I think there will be some normalcy, but for a lot of places the days of going to an office 5 days a week are likely over. I know my large downtown company is looking at a September return to the office, but with letting us continue to work from home 2 or 3 days a week.

[eschaton]

I did the math for Pittsburgh. Presuming Pittsburgh had an equal share of the 219,000 "extra" people that the Census discovered in the state, our population is about 5,000 higher than the current projections. Which means we basically held water this decade (may have lost a few hundred).

The big headwind that the city has working against it is the closure of the state prison on the north side a few years back. In 2010 there were 1,700 people there. Now there's no one. But I feel more confident saying discounting that closure, Pittsburgh probably grew this decade.

[szug-bot]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I did the math for Pittsburgh. Presuming Pittsburgh had an equal share of the 219,000 "extra" people that the Census discovered in the state, our population is about 5,000 higher than the current projections. Which means we basically held water this decade (may have lost a few hundred).

The big headwind that the city has working against it is the closure of the state prison on the north side a few years back. In 2010 there were 1,700 people there. Now there's no one. But I feel more confident saying discounting that closure, Pittsburgh probably grew this decade.

but that is assuming a portion of the 219,000. could we have a greater share for some reason of those missing people, or even much less? would the Census Bureau do follow-up "clean-up" work to address inaccuracies like this? for the sake of doing a complete job, at least.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by szug-bot

but that is assuming a portion of the 219,000. could we have a greater share for some reason of those missing people, or even much less? would the Census Bureau do follow-up "clean-up" work to address inaccuracies like this? for the sake of doing a complete job, at least.

I mean, only the state counts are ready as of yet. The Census doesn't think the data is "clean" enough yet to release county data, let alone data by city or census tract. So yeah, we could have more, or less, of the extra 219,000. We should know a lot more when county data drops on May 4, because if Allegheny County grew, it makes it much more likely Pittsburgh grew as well.

City data is supposed to be released May 27th, so we won't have that long to wait.

[Jbraybarten65]

Bloomberg has a very interesting article with data regarding moving during the pandemic as more people were able to work from home.





More Americans Are Leaving Cities, But Don’t Call It an Urban Exodus




https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2...ericans-moved/

In other words, people moved outward. Outward to the suburbs of their own core metro area, but also farther out, to satellite cities or even other major urban centers that might still give people proximity to their region. As CityLab contributor Richard Florida has noted, the pandemic compressed into a matter of months moves that might have happened in the next few years anyway.

According to an interactive metro chart, Pittsburgh gained .5%


Some micropolitan areas just outside the metro saw gains of a few percent, with Somerset just above 5%.


Erie is down, but Meadville is up.


There are some other interesting items as well.

[Knepper3]

I would, I mean if you only now have to travel into the city 1 or 2 times a week that GREATLY opens up where you might want to live. 1hr commute (which isn't long in most large cities) 2 times a week. I know so many clients that wanted to be further out but just didnt want to deal with everyday long commutes.

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by Knepper3

I would, I mean if you only now have to travel into the city 1 or 2 times a week that GREATLY opens up where you might want to live. 1hr commute (which isn't long in most large cities) 2 times a week. I know so many clients that wanted to be further out but just didnt want to deal with everyday long commutes.

Bingo

[BUILD PENN SQUARE]

Originally Posted by zalewskimm

It is pretty safe to do so. Time to get out of the pajamas and stop using the pandemic as an crutch. Downtown is slowly seeing more homelessness on the streets. The prior investment in downtown living is being lost. Just rambling here. We can go forth knowing that many jobs can now have some flexibility to work from home here and there when needed but for the sake of sanity and our health it's time to get out of the house. Wear a mask if you must but at some point we gotta get back to some kind normal life.

how can we go back to normal life when we have less than twelve years to fix the climate?

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...mark-un-report

"The world’s leading climate scientists have warned there is only a dozen years for global warming to be kept to a maximum of 1.5C, beyond which even half a degree will significantly worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people."

in the age of high-speed internet there's no reason for having office buildings in a downtown area - driving downtown and sitting in rush hour traffic so your car can sit in a lot or a garage all day is wasteful as hell

then when you're at the office you're heating or cooling your house or apartment even though it's not being used - totally wasteful

the whole paradigm of commuting to an office downtown has to be abandoned until it can be successfully transitioned to net zero energy and net zero emissions

[erieguy]

If you claim the world is going to end you can get more money to try to save it.

I talked to a friend of mine who’s a PA government employee and he was told they’re going to be working from home through at least September, and he’s hoping he never has to go into the office again. Not only for saving miles and wear and tear on his vehicle, saving money on gas, etc..., but he likes being home when his kids get home.

Work from home is a no brainer, especially for reasons you brought up. However, it sounds like folks need human interaction during work hours for whatever reason.