Pittsburgh is one economic bright spot - for now (Post-Gazette) (York: hotel, unemployment)

[bradjl2009]

Read the entire good article here Pittsburgh is one bright spot amid the economic gloom -- for now.

"It was less than three years ago when the Post-Gazette published an account of Charlotte, N.C.'s, ascension from anonymity to banking powerhouse, a city that was second only to New York in terms of bank assets. With that new wealth, though, came new risk.

As Charlotte bypassed Pittsburgh and other cities as a financial center, some were concerned the city hadn't diversified other sectors of its economy, leaving it susceptible to a Big Steel-type of collapse should U.S. markets ever encounter serious trauma, or should one of its corporate titans collapse or be sold.
That trauma came in 2008.

Wachovia, Charlotte's second-biggest employer and bank, was sold to San Francisco's Wells Fargo. Bank of America, also based in Charlotte, is cutting 42,500 jobs nationally.
By the end of the year, unemployment hit 8.9 percent in and around Charlotte, 9.5 percent for the 16-county region. A job fair last month drew 1,500 people, with a line that snaked through the lobby, out the door and around the hotel where the fair was staged; a job fair this month drew 3,200.

And Pittsburgh?
"In North America, our primary growth center is in Pittsburgh," said Barrie Athol, who managed the merger between Pittsburgh's Mellon Financial and Bank of New York two years ago.

Maybe Charlotte isn't the city people in Pittsburgh should seem to love and want to move to while putting down their own city afterall.