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Posted Jan 20, 2018, 12:26 AM
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Closed account
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Join Date: Apr 2017
Posts: 2,016
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Quote:
Originally Posted by emathias
Pittsburgh's decline, as bad as it has been, was nothing compared to Detroit's.
Detroit has lost 64% of its population and is still losing people at close to 1% per year and since 1990 has lost over 1% per year on average, with 2000-2010 being especially bad with 2.5% per year leaving. Detroit's finances got so terrible that it had to file for bankruptcy to address them. In 2010 the median family income was about $31,000. Per-capita income was about $14,110. About 1/3 of Detroit families are below the poverty line.
Pittsburgh has lost 55% of its population but while still slightly declining, the population has mostly stabilized now. Since 1990 the average has been less than 1% per year with population since 1990 being much more stable than Detroit. It had some serious financial issues, but has managed its way out of the worst of it without resorting to bankruptcy. In the median family income was $38,795 with per-capita income at $18,816. About 15% of Pittsburgh families are below the poverty line.
Additionally, Pittsburgh has been widely recognized as managing a transition from an industrial economy to a more advanced, modern economy. Detroit has been a poster child for pretty much the opposite of how a city should manage such a transition. It is, finally, gaining some traction is doing that, mainly due to the dedicated work of a few civic-minded corporate leaders who have intentionally focused on locating and expanding in downtown Detroit. But it is way behind what Pittsburgh has done and continues to do. To note something specific to the HQ2 competition, despite Detroit being over double the population of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh's transit system carries an average of nearly 2 1/2 times as many riders on an average day, indicating that transit is very much better integrated to local culture in Pittsburgh - for cities outside of the Northeast Corridor, Pittsburgh generally only trails Chicago in transit use per capita.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by eschaton
Not to be a homer, but have you ever been to Pittsburgh? I've lived in both cities, and besides a shared industrial past and decline they have very little in common.
The biggest difference between the two is that Detroit had the highest white flight out of any major city in the Rust Belt, while Pittsburgh had the smallest. Actually it's the only sizable majority-white U.S. city outside of the Pacific Northwest. Lots of stable middle-class (even rich) areas survived right inside of city through the worst period of industrial decline. Along with a lot of 19th century working-class white neighborhoods which were primed for gentrification.
Pittsburgh has a very different downtown than Detroit as well. Downtown employment has been stable at roughly 100,000 since the 1950s. There was never a decamping of office jobs into the suburbs. Due to to quirks of how the city set up its parking policy, downtown has virtually no surface parking lots, and garages are very expensive, meaning less than half of people drive to work.
Also, the Pittsburgh MSA never had an Ann Arbor. Pittsburgh is only college town of the Pittsburgh MSA unless you consider very small towns way out in the boonies. We have a big public university (Pitt) a private STEM-focused university (CMU) and several smaller private schools (Duquense, Chatham, Carlow, and Point Park University) all within city limits. This has given the city a lot of stability - particularly as enrollment in higher education continued to climb.
Finally, out of the cities on the list, aside from NYC, Chicago, DC, Philly, Boston, and Newark, Pittsburgh has the highest transit utilization by a good deal.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pj3000
First, let's just get this out of the way. Pittsburgh (particularly Pittsburgh proper... not old steel mill towns 20-40 miles away from Pittsburgh that get lumped in as "Pittsburgh") is nothing like Detroit as far as levels of decline and large-scale abandonment go. Pittsburgh's urban neighborhoods have largely remained intact... much more like one can see on the east coast.
Second, Amazon specifically told Detroit in a call to let them know their bid was not selected because they simply did not have the ability to attract the type of talent that Amazon is looking for (aside from the lack of transit). Pittsburgh does have that ability, and has been attracting the talent that Amazon seeks for a decade now... with major increases in the last 5 years... to places like Google, Uber, Apple, Bosch, SAP, CSC, Duolingo, Argo AI, Facebook, etc, etc.
That strong university/talent pipeline component they were seeking... Pittsburgh has two of the nation's top research universities in the core of the city, one of which is arguably the top school for computer science on the planet, at both the undergrad and grad levels. Throw in the significant tech presence already here (and has been here for over a century... like tech long, long before tech was "tech") some transit as far as light rail and BRT goes, and you certainly have a much more fertile environment than Detroit has.
Though I think the fact that Amazon actually called Detroit is a good sign. Supposedly, they didn't call other cities. At least that's what NPR tells me today... but you know NPR, could be fake news.
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Very good posts.
Economic issues aside, the leaders and urban planners in Detroit and Michigan virtually balkanized their city to death. Amazon's rejection of it is simply the chickens coming home to roost.
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