Mysteries of Pittsburgh

Marketplace had an interesting piece yesterday about how Pittsburgh has transformed itself from a population-bleeding Rust Belt town into a growing-again center for infotech and medicine. Hey, if it can happen in Pittsburgh...

Comments

"It's a tough question. Regions, you know, are all competing against each other in ways that they were never competing against each other in the past. Investment is hyper-mobile. It'll go wherever it's going to get the best return. The talent, the population, the people, they're ever-more mobile."

That's right. Companies follow the employees now. If Albany wants to attract great compmanies, we need to make this city a place people want to LIVE. - not just WORK.

I've been to Pittsburgh a couple times recently (my sister lives there) and I was shocked, literally shocked, to see so much development there. They don't have ANY old falling down abandoned factories lining their waterfront. Just new high-tech offices, research centers and shopping areas. How were they able to get it together?

Pittsburgh is much bigger than Albany. Plus they have the Steelers, the Pirates, the Penguins and Heinz. And that is just for starters.

I do appreciate you trying to pull my attention away from Austin There is one important thing I learned from my petty Austin jealousies. And that is one unique challenge to Albany's ascension is its proximity to major cities.

A place like Austin can get such good stuff, because there is nothing else around. People flock to the city from miles around. And that's just not the case with our fair city.

@Daniel B. - ah, but that's exactly what makes this area so fabulous! You're within about 3 hours of just about ANYTHING!

WHile Pittsburgh's main driver of growth was production and industry for much of the 20th century, Albany's has always been government.

Albany's not a rust belt city, there is no return to greatness for Albany...it is what it's always been

Compare:

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=uspopulation&met=population&idim=county:36001&q=popULATION+OF+ALBANY,+NY#met=population&idim=county:36001:42003

ALbany hasn't shrunk because it hasn't lost anything...still a bunch of bloodsucking bureacrats with a smattering of industry

@ ike

You're right - the three biggest employment sectors in Albany are: Government, Education, Healthcare. (I think in that order, too) Add in those spin-offs: lawyers, lobbyists and researchers, and you've got a fairly solid workforce that is almost impervious to expansion and contraction in the economy. The steelworkers never left albany in droves. Yet, at one time Albany's population was nearly 150,000 and it's been shrinking ever since. The reason? We're so crazed with locating new employment (chib fab, office parks, malls) outside the city, that the tax base is depleted. Government, Education, and Healthcare are not-for-profit, basically. So the tax burden in directly placed on home-owners. The REGION needs to focus on targerting investment in the city (like austin and pittsburgh metropolitan areas have done).

I can't claim to have the answer, but it seems to me all this exurban development is sucking the life out of Albany

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