There’s a telling figure in a Post-Gazette story, chronicling the latest part of the effort to revitalize Pittsburgh’s Golden Triangle, this time in the city’s Cultural District (being spearheaded by the Downtown Neighbors Alliance).
While the P-G, citing Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership data, says 17 new businesses opened in the district in 2024, “Still, amidst rising economic uncertainty, the share of available retail space in Pittsburgh rose at the start of 2025 for the first time in three quarters,” citing another report.
Gee, that reminds us of the Law of Diminishing Returns. Or the story of Humpty Dumpty, in which all the king’s horse and all the king’s men could not put Humpty, or in this case, the Golden Triangle, back together again.
There’s a particularly troubling paragraph in a Washington Examiner opinion account of the deal struck, supposedly, by President Trump between Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel that will create a “partnership” just short of a full-fledged Nippon takeover.
“As part of the agreement … the deal … guarantees that the majority of U.S. Steel’s board must be U.S. citizens, and key management, including the CEO, will also all be U.S. citizens. The deal outlines that U.S. Steel’s trade actions will be determined solely by U.S. citizens, with oversight from the U.S. government, and free from any interference.”
Except that, as obviously stated, by the U.S. government. Ahem.
This government-brokered – controlled? – “partnership” also apparently preserves the bloat of organized labor, at least under current union contracts, and, at least on its face, preserves old blast furnace technology that fails to keep up with modern steelmaking practices.
It’s the kind of double-whammy of failure that forced U.S. Steel into the flailing pickle it found itself.
There’s all kind of happy talk from government types about this Nippon-U.S. Steel union being a “planned partnership.”
And while U.S. Steel’s only best option for survival (of an unknown duration) indeed is to hook up with Nippon, it should be scaring the bejeebers out of reasonable people fearing that “planned partnership” is just another euphemism for “planned economy,” a concept proven time and time again to be pure folly.
As the U.S. Open golf championship prepares to take center stage at Oakmont Country club next month, the Post-Gazette reports on the dirty little secret of its past economic impact on the local community.
“The borough’s 120-year-old Oakmont Country Club has hosted nine U.S. Opens on its revered course — more than any other venue — and the last one in 2016 pumped over $200 million into the regional economy, according to the United States Golf Association.
“But Oakmont businesses often miss out on the windfall.
“Downtown business owners told the Post-Gazette ahead of the 2016 tournament that they anticipated steep drops in sales because many visitors, shuttled in from off-site parking lots, never actually step foot in the Oakmont business district just outside the golf compound, and because locals stay home to avoid the traffic.”
Tournament organizers and Oakmont business owners say they plan to address that hardly uncommon phenomenon by sponsoring events designed to pump up business district foot traffic during non-playing hours.
That’s not to say that no Oakmont businesses saw increased sales in 2016. As but one example, the iconic Oakmont Bakery said its sales increased by up to 30 percent.
Here’s to the new effort to draw more U.S. Open attendees to Oakmont businesses being a success. But the Oakmont experience is a good reminder that hosting such major events does not automatically come with the projected grand windfalls of organizers.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
