Colin McNickle At Large

Same old, same old begets same old, same old

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A sometimes-spot-on assessment of the City of Pittsburgh in what we’ll call The Coronavirus Era was marred by myriad glaring omissions this past weekend.

The newspaper opinion piece notes that, “Some day COVID-19 will be over.” And it asks, “When that day finally comes, what will be next for this city?” It goes on to detail “what Pittsburgh has – its assets, physical, psychological and sociological.”

There’s a reference to its “vitality.” Then there’s the reference to the “cool vibe” of the “organic funkiness” of places like the Strip District. There’s the usual reference to its “resilience,” that the city “fights above its weight in culture,” its “great universities” and its affordability.

Indeed, the column rightly targets the city’s long and odious one-party rule. There’s a great reference to some of the “hellish architecture” that has been foisted on the citizenry. But it swings and whiffs on too many things.

To wit, the writer claims, “We were on a winning streak before the pandemic came.”

Really?

Never mind the precipitous rise in prime office vacancy rates that came before the pandemic struck and, post-pandemic, likely won’t rebound as the cost-effectiveness of working remotely sinks in.

And, surely, publicly subsidizing more skyscrapers with more prime office space will only exacerbate that glut. Yet that’s what our “leaders” are doing.

Never mind municipal pension plans that remain woefully underfunded.

Never mind the grip of public-sector unions that keeps costs high and efficiency low, typically emboldened by “leaders” who poison-pill just about any effort to reverse such public policy abominations.

Never mind the endless stream of mindless diktats that pick the pockets of business ever deeper.

Never mind the mayor’s fealty to civil unrest and his lack of fealty to the rights of its victims.

Never mind … oh, never mind.

Then there’s that gargantuan elephant that’s ignored, in toto, in the column – the pathetic and grossly expensive babysitting service that long has been Pittsburgh Public Schools (not to mention scholarships given for mediocrity).

And then there’s this: “What did we learn by not getting Amazon II?”

Answers the columnist: “We clearly need more focus on infrastructure. We need a plan for water and the sewer systems. We need to fix, really fix, a lot of roads.”

Well, yes, we clearly and really do.

But the real lesson of Amazon was that, by hook and/or by crook, public officials attempted to hide the nearly $10 billion it was ready to throw at one of the world’s richest companies, trying to launder the bid through “independent” non-governmental entities that they control. That was despicable behavior.

Still, the columnist pronounces that “People want to come here” (though Census numbers don’t bear that out) and that “They should want to come for the values – inclusion, intellectual diversity and hospitality – as well as the cool view from Mount Washington.”

Really? This is intellectual vapidity at its worst. Perhaps they would “want to come here” if the public schools were excelling, if civil unrest was not coddled (and thus enabled) and if government governed instead of postured.

Earlier in the opinion piece, the writer offered that “Pittsburgh’s greatest asset is its resilience, its ability to keep moving forward and re-invent itself.”

As if repeated taxpayer-funded this and taxpayer-funded that, protecting the cartels that are public-sector unions and an almost incomprehensible failure to learn from the past represent resilience, progress and re-invention.

Yes, “Some day COVID-19 will be over. When that day finally comes, what will be next for this city?”

Past being prologue, reasonable people fear “next” will only be a larger Potemkin Village.

Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).

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Colin McNickle
Colin McNickle

Colin received his B.G.S. from Ohio University. The 40-year journalism veteran joined the Institute in October 2016. That followed a 22-year career with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 18 as director of editorial pages for Trib Total Media. Prior that, Colin had a long and varied career in media — from radio, newspapers and magazines, to United Press International and The Associated Press.

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