We cannot help but being struck by what’s missing from the introduction to the latest in a long line of proposals to turn around the flagging fortunes of Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh Quarterly magazine, already on record as a proponent of “regionalization” to supposedly fix what ails us, has unveiled its “Pittsburgh Tomorrow” campaign.
Indeed, the latest entreaty to end all entreaties to “For heaven’s sake, let’s do something!” deserves credit for challenging the blind cheerleading for foundations that support only shoddily built facades. And you can take that metaphorically and literally. Hint, hint.
From a necessarily sober introductory essay announcing the campaign:
“Economically and demographically, Pittsburgh has long been in decline. Once the nation’s ninth biggest city, it’s now 68th or 70th depending on the source, just above Greensboro, N.C., and Lincoln, Neb. In the next year or two, Pittsburgh will fall below 300,000 people, well under half of its peak of 675,000. While U.S. population has increased by 120 percent since 1950 and 39 percent since 1980, the seven counties of the current Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) have been nearly alone among big metro areas in losing population — down 7 percent since 1950 and 15 percent since 1980.”
Continues the Quarterly essay:
“Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald is justifiably proud that, in the last decennial Census, the MSA eked out a 0.6 percent gain. Unfortunately, though, that’s almost certainly a blip. Much of the gain came from migration to Pittsburgh from 2009-2014 when we fared better than other regions after the Great Recession because of the Marcellus Shale jobs boom. As the decade wore on, that reversed. And in 2021, Pittsburgh had the inauspicious distinction of having the highest natural population loss — more deaths than births — of any American metro area. Pittsburgh lost 10,838 people, followed by Tampa/St. Pete (-9,291) and Sarasota/Bradenton (-6,643).
“Beyond that, comparing labor forces in 16 comparable regions between 2012 and 2022, the average region saw a 9.2 percent increase. Pittsburgh fared the worst with a 4.4 percent decline. During that same period, the 16 regions saw an average increase of 28.2 percent in overall jobs. Only one had an overall decline — Pittsburgh, losing -0.5 percent of its jobs.”
The more than 2,000-word essay then goes on to detail the usual blather of what such efforts typically entail, i.e., an “inspirational essay” and, wait for it, a “centerpiece” featuring “100 local leaders answering this question: ‘In order to sustain this region’s future economy and quality of life, what’s your top idea to stem the population losses and attract new people?’”
But and again, most strikingly, what’s missing from this narrative is the flaming arrow that hits the bull’s-eye of the problems:
Nearly a century of failed one-party rule.
A dangerous fealty to labor unions.
Doubling- and even tripling-down on economic, public and social policies that can only collapse under their own weight.
A city public school system in repeated iterations of shambles.
A public transit system that grows less and less sustainable, economically and operationally, every day.
A mindless devotion to the inefficient (and union-sopping) mis-delivery of public services, such as water, sewage and garbage.
Mindless regulation upon mindless regulation that instead of enabling the public only works overtime to defeat it.
Near total dysfunction of too many city departments and bureaus.
A general lack of public safety enforcement.
Using public dollars in a perverted attempt to create demand for services (when it is demand that creates the need for services, public and private).
And we are certain, dear readers, that you could name many more of the many root causes for Pittsburgh’s plethora of serious problems, challenges and outright failures.
The point here is that to merely begin addressing what ails Pittsburgh, those ailments must be addressed openly, publicly and bluntly.
It must go far beyond a simple recitation of the unflattering data (though, in this case, it is a start). And it certainly must go far beyond inspirational essays and 100 of the proverbial usual suspects telling us what must be done.
We already know, and long have known, what the problems are. What Pittsburgh continues to lack are real leaders with the fortitude to speak truth to the train wreck that Pittsburgh has become.
The days of continually putting a newer and prettier shade of lipstick on the same old ugly pig must end. Or nothing – nothing – will change. It’s time to slay the pig.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
