Monday’s “At Large” about a city agency bailing out a private developer whose pricey townhomes in Pittsburgh’s Middle Hill District attracted no buyers prompted this email correspondence from a wag with whom we regularly converse:
“This story is so good that you couldn’t possibly make this stuff up.
“Let’s start with the city Housing Authority – and not the city Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) — buying four of these units. Doesn’t that, by definition, make them public housing units?
“It makes one wonder who it is that developer knows at the Housing Authority.
“Then there is the idea that any first-time buyer would be able to afford the mortgage on a $480,000 property. Add to that the fact that the average home price for all of Allegheny County is roughly $240,000.
“And even at that price there have been zero takers. It should give someone a clue that market forces do exist.
“Speaking of clues, the fact that Pittsburgh Magazine, among others, published gushing reviews of this development last year, gives you some idea of exactly how far removed from reality these folks truly are.
“I have to wonder how long it will take before some artist is commissioned to display his or her work in the front windows of these properties — just like they do with empty buildings Downtown [for this week’s NFL Draft,]” our dedicated correspondent concluded.
It is, in a phrase, public policy insanity.
As has the Allegheny Institute’s Jake Haulk on a regular basis, Gus Faucher, senior vice president and chief economist of The PNC Financial Services Group, is sounding the alarm over the Pittsburgh Metro’s foundering critical metrics of employment and population.
Writing in the Post-Gazette, Faucher says recent downward revisions in the past month for both is simply “bad news.”
The revisions now show data that indicated local employment in late 2025 had surpassed its pre-recession levels no longer is the case. “And revisions to a separate data series show that what was initially reported as a slight increase in local population in 2024 was instead a small decline, with another drop in population last year,” Faucher notes.
“Although the recent data revisions highlight the area’s problems, none of this is new. Weak local demographics and slow job growth have been persistent features of the Pittsburgh area economy for decades.
“But these two data revisions, coming in quick succession, demonstrate the challenges the region faces, not just in 2026, but for decades to come.”
Decades.
But it’s the same-old, same-old political leadership — too often professionally groomed by the same-old, same-old “gimme” corporate culture (that insists on shaking down taxpayers for their respective “We-Must-Have- It,” “We-Deserve-It” and “We-Can’t-Build-Without-It” corporate wealthfare) – that keep proffering the same-old, same-old regulation-heavy failed public policies that protect their turf, their political benefactors (organized labor included) and retard the kind of bona-fide economic progress and population growth that has eluded the region for far too many decades already.
It’s only more of the same-old, same-old public policy insanity.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
