Destination 2016: Pittsburgh

Here’s a question to ponder, perhaps while you’re paddling a bright yellow kayak on the Allegheny River, taking in the cloudless Pittsburgh skyline punctuated by towers owned by companies such as U.S. Steel, BNY Mellon and PNC Bank: Are you looking at the nation’s most lucky city, or its least?

If you’ve never even considered the idea of kayaking in Pennsylvania’s second largest city, your initial thoughts on this question probably drift toward the unlucky. After all, Pittsburgh was enduringly described as “hell with the lid taken off” in the January 1868 issue of The Atlantic. In the midst of the great coal-and-steel era, writer James Parton noted that in Pittsburgh “every street appears to end in a huge black cloud, and there is everywhere the ominous dark-ness that creeps over the scene when a storm is approaching.” Although the black clouds were actually smoke-covered hills rising from each of the city’s three intersecting rivers, eventually a storm of sorts did hit Pittsburgh. During the later decades of the 20th century, the mining and manufacturing industries that undergirded Pittsburgh’s economy confronted increased competition from overseas and a changing market. And they crumbled.

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Sustainability
Beginning long before the modern environmental movement, Pittsburgh began to clean up its industry.
Civic Leadership
Collegiality between government and foundations has helped this city weather tough times.
Urban Innovation
Smart historic preservation has made the city a desirable place to live while retaining its character.
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[two_third]By the 1980s, 75 percent of the steel industry had vanished, taking much of the city’s population with it. Pittsburgh went from being one of the nation’s 10 largest cities to falling far below the top 30 by the decade’s end. The situation was dire, says Donald K. Carter, director of the Remaking Cities Institute at Carnegie Mellon. “We lost high-paying blue-collar jobs, primary jobs for this economy. We had the same amount of unemployment as in the Great Depression; we faced high levels of family violence, mental health issues. People were leaving the city in droves—it was so depressing.” For Pittsburgh, the needle appeared permanently pointed at unlucky.
Three decades later, Pittsburgh is on an entirely different trajectory. The economy has diversified, capitalizing on the presence of two top-tier universities, Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh, several federally funded research institutes and a population that’s far more educated than the nation as a whole. (More than 37 percent of Pittsburghers have a bachelor’s degree or more, in comparison to 28 percent of Pennsylvanians and 29 percent of Americans overall.) Apple, Google and Uber have opened major offices in Pittsburgh, while new companies such as 4moms, which makes high-tech and robotic baby gear, are starting up. Population loss is stabilizing and many young people are drawn to Lawrenceville, a neighborhood that is frequently compared to Brooklyn. (The next neighborhood to watch is the up-and-coming Strip District.)
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