Pittsburgh Prophet Tom Murphy

We have another former Pittsburgh mayor Tom Murphy sighting, this time in Shreveport, Louisiana:

Pittsburgh's success began after the city was devastated by the loss of the steel industry. It really had nothing to lose when leaders proposed turning 10 blocks of downtown — once the "red-light district" — into an arts and entertainment district, now home to 15 "legitimate" performance venues and a host of restaurants and galleries.

The district is partly funded by a half-percent sales tax increase, which guarantees that arts organizations have some revenue.

Also contributing to its success is the proximity to other attractions. All of the city's major sporting venues are located across the river within walking distance.

Could Shreveport-Bossier do that? Maybe. It would take some serious soul-searching and philosophical discussions about where we want our tax dollars going. We're not convinced one way or the other, but we should talk about it.

The good thing Murphy noted is we already have many pieces to a thriving arts community. We have beautiful buildings like the Strand Theatre, successful venues in the Robinson Film Center and Artspace, and a few popular bars and restaurants. But there seems to be little cohesiveness between the entities.

One thing they did share was a sense of frustration at a perceived lack of support from the city, particularly from local government. Correct or not, that perception should be addressed, and arts should have a place in future plans for the city.

"You have the pieces. You have the legacy," Murphy said. "What you don't have is the community will."

"Pittsburgh's success ..."

I still imagine everyone rolling their eyes when they read those words. The fact is that other cities want to emulate Pittsburgh redevelopment. Why? Before trying to answer that question, keep in mind that Pittsburgh is still trying to shed its smoky, dirty, economically depressed national image. You can't blame a clever public relations campaign for the perception that Pittsburgh is successful.

Proximity and Economic Development

Score another one for urban economic geography:

An economic study published in 2004 by Holland-based Whittaker Associates listed proximity to Chicago as the top strength for developing new industry in the Twin Cities.

That came despite the report's assertion that more than a quarter of all jobs in the area are in manufacturing, and most of those are in tool-and-die shops that supply automakers.

The report said distribution and logistics are the industries with the most potential for growth around the Twin Cities. That again points to the advantage of being in between Chicago and Detroit, and the importance of both cities' economies.

"Twin Cities" is a reference to Benton Harbor and St. Joseph in Michigan. The Twin Cities advantage reminds me of Youngstown. At least, such a perspective beats the navel gazing going on in Cleveland. Cleveland's proximity to Pittsburgh is an asset, not cause for concern.

Announcing Greater Youngstown 2.0

Late last week, Jim Cossler (CEO and Chief Evangelist of the Youngstown Business Incubator) officially launched a diaspora networking initiative for the Steel Valley:

A couple of recently run national news stories on YBI have only confirmed what we always we knew. Legions of talented people have left our area over the years because we have not been creating the compelling and rewarding employment positions they were seeking. That's the bad news.

The good news? The telephone calls and emails we received in response to those same news stories strongly indicates a whole lot of them want to move back.

That's why we are so pleased to announce that the Raymond John Wean Foundation has agreed to support an ambitious YBI led project to map this far flung diaspora, create a self-sustaining online community for them, and beginning building the institutional capacity to aid in their return migration.

Just imagine the possibilities when we begin bringing our talent back home again, armed with the knowledge, perhaps, of how thing are done faster, smarter and better in other communities.

Priceless.

I will blog about Greater Youngstown 2.0 here. I'm spearheading this effort, using my Burgh Diaspora experience to figure out how to derive local economic benefit from this region's migration of talent. I view brain drain as an opportunity and a regional asset. A key part of Greater Youngstown's future well-being is the success of its expatriates. The diaspora network will provide the infrastructure for displaced natives to play a significant role in the redevelopment of the Steel Valley.

Ohio to Blame for National City's Demise

Via Null Space, the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland has issued a report that investigates the disparity in foreclosure rates between Cuyahoga (Cleveland) and Allegheny (Pittsburgh) Counties. An article in Crain's makes obvious the cause:

“Ohio in general was the wild, wild West,” Cuyahoga County treasurer Jim Rokakis said. “When it came to regulation, there wasn’t any.”

Mr. Rokakis said that wasn’t the case in Pennsylvania, where the state did a better job of cracking down on predatory lenders. His attempts to lobby legislators in Columbus to strengthen this state’s regulations and monitoring were often rebuffed, Mr. Rokakis said.

Claudia Coulton, co-director of the Center on Urban Poverty & Community Development and a professor of urban research and social change at the Mandel School of Applied Social Science at Case Western Reserve University, said the huge lobbying effort by lenders against such regulations likely contributed to a lack of control here, and the explosion of the region’s foreclosure problem.

People in Ohio “needed better consumer protection,” Ms. Coulton said. Many new homeowners were cheated by the fine print.

In Pennsylvania, the state benefited from a wave of foreclosures earlier in the decade that led to the drafting of more stringent lending legislation, said Sabina Deitrick, an assistant professor of urban affairs in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh.

Ms. Deitrick said because Pennsylvania “reigned in things” earlier in the decade, the state positioned itself to minimize the impact of another wave of foreclosures. In Ohio, she said, there were fewer limitations and fewer rules monitoring what people could do.

“It looks like a free-for-all,” she said. “The volume here was not the same. There were fewer controls on people getting loans and lenders in the Ohio market.”

Bad mortgages helped to undermine National City. You might say that the Cleveland bank shot itself in the foot. Instead of blaming Pittsburgh or national economic recovery policies, Cleveland should hold its own politicians into account for the job losses and the damaged civic pride.

Geriatric Ghetto California

There is a great analysis of California migration and recent economic woes at New Geography. Domestic out-migration has been particularly tough on the Golden State, hence the derogatory term "Californication." Suffice to say, the economic outlook for California is not good:

The public universities, a major source of innovation over the past two decades, are facing increasingly severe budget challenges. It is unlikely that they will be able to maintain their status even as other states – Texas, Colorado, New Mexico – eye further expansion. Even more ominous are gains in countries, such as China and India, who have long sent their best and brightest to the Golden State.

All this suggests a relative decline in California’s long-term prospects. What should we do? Part of California’s problem is its political process. The state’s chronic inability to do much of anything reinforces stasis. As Dan Walters says, “everyone has a veto on everything.”

But even improving the political process may not be enough. Much of Coastal California is dominated by rich, aging, baby boomers. The residents of this increasingly geriatric ghetto often don’t worry much about economic opportunity. They may have the money and votes to guarantee that growth does not impinge on their lifestyles. Unless these conditions change, it will be unlikely to see a renewal of strong domestic migration to California in the coming years.

The similarities to the Rust Belt are striking, down to the dysfunctional politics. But California's economic Gordian Knot represents huge opportunity for post-industrial centers of innovation such as Pittsburgh. Long ahead of the national trend of an aging workforce, Pittsburgh is at a tipping point and poised to get younger while most other cities get older. California's looming talent shortage is particularly dire.

Anti-growth California will soon be challenged by an economically opportunistic Pittsburgh as the geriatric ghetto in Southwestern PA begins to shrink and yield political power. Silicon Valley software companies will realize that they can get closer to the talent they need and enjoy reduced business costs in revitalizing Rust Belt cities. Pittsburgh is particularly well situated to offer such a value proposition.

Latest Unabashed Pittsburgh Boosterism

From an economics professor at UCLA:

Attracting and retaining skilled workers is the key to long-run growth—just ask the chamber of commerce in gritty Detroit, where there are homes for sale today for just $13,000. Meanwhile, once sooty Pittsburgh, New York, and London have reinvented themselves as high-end places where the footloose and educated want to live and work.

Lawrenceville appears in the Financial Times as a globally hip neighborhood. Data exist in support of Pittsburgh as a desirable destination for the "footloose and educated." Believe the hype.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms of the Burgh Diaspora.

On Top of the Great Recession

Growthology takes exception to recent reports about light at the end of this very dark economic tunnel. The retort paints a gloomy picture and if you are an optimist (as I am), you won't be after looking at some of the graphs offered up as evidence of the dire straits:





















The 1991 recession was my first as an adult worker. I had an awful time finding a job and was often homeless during my quest. I traveled across the country in search of a better labor market. I finally discovered one in Minneapolis and worked as a busboy at Al Nye's Polonaise Room. By comparison, the current downturn doesn't seem nearly so scary.

Speaking of scary, did anyone else see Chris Briem's graph comparing recessions? 1981 recession for Pittsburgh is a real jaw-dropper, making relative unemployment pain easy to grasp. There are temporal and spatial variations. If I was short of work now, then I'd probably be in Dallas. But the big difference for me is education. In 1991, I was armed with little more than a high school diploma. Today, I have an advanced degree. Despite being saddled with a mortgage and two young dependents, I'm not even close to the edge of the financial abyss. Perahps the worst is yet to come, but 1991 still seems more like the end of days given my personal experience.

Kalamazoo Promise Diaspora

Racine, Wisconsin is looking to emulate the Kalamazoo Promise. Among the solicited advice as to how to proceed is Pittsburgh:

Saleem Ghubril, executive director of the Pittsburgh Promise, which started just one and 1/2 years ago, had a similar story. The scholarships, he said, "are just the maraschino cherry on top of the sundae." The program has brought a public school reform agenda: "we no longer say Pittsburgh public schools are excellent for an urban school district." No qualifier, thank you very much. And finally, Pittsburgh sees safer neighborhoods, despite economic difficulties that afflict 60% of the school population. Pittsburgh's scholarships, too, are paid on a sliding scale: 75% for those who just attended local high schools;l 85% if the student also went through local middle school; 95% for elementary school and 100% for K-12. Pittsburgh, a city of 310,000 people (down from 700,000 a few decades ago), has 28,000 school students.

Pittsburgh's scholarships started at $5,000 a year maximum, but in 2012 will go to $10,000. They can be used at any public or private college in the state, including faith-based, trade or community colleges. Or even at the University of Pennsylvania. It started out paying only tuition and fees, but now covers books, room and board, etc. ...

... Interestingly enough, the negativity that greeted the program here in Racine was matched in Pittsburgh. Ghubril recalled jumping up when he saw a picture in the local newspaper with the mayor and school superintendent announcing the program. "I said, 'This is the most important photo ever appearing in the paper.' " Others, he said, were less excited and gave the announcement "lots of mockery." As in, "Ha, ha, ha, the mayor and superintendent are talking out of their a--."

So the city hired McKinsey and Company, the management consulting firm, to get an independent report on what the program might provide -- or not. "After nine months, the city concluded it had to do it."

I find the above snapshot of the Pittsburgh Promise experience useful. There is a candor you typically don't get in local coverage of local issues. I'm speculating wildly, but I get the impression that Ghubril doesn't expect that statements made in Wisconsin would ever get back to Pittsburgh. Not that the quotes are damning in any way.

The cynicism about Pittsburgh politics is anything but all that special. The introduction to the Racine Post story about the exploration of a Promise program for its city is quite telling:

When Aldermen Aron Wisneski and Greg Helding first proposed something called the Racine Promise -- a proposal to pay the college tuition of all graduates of Racine high schools -- the comments on the Journal Times' website came fast and furious. Seventy-three comments were quickly appended to that first story, on Nov. 3, 2008, most of them negative. They're still there.

It's "preposterous," said one. "What a joke," said another. And, "Here's a promise for you, Wisneski -- you are so out of here in the next election." "Understand one thing. Free education does not bring jobs here. You need a lesson in economics," said another. And, "The only thing this idea will do is draw people to Racine who can't afford to send their kids to college in the first place. Basically, just moving more economically depressed people into the city for the freebie." And so it went...

It's too bad the folks behind those opinions couldn't all have been at Wednesday's Wingspread briefing, and heard from representatives from three communities that already have created such programs. They would have had to eat their words.

Since I spend my days reading Rust Belt news coverage in a number of shrinking cities, I find the carping about lousy leadership annoying. Stop waiting for Mayor Steelerstahl to get a clue and busy yourself making the city you desire. Political corruption isn't why industrial cities are struggling. All the bitching is just an excuse to continue to do nothing.

Being Richard Florida

CEOs for Cities picked up Sean Safford's (he of "Why the Garden Club Couldn't Save Youngstown" fame) rather scathing rebuke of Richard Florida posted back in mid-March over at Rust Belt Bloggers. I'd love to know why this is coming up now. It might have something to do with Safford's guest appearance at orgtheory:

I have written elsewhere on my views of Richard Florida’s empirical and theoretical shortcomings. In achieving relevance, I think he compromises too much rigor. But I don’t fault him the effort. And I don’t think the answer is to run away from relevance. Rather, I think it is incumbent on those of us who strive for (or at least sympathize with the pursuit of) relevance to debate where to draw the line dividing acceptable empirical or theoretical compromises from schlock. Most of us who read this page would agree that Richard Florida crosses the line.

Schlock? I read Safford as saying that not only is Florida's research "shoddy" but, more distressingly, dangerous. If Safford is right, then Ontario is in for a world of hurt.

I think Safford is confusing urban policy debate with academic integrity. Florida's stature within the field is one issue. But as a public intellectual, Florida is extremely effective. He's helped to reframe the discussion and put cities back on the political map. Translating even the best research into policy is fraught with peril. Can anyone really claim with any certainty that Florida's ideas will fail?

Initiatives to plug the brain drain do not rise from rigorous research. The best one can hope for are reliable numbers to help government and the polity to make an informed decision. There isn't some tried and true formula for revitalizing Rust Belt cities. We know how to critique the failures, but that's about the extent of efficacy. I doubt the quality of Florida's social science makes any difference in policy circles.

Regional Visioning Project

I'm almost certain that the Imagine Greater Pittsburgh initiative is now running under the guise of the Regional Visioning Project. For transparency sake, I applied for the executive director position. A bit of a lark, I suppose. Dig the geography (click on the image):

Youngstown Value Proposition

Thanks to the funding from the Raymond John Wean Foundation and the backing of the Youngstown Business Incubator, I'm pursuing a diaspora networking project for Greater Youngstown. I'm defining Greater Youngstown as the five counties that make up the "nation's first Interstate Workforce Region": Columbiana (OH), Mahoning (OH), Trumbull(OH), Lawrence (PA), and Mercer (PA). Please read this post in order to understand my geographic rationale. The economic vitality of Greater Youngstown, where Cleveland meets Pittsburgh, is instrumental to the success of the Tech Belt. As a proponent of the Cleveburgh Corridor, laboring on behalf of Greater Youngstown is a logical extension of my Pittsburgh efforts. Furthermore, I see the Mahoning Valley as a hotbed of civic entrepreneurship. Youngstown is affording me the opportunity that, quite frankly, I can't find in Pittsburgh. (Please see "Liminal Youngstown") I'm looking forward to putting all the knowledge I've gained blogging here to work for Greater Youngstown and, more specifically, the Youngstown Business Incubator (YBI).

As many of my readers likely know, returning to Pittsburgh isn't easy. Cracking the parochial job market is tough to do. I'm of the opinion that one needs to be an "entrepreneur of self" in order to make relocation practical. Understanding Pittsburgh as Cleveburgh has opened up a world of possibilities, my own frontier geography. In Youngstown, the regional labor shed is vast. Concentrating certain industry in the Mahoning Valley makes good economic sense. One can sell a Cleveland or Pittsburgh cosmopolitan lifestyle that's close enough to the cauldron of ideas in Youngstown.

Take, for instance, Pittsburgh's airport connectivity problems:

For years, the K&L Gates law firm routinely brought employees from its offices throughout the world into Pittsburgh for firmwide management meetings that, by extension, helped show off the city.

But for the past few years, the firm has held the meeting outside of New York City and this year selected a location near Washington, D.C., for the gathering. It wasn't for a change of scenery.

Rather, because of dramatic cutbacks in flights at Pittsburgh International Airport, it was becoming too hard to get people into the city. Many were left at the mercy of clogged and chaotic East Coast airports to make connections.

"We had some horror stories," K&L Gates Chairman Peter Kalis said. "You work like hell to recruit them into the firm, and then you subject them to the Philadelphia airport and you get what you deserve."

Mr. Kalis and his colleagues are among local business travelers who are finding that more and more, air travel from and to Pittsburgh is an ordeal akin to an Indiana Jones adventure, thanks in large part to cutbacks by US Airways.

A business located in downtown Youngstown can effectively leverage airports in Pittsburgh, Akron/Canton, and Cleveland. The possibility of avoiding the "clogged and chaotic East Coast" are much better when mulling over three options. And a trailing spouse could look for employment in Cleveland, Akron, or Pittsburgh given the proximity. Attracting talent and businesses to Cleveburgh is much easier than doing so for Cleveland or Pittsburgh. Thus, I see my current endeavor also in service of both poles of Cleveburgh (and points inbetween).

International Brain Drain

A recent post at Huffington outlines American anxiety about brain drain. The international migration of talent has long been a concern of developing countries. The advance of globalization might be reversing this flow as members of the diaspora return home seeking better opportunities. But the United States isn't experiencing brain drain, at least in terms of how the concept is commonly understood. On the other hand, Canada does have a problem:

Dr. Sékaly is the kind of star many feared would leave. An expert in the human immune system, he has published more than 200 papers in scientific journals. He is working on a therapeutic vaccine to boost the immune systems of people infected with the virus that causes AIDS.

Much of his research budget already comes from U.S. sources, including the National Institutes of Health and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. But he expects that once he moves he will be able to attract even more support, up to $10-million a year.

His new job is to set up a Florida-based expansion of Oregon Health and Science University's Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute.

Florida has invited a number of internationally recognized institutions to build and run satellite operations in the state, offering rich incentives. Dr. Sékaly will get $100-million to get it going and hire staff, and plans to expand his own research into cancer and cancer vaccines. ...

... Around 20 members of his team cannot relocate to Florida, so he will keep a lab in Montreal.

That last paragraph details the nature of the shortcomings of the US immigration system. We could do a better job of attracting and retaining world class talent. But American scientists aren't leaving home in droves, as the term brain drain suggests. The leakage of human capital amounts to foreign-born students at American universities who do not or, more likely, cannot remain in the country. That the recent surge of Chinese studying abroad might return home is really of little consequence. US business opportunities can piggyback on this migration.

Academia provides a good example of how this model works in practice:

More broadly, the opening chapter of Higher Education on the Move depicts a world in which eight countries -- the U.S., United Kingdom, Germany, France, Australia, China, Canada and Japan -- host 72 percent of the world's international students, but in which other, traditionally sending countries are also emerging as destinations.

"Newer host countries such as China are seeing rapid increases in the numbers of international students. Several other countries in the Asia Pacific region -- Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and New Zealand, to name a few -- have stepped up their efforts to internationalize and to attract more international students. Even though this has resulted in a somewhat smaller market share for the U.S., we believe that this is a positive development as it has brought more countries into the field of international education and has changed the dynamic between sending and receiving countries from a unidirectional 'brain drain' type of mobility to one of true mutual exchange," according to a chapter co-written by Rajika Bhandari and Peggy Blumenthal, both of IIE.

Caterwauling about brain drain is not the way to reform US immigration. A more appropriate framework is facilitating geographic mobility because doing so stimulates economic growth. The United States must do a better job of exporting talent abroad in order to position itself to take advantage of the growth in emerging economies such as China's. That said, America also needs to welcome the brains that are motivated to start companies within its borders. The irrational attachment to locally educated workers is a losing proposition.

Rust Belt Collective

Not that they couldn't have found a similar opportunity in their own backyard, two brothers from Greensburg, PA are now champions of Detroit, MI:

Inspired by a 20/20 episode that highlighted Gina Reichert and Mitch Cope's Hamtramck house project, Ian Perrotta and his brother hopped in their car and drove from Greensburg, PA -- that's about 45 minutes outside of Pittsburgh -- straight to Detroit. Within a week, they had purchased five homes in Detroit just outside of the Hamtramck city limits.

Perrotta, a recent college graduate and member of the Greensburg Volunteer Department Hose Company #8, has experience with construction and salvage, but realized that five homes was a lot to take on. So, the brothers formed Habitat for Hamtramck. The organization is intended to promote the endeavor, draw in volunteers and funds, and keep all project finances transparent. Their web site will "serve as kind of a reality TV show to show how easy and feasible the task that I had set forward to accomplish was," Ian Perrotta says.

Hopefully, Team NEO is paying attention.

Coolest Part of Cool Pittsburgh

Just in case I have a few readers who don't follow Chris Briem's blogging at Null Space, Richard Florida hearts Lawrenceville:

Florida, director of the Martin Prosperity Institute and professor of business and creativity at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, knows Lawrenceville well. Before decamping to Canada he was on the faculty of Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University. He did the research for the book that made his name, The Rise of the Creative Class there, and he thinks Lawrenceville – with its inexpensive housing stock, growing number of restaurants, bars, arts outlets and specialty shops – has what it takes to attract and keep precisely the type of people he describes in that book – the designers, engineers, technology workers and artists he sees as the drivers of contemporary economic growth.

Chasing my spouse-to-be, I lived in Pittsburgh for a few months during 1997. At that time, the Strip District was rapidly gentrifying, but Lawrenceville wasn't really on the map. The neighborhood is now a creative hotspot, artists and entrepreneurs mingling at the lively eateries now well established along Butler Street. The transformation, still in progress, is impressive.

It's not too late to move into Lawrenceville. The Allegheny River waterfront is targeted for beautification and rehabilitation. Once that is done, good luck affording a residence there. The better housing stock is already pricey, at least for Pittsburgh. A few years ago, I recall reading some city booster publication touting Lawrenceville as the next Williamsburg (hipster neighborhood in Brooklyn). That seemed like a big stretch at the time, but I've been to pre-cool Williamsburg (I was in NYC for a geography conference in 2000). The artist vanguard was already evident, but the scene was just getting started. When I think about that Williamsburg, the comparison is apropos.

Lastly, the article about Lawrenceville is in the Financial Times. Talk about putting Pittsburgh on the map, let alone Larryville. The light is most flattering. Let the influx begin.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Michigration

Texas has it bad. Real bad. Brain drain, that is:

Studies show that Texas does, in fact, export more students than it imports. In 2006, Texas suffered a net loss of nearly 8,000 college freshmen, according to the nonprofit group Postsecondary Education Opportunity. That's a big change from 20 years ago, when Texas imported several hundred more college students than it exported.

That's one way to spin it. The brain drain pitch depends on your favored boondoggle. In the Texas case, some folks want to do away with current admissions formulas which favor students in the top 10% of their instate high school class. The real threat is that locals are leaving the state to get a college education. Never mind that Texas attracts plenty of the college educated. They're foreigners! (i.e. not from Texas)

Michigan must roll its eyes when reading about Texas out-migration woes. But that's hypocritical. Michigan overvalues its natives just like Texas does. Like Georgia does. Like every state does, regardless of what the data might say.

Previous attempts to investigate brain drain myths are now the subject of ridicule. The target of my own lampoon crusade are the chicken littles crying about the young talent leaving. Like in so many other Rust Belt states, that's not the issue:

That's the opinion of state demographer Ken Darga, the state's leading authority on Michigan's population by the numbers. He said Michigan has retained college graduates better than most states, even as the recession worsened.

But since 2004, far fewer young college grads from other states have moved to Michigan than in previous years, creating a net loss. The number of those leaving Michigan actually has leveled off.

"The brain drain is a very serious concern," Darga said. "The big misunderstanding is that it's a chronic problem. It's not a chronic problem. It's a fairly recent development."

Let me repeat the highlights.

"Michigan has retained college graduates better than most states."

"The number of those leaving Michigan actually has leveled off."

"Far fewer young college grads from other states have moved to Michigan than in previous years."

Texas, go ahead and roll your eyes at Michigan. Michigration is still misinformation. Talent attraction is still the only game in town.

Pittsburgh Mistakes Inform Troubled Hamilton

Hamilton, Ontario is mulling over two trajectories, Buffalo or Pittsburgh? That's not to say Pittsburgh has done everything right. Former Pittsburgh mayor Tom Murphy confesses:

Murphy's message to Hamilton political leadership is blunt. Don't wait for the steel mills to close permanently before taking action, he says.

Murphy admits his administration was too slow to respond to Pittsburgh's shrinking tax base and the budget crisis it caused. A plant closure has a cascading financial impact not only on tax revenue but also on water and hydro income and on social service expenditures.

He tells Hamilton leaders to be brutally honest now with all stakeholders about the shared sacrifices that will necessitate.

He recommends a formal partnership between U.S. Steel and the city to establish firm commitments to transfer ownership of any lands deemed surplus and to contribute to a tax stabilization fund and assist with retraining of former steelworkers at Mohawk College.

Murphy says our city council needs to have the courage to talk now about a post-industrial Hamilton, focused on a more entrepreneurial culture and less on big corporations and big unions.

Staying focused on the negative, Murphy's plan for downtown revitalization has a number of critics. Furthermore, Murphy remarks on the numerous advantages Hamilton has over Pittsburgh:

He also points to our proximity to the [Greater Toronto Area] with its growing population base and a relatively robust regional economy -- unlike Pittsburgh and its surrounding region, which continues to lose population.

Pittsburgh still has a lot of strikes against it, making the recent modest success all the more impressive. If the region could address even a few more of these shortcomings, then more robust growth might be unleashed. But the eastern part of the US Rust Belt doesn't have a Toronto nearby or, like the western half, a Chicago.

Given the Detroit tailspin, many shrinking cities (including Cleveland) are dependent on the latest Pittsburgh renaissance. As for Pittsburgh, its own progress hinges on its relationship with the DC area. Revisiting the high-speed rail geography:


















Cleveland is placing a bet on better connectivity with Chicago. The same is true for Detroit. Pittsburgh and Buffalo are decidedly east coast oriented. This tells me that no one expects another Chicago miracle. The US alpha world cities are, by and large, set.

Chicago's reach is overstated. Rust Belt East should plug into the Bos-Wash megalopolis. If Pittsburgh does so successfully, then Cleveland investment in Chicago would be a huge mistake. Right now, Cleveland is intent on going it alone. That's bad news for Pittsburgh, Detroit, Toledo, Erie, Columbus, and perhaps even Buffalo.

The lesson for Hamilton is that parochial political geographies are the primary barrier to economic redevelopment. Toronto isn't competition, but the greatest regional asset. Don't pull a Cleveland.

Real Estate Market Pittsburgh

For the "best bad news around" file:

Home sales in seven major Northeast cities recorded declines of 15 percent or more in March, while median prices continue to fall across the region, except in Pittsburgh, according to The Associated Press-Re/Max Monthly Housing Report, also released Thursday.

The report analyzed sales transactions in nine Northeast metropolitan statistical areas filed by all real estate agents, regardless of company affiliation.

Pittsburgh recorded the worst sales drop in the region, plunging more than 35 percent in March from the year before. However, the median price edged up 1.5 percent to $118,750, the best performance in the Northeast. The number of homes for sale dropped by nearly 21 percent year-over-year.

"A lot of people are holding off from listing (their homes for sale) this year," said Liz Caplan, a Coldwell Banker real estate agent.

More data points suggesting people are hunkering down for the recession, but that demand for property continues to be relatively strong in Pittsburgh.

Geography of Recovery

The above map can be found here. Such projections are useful for anticipating the latent economic migration that will inevitably occur once the recovery begins in earnest. Right now, Americans are staying put, as evident in the Central Ohio region. While not the worst, the forecast for Pittsburgh's future is cloudy.

Before discussing the Rust Belt picture, I want to visit the concept of latent migration. Increasing geographic mobility will lag behind the economic recovery. As news of metros returning to "peak employment" diffuses, workers will start thinking about relocation. These early migrations will continue long after the job the market cools, as evident in Charlotte, NC:

Two years ago, James and Cynthia Kwolyk put their Connecticut home on the market. Their goal: Move to Charlotte with its milder weather and nearby relatives.

Then their house sat, waiting for a buyer. The family still moved – even though the house didn't sell for 11/2 years, and they had to drop the price $100,000.

Charlotte owes much of its prosperity to newcomers willing to pull up stakes and gamble on opportunity here. ...

... In Charlotte, UNCC economist John Connaughton said, it's difficult to estimate what the city's unemployment level would be if newcomers weren't moving here. But, he said, the state's March unemployment rate of 10.8 would be at least a percentage point lower if North Carolina weren't growing so fast.

In Austin, some residents worried about the stream of newcomers when the dot-com bubble burst in 2000. The city's population had leapt from 800,000 to 1.2 million during the 1990s, fueled by the city's mild climate and abundant technology jobs. When the tech jobs dried up, residents complained about increasing home prices and worsening traffic as people continued to move in.

Even as other labor markets heat up after the Great Recession, people will still risk everything to move to the initial hot spots. Much of the late-arriving talent must be very resourceful in order to make their gamble pay off. Thus are born, folks determined to stick, the next round of job creators for Austin.

The regions that return to peak employment the earliest, such as Indianapolis, have a chance to become the next big talent magnet. As for Pittsburgh, we might see a strong out-flow to DC and Columbus, OH. Pittsburgh's recovery is expected to be as late as can be without being indefinite. That might have something to do with the late start of the downturn. I expect it has more to do with the still-substantial manufacturing sector. Also, job creation has been sluggish at best, even in good times.

Did the recovery projection take into account demographics? I ask because Western Europe is looking at an acute talent shortage thanks to an aging population. Pittsburgh looks a lot more like Europe than the rest of the United States. I'm anticipating more jobs opening up thanks to attrition. Labor demand, particular in the highly-skilled trades, should be quite strong sooner rather than later:

My wife works for The Bank Formerly Known As National City, whose white-collar Cleveland workforce mostly faces the prospect of either finding other work or moving to Pittsburgh (PNC). I like my job, but we can't afford to get caught without options.

The word is getting out about Pittsburgh. Once the will to move returns, I bet Pittsburgh will be on the radar. But that's no reason to ease up on the PR campaign.

Michigration Nation

Where are Michigan graduates going? More at the end of the post on why that's the wrong question to ask. The mains for brain drain plumbing:

The top 10 places to which Michigan is losing young people are Illinois, California, New York, Ohio, Texas, Wisconsin, Washington, D.C., Washington state, Minnesota and Virginia, said David Waymire of Martin Waymire Advocacy Communications in Lansing. Waymire works closely with Michigan Future and the Presidents Council State Universities of Michigan in Lansing.

Looks like a typical out-migration profile for many states, save the Rust Belt destinations of Ohio, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Young professionals from around the country are concentrating in the DC region, NYC, LA, SF, Chicago, Seattle, Dallas, and Houston. Michigan isn't going to offer a viable alternative to those urban offerings.

The talent churn between brain drain states such as Michigan and Ohio is of particular interest. Yesterday, readers of the Detroit daily newspapers were introduced to the mayor of Braddock, John Fetterman. Is Braddock trying to poach Michigan energy companies? Fetterman claims otherwise:

"Just the opposite ... we're brothers and sisters in struggle," Fetterman said. Keith Gaby, spokesman for the EDAF, said he could see why Michiganders might view the ad with skepticism.

"We used him because he's just a very charismatic guy," Gaby said. "We don't expect it to help Pennsylvania any more than it will help Michigan or Utah. This is all about green jobs."

The idea that one shrinking city is pitted against another is absurd. If the green economy blossoms in the Rust Belt, both Flint and Braddock win. New pathways of in-migration will be built. The ad campaign is how we might re-imagine and rebuild our urban infrastructure.

Missing from the brain drain article (and the discourse about the concentration of talent) is where college graduates are moving from to end up in Michigan. What could be done to improve the in-migration from states outside of the Rust Belt? That young professionals move between neighboring states is to be expected. But engineering an increase of relocation from distant talent production centers such as Los Angeles would be a clear indicator of success. But Michigan cannot accomplish this on its own. Only a coordinated and coherent interstate mega-region could.

Relocate To Pittsburgh

Dallas-Fort Worth is tooting its own horn:

RelocateAmerica.com, a Web site that provides people who are moving with local information, released its rankings of the most desirable cities to live in, and Dallas-Fort Worth managed a strong second-place showing. Tulsa earned the top spot.

The Web site’s president, Steve Nickerson, said that this year’s crop of cities stood out in their outlook for growth and their ability to rebound quickly from the economic troubles, which were the primary measures this year.

Not surprisingly, the top 10 is weighted heavily with Southern and Southwestern cities — only one was from a Northern state. And except for the Texas showings of Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston, the list favored midsize cities.

Pittsburgh; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; Huntsville, Ala.; Houston; Albuquerque; Lexington, Ky.; Little Rock; and Oklahoma City rounded out the top 10.

Indeed, Pittsburgh is quite the outlier in that group. You can read the Pittsburgh profile here. I get the sense that RelocateAmerica has a substantial stake in the local real estate market.