Pirates Watch

Some have asked why I have not put up the latest Pirates tracking chart?   It's rather boring to date.  Yes I know everyone is amped by the over .500 performance and there is the wild card race that looks promising. Last year early July was the point of peak optimism before the collapse, so I'll keep a closer watch.  But this is where we are at in the 22 year saga:

Jobs über alles - shale edition

Worth a read and coming from right in the center of Cleveburgh.

Reuters: U.S. shale is aboon to manufacturers but not their workers

The story starts out quite exuberant: "...largest capital investment by a manufacturer in northeast Ohio since the 1960s"..... and " first new steel mill since the 1920s."  The conclusion some want to believe is that th one plant is an...:

"...example of the money that has flowed into the state's industrial sector in recent years thanks to the surge in U.S. natural gas and oil drilling."

So how many jobs are we talking about at this new $billion+ plant?  350.  Just for a brief bit of context, on Black Monday in 1977, Youngstown learned it was losing 5,000 jobs when the Youngstown Sheet and Tubes work closed.  More job losses followed.  So even adding a zero to the new jobs being added does not get you close to what was lost.  The article quickly gets to the crux of it all:

"But state employment data, academic research and a week-long tour of half a dozen factories in Ohio suggests the shale gas revolution has been a disappointment when it comes to job creation. "

Locally there is a lot of similar confusion.  Many I talk to, some including the more informed folks I know, are pretty convinced local manufacturing job numbers are shooting up in recent years because of shale related investments and demand. Probably because of some advertisments I see perpeturally running on TV. Anyone want to back that up with something resembling data? 

So back in Ohio and the Reuters story today says this:

In March, a study by Cleveland State University concluded that while gas exploration had unleashed a surge in economic activity in Ohio, job growth - even in counties directly affected by the drilling - was stagnant. The employment growth that many assumed would follow the energy investment was "not yet evident," the study's authors said.

The full report that I missed out of Cleveland State a few months ago is online:

http://urban.csuohio.edu/publications/hill/OhioUticaShaleRegionMonitor_Mar2013.pdf

and I see some similar stories here today. Trib: Workers cope with slow side of drilling field

Where is the Wiz by the way?  Maybe his (or her) contract expired?

Pittsburgh's economic palinode

It really is impossible, and I certainly don't have the space here, to explain the significance of these two seemingly unconnected stories over the last 24 hours.

Derry native Herbert Boyer looks toward future in return to St. Vincent

and

 Business Briefs: Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse cutting jobs, pay, floor space

Both articles are incredibly understated given their importance. I could tell the story of Pittsburgh's recent economic history using nothing more than those two stories as a foil.  For some other day, or venue.

Old is as old was

Yes, there is a quote from me today in the Trib: Census: Allegheny County youngest population grows. The short story here is that are seeing demographic impacts from the sustained turnaround in net migration into the region.  Now going on at least our 5th year of positive net migration.

There is a longer term story here of course.  From, frighteningly, 13 years ago is this oped: We're getting younger every year. I take responsibility for the title, though I think it would have been better phrased that everyone is getting older faster than we are. 

So the story continues today.  Governing is just out with a story and data on aging by state.New Census Estimates Show Areas Growing Oldest the Fastest.  In their table you will see that Pennsylvania's elderly population increase is one of the slowest growth rates in the nation.  Between 2010-2012, our elderly population increase by 0.5%.  States such as Colorado, Utah, Texas, and North Dakota all had increase over 3%.  It is going to be an ongoing trend well into the future.

The news today is just based on some new county level data put out by the census.  There is no update for municipal level demographics. Nonetheless, the story is really a corollary to the trends that have been going on in the city for going on two decades now, even though I know many think this is a new story.

aphorism apolgetics

So a quote going around of late is some form of:

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both

apparently Mr. Snowden's version of late is:

Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one

If only Ben Franklin actually said either one, it might mean what some want it to mean. Since Ben was a couple centuries ahead of digital cryptology, let alone cell phones, you just know it has a less than straighforward application to contemporary events.

To crib from a couple sources I refer you to Benjamin Wittes writing at the Brookings Institution today: Against a Crude Balance: Platform Security and the Hostile Symbiosis Between Liberty and Security. He references an earlier work: Would Ben Franklin Trade Liberty for Wiretapping?

The actual quote:

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety

Close enough for government work. But does it mean what everyone thinks it does?  The deeper perversion is missing the entire original intent of the quote. Read the Wilkes pieces linked above for the full story, but in short Franklin was arguing for HIS freedom as a legislator in the Pennsylvania assembly to RAISE taxes in order to spend MORE on the Commonwealth's military budget. Just a bit different from the quote's new reworked afterlife.

The obligatory Pittsburgh connection?  Why did Franklin think more defense spending was needed? Because of a growing threat on the Pennsylvania frontier. That frontier circa 1750 was that which would soon be named Pittsburgh and environs. Of note it was a debatable point in the longitude challenged era whether the forks of the Ohio River rested within the claims of William Penn, or that of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Franklin might have been anticipating a need to defend the region against the Virginia Colonial Militia which was soon to send a young Lieutenant Colonel on a mission there.

An irony of sorts is that the next time military spending was increased to send military forces into Western Pennsylvania along abouts 1791, the enemy was us.

The lesson? Just say no to paraphrasing.

The one D-Day remembrance you really should watch

If you watch just one D-Day memorial out there, please watch the video of 91 year old Henry Parham on the PG Website. 

Remarkable for so many reasons, but demographics being what they are, there can't be more than 200 Black men over the age of 91 in Allegheny County these days. So just being able to make that interview is a feat unto itself.  

Lest we forget

71 years ago yesterday Peabody High School grad Arthur Ely lost his life at the Battle of Midway. His Navy Cross reads:

The President of the United States of America takes pride in presenting the Navy Cross (Posthumously) to Lieutenant Arthur Vincent Ely (NSN: 0-75039), United States Navy, for extraordinary heroism in operations against the enemy while serving as Pilot of a carrier-based Navy Torpedo Plane and Executive Officer of Torpedo Squadron SIX (VT-6), attached to the U.S.S. ENTERPRISE (CV-6), during the "Air Battle of Midway," against enemy Japanese forces on 4 June 1942. Participating in a vigorous and intensive assault against the Japanese invasion fleet, Lieutenant Ely pressed home his attack with relentless determination in the face of a terrific barrage of anti-aircraft fire. The unprecedented conditions under which his squadron launched its offensive were so exceptional that it is highly improbably the occasion may ever recur where other pilots of the service will be called upon to demonstrate an equal degree of gallantry and fortitude. His extreme disregard of personal safety contributed materially to the success of our forces and his loyal conduct was in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

He must have been the pilot of one of these places about to take off. 10 of the squadron's 14 planes  were lost that day:

 

If you want to read more and don't have time for Professor Goldstein's treatment, the crib notes are in the Atlantic: World War II: Battle of Midway and the Aleutian Campaign

Duck Duck Duck.......

I'd love to hear the conversation where the assignment editor says to go cover the story of the giant duck.  The what?

Mike does it best.....

Pittsburgh by day

So this is the same story from a few years ago really, (or an earlier reference fyi) but a new release of data from the Census folks  calculates the "daytime" populations of most municipalities. See: Commuter-Adjusted Population Estimates: American Community Survey 2006-2010.


So for Pittsburgh, the latest estimate of the city's daytime population is calculated to be 457,049 or more than 48% above the resident (or presumably nighttime) population.  The report is really just looking at flows of commuters to work, and not other potential reasons the daytime population is likely higher than the resident population.  Add in the number of folks coming into the city for school, shopping, business or for most any service including inpatient and outpatient hospital services, and for sure the 'daytime' population for the city of Pittsburgh is much higher.  I'm pretty sure that if we took the time to add up some of those other factors we can get over the 500K number I think people like to quote... or make up depending.


What is really more noteworthy is that this is not just something typical of other cities.  Pittsburgh ranks pretty high compared to all other places in terms of how big a percentage 'surge' of people come into the city each day. When ranked against other large cities Pittsburgh continues to have one of the biggest daytime 'surges.' By my ranking (among the 100 largest 'plaxces') only DC, Atlanta, Orlando, Miami and Paradise, Nevada have larger % increases (I'll post some benchmarking later..) . Paradise is really part of Las Vegas and DC is arguably an artificial concentration of government jobs.  So Pittsburgh comes pretty close to the top. If only we had Disney World here to get us past Orlando....

Actually what is worth noting is the trend.  The first link there is from a 2006 story which looked back on older data which calculated Pittsburgh's 'daytime' surge to be +41%.  So we are not getting an estimated +48% surge likely reflecting the decline in population over the decade coupled with the stability in the number of jobs. 

Pittsburgh's high ranking is a function of our fragmentation locally and how small the city of Pittsburgh is within the labor shed.  Also the remarkable number of jobs that have remained concentrated within the center city.   Again as I've mentioned before:  The City of Pittsburgh has a nearly identical number of jobs located within the city proper as it did over a half century ago if not further in the past. So population decline for sure, but whenever anyone says the number of 'jobs' in the city has gone down in either the long term or even the short term, ask them what they are referencing.

When you consider the population was a lot bigger back then it must be that that a big chunk of those jobs were retail and service sector jobs directly tied to the resident population.  For the job count to have remained the same, despite the big loss in resident population, there must have been significant growth in jobs that provide goods or services to the world outside of Pittsburgh. 

Friday reading

First off, you should not be reading this. You should be off on your bike.But if trapped at your computer, some Friday reading:

Missed this last week from our friends at the Cleveland Fed: Urban Decline in Rust-Belt Cities

WSJ today has: Journal Concierge: Insider's Guide to Pittsburgh, Pa.

Also, some Cleveland Fed folks will be speaking at the PNCIS User's conference you can still register for.

On a pseudo-Cleveburgh note, sent in from the peanut gallery is this I missed from last month: Time to Collapse the Wheeling/Steubenville TV Market into Pittsburgh

Again, you ought to be riding your bike when it is on, but on 11:30am Sunday on KDKA I was interviewed along with the Pennsylvania Secretary of Labor on all things workforce.   If you are so inclined to watch or record.

and I overhear a story in the PG (maybe Trib too as far as I know??)  this weekend is about how the Port Authority is going to get real time tracking data online.  So a real GTFS feed I presume.  Wonks delight? 

Statistical noise and labor force math

Take a second and actually look at these numbers.

The state reported yesterday that the unemployment rate in the Pittsburgh MSA dropped by a tenth of a percent from 7.2% in March to 7.1% in April.  Note that the Pittsburgh MSA is in its entirety made up of 7 component counties.  The unemployment rate changes in each of those counties is as follows:

Allegheny - increased 2/10ths of a percent

Armstrong - stayed same

Beaver -  increased 2/10ths of a percent

Butler - increased 3/10ths of a percent

Fayette - increased 1/10ths of a percent

Washington - increased 2/10ths of a percent

Westmoreland - increased 2/10ths of a percent


Hmmm.....  I don't think I could devise a weighting scheme that makes all that consistent without violating a fixed point theorem of some kind somewhere. Yes, there is an explanation of sorts for it all, but why try to rationalize?

OK, ok....   not to get into it too much, but it all is saying that the seasonal adjustment factors used by the federal wonks are so different from the seasonal adjustments made by the state wonks that the region's unemployment rate could differ by as much as 3/10ths of a percent between them.  Compare that to the punditry and parsing based on on monthly changes of just 1/10th or 2/10ths of a percent.

Virtual Fire Sale

I forgot to mention this, but motivated by our recent bout of Portland schmaltz, I registered the domain PittsburghHipster.com on a whim. No joke!  I'll sell the domain to anyone with a vision for what to do with it.

more on turnout

Just a parse to address some lingering questions on why turnout was so low in last week's election.  The 2009 and 2013 races had remarkably identical total ballots cast.  Generally speaking closer races generate bigger turnouts so it begs lots of questions. That aggregate similarity masks some big changes in turnout within the city of course.  So here is a scatterplot of all city precincts comparing percentage Black to the percentage change in ballots cast between 2009 and 2013.

What it means is open to lots of conjecture.  But this, admitedly simplistic, look implies that turnout declined by approximately 14-15% for the Black population, but increased by 7-8% for everyone else.  The divergence of those two estimates produces a pretty different mix of voters last week compared to past elections.  Since 2009 was in total a pretty low turnout election to begin with, for turnout within the Black population to drop significantly below that cycle says something.

Yes, it deserves a much fuller model and I'm pondering that.  I bet some variables on income, age and past voting patterns would all show up as pretty significant. Also for those who might ask, that result is unweighted on size of districts. Note that the vertical axis compares votes cast in each mayoral election, not total ballots cast technically.  Some folks who showed up last week did not vote at all in the mayoral election.

Deficient Bridges

The Department of Transportation has a new interactive map of deficient bridges across the nation.  You can imagine we have a few:

For Memorial Day

One chart that will destroy your faith in Pittsburgh

Washington Post's WonkBlog has 31 charts that will destroy your faith in humanity.

#22 is a straight crib from Professor Davidson's 30+ year old paper, but there you have it:

Where are you 54C?

Joe posted a comment yesterday with a video of some great mayors all talking about Pittsburgh apropos the absolutely ridiculous Weinergate news cycle yesterday. It really is an amazing collection of American big city mayors in that.

But Joe also has a cooler video from decades ago on what the 54C means to Pittsburgh.  I've mentioned before my 2nd spoken word was literally 'bus,' after Dad and even before Mom to my mothers chagrin.  So for a bus route that tied together Pittsburgh's North, East and South this is it.  Just didn't stretch into the West End is all. I'm just mad that the Port Authority now has a pretender named the 54D out there as well. Sacrilege!

Anyways... file under things that make Pittsburgh Pittsburgh:




If you are not into history, another Today Show clip from yesterday is all about amusement parks.  At time 1:26 some may note our friend Jim F. who is one of America's foremost experts on all things roller coaster.  I can't believe he didn't get a Kennywood plug in there. 

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I know Pittsburgh is taking over the world, but this is ridiculous

From the Anthony Weiner for Mayor Campaign (in NEW YORK CITY) is this

Look at the blue....  Someone is taking the Pittsburgh as Gotham thing a bit too far.

Spreading through the twitterverse right now.  I have no idea who spotted this, but h/t to Burghdiaspora.

update:  For the pseudo-record, I believe the first public notice of this is from one @rlampasone  in this tweet last evening.   This all has gotten out of hand with national media weighing in on the grand indiscretion.    I am unclear if this is all because the world remains fascinated by all things Yinzer or Weiner notoriety.  A tempest of both I suppose.  Anyway, he has changed the image finally. 

A number is a number is a number....

.... or not.

Last year the City of Pittsburgh was reported to have increased in population to a total of 307,484 in 2011. For the following year the news today is that the city's population increased again, by 152, to reach 306,211.

Confused? New math?

No, Soylent Green has not returned to the Malthusian math. Maybe someone was mistakenly counting Zombies?  I'll explain more later. Data behind all that is not fully released yet this morning.  We'll find those missing people.

Parse parse parse

Lots of parsing to go, but just one important look at the results yesterday.  Here are three snapshots of the results for each major candidate by demographics of the district.  This gives me an estimate of the election results within the Black community that works out like this:

Peduto  37%
Wheatley 32%
Wagner 30%

So just my estimate is all that is.  No official count of results by race (I get asked about such a thing a lot actually).

I'll let others opine on how this reflects on each of the candidates, but the relatively even split between all three candidates certainly means that the efforts to coalesce AA support behind one candidate didn't work out all that well. Also it is looking to me that one of the reasons for relatively low turnout this race was low turnout in the AA community.  I've seen some reuse of my 30% estimate for Black voters within the primary, which is what I get looking at some past elections. Part of the low turnout story is concentrated in certain districts. I am pretty sure we were not anywhere near 30% this cycle. Maybe 25%.

Note it is even superficial to overthink the average.  You can see in the charts there is a decent amount of unexplained variation.  So the support each candidate received varied within the AA districts.

Where did the voters go?

So as the returns were finishing up last night it looked to me like the total turnout in the election was going to set a new all-time low for a contested primary here.  At the very end the total ballots cast for mayor edged just above the number from 4 years ago. The thing is the election in 2009 was not expected to be very close and that seemed the explanation to a lot of us for the low turnout in that race. For the demography wonks, no the answer really is not population loss over last 4years.  City population has mostly stabilized in recent years and even tomorrow I bet we get a headline of a small bit of population gain in the latest data to come out. So changes in total population is not the answer, but changes within the population for sure. I've pointed out the declining number of supervoters as am artifact of changing demographics in the city. Still, close races almost always bring more folks to the polls. More parsing may answer who did, or did not show up yesterday. 

But for the long term perspective, I know 24 years ago is ancient history to many but in 1989 110K folks voted in the primary for mayor.  That is not a reflection of population loss.  Total population loss in the city of Pittsburgh since 1989 is around -18%, but the decline in ballots between 1989 and 2013 primaries looks to be -59%.  Big difference. 

Here is the trend and note the 2007 race was completely uncontested. There was not a lot to motivate showing up to vote at all.

Where are you Paul Proteus?

So before the election tsunami, this deserves mention. All but labor wonks really should just skip this.  I hope nobody thinks the economy is tanking because of the news that UPMC is laying off transcriptionists.  I'm a little surprised there are too many transcriptionists left in the first place.

There is a reason that the protagonist of Kurt Vonnegut's 1952 novel Player Piano has heading off to Pittsburgh for a big promotion.  Not to many years earlier Vonnegut was here in town going to school at Carnegie Tech as well.

But less than a decade later it was local congressman Elmer Holland, representing the South Side of the city and near environs, who took the lead on looking at the impact of automation on the labor force.  Even back then the article notes that 40,000 telephone operators had already lost their jobs because of automation.

And so it goes

I know it always seems so new, but history is history.  Turnout was pretty low at my precinct as of 9am this morning, but I suspect it will pick up.  I just realized I forgot to write myself in for the uncontested election judge of the precinct.  I should have done it just to have an excuse to issue a press release as has been done in the past. Remember 4 years ago: Joe Wos wins landslide victory in election.  Hey, someone should check in to see if Wos is fulfilling his duties.

Some snippets from primaries past in the PG following each election:

1989 City of Pittsburgh Democratic Party Primary

1997 City of Pittsburgh Democratic Party Primary

Negative equity still a Cleveburgh issue....

Below is a regional snapshot of the negative equity mapping produced by Zillow. I remain amazed by the stark state differences where all along the PA-OH border.  Follows from the foreclosure map posted long ago.

Actually they made the map embeddable. More red = more bad. So here:

 

How many months make a trend?

There is an inflection point in here somewhere......  Just updating this graphic on mining employment across Pennsylvania with the latest data for April just out.

This is not meant to confuse.  The metric here is Pennsylvania employment in Mining and Logging industries minus similar data for the Pittsburgh region. Basically what is happening across Pennsylvania with the exception of Pittsburgh.  This is also graphing out the net change in jobs for each month compared to the same month in the previous year.

The Pittsburgh time series does not go as far back in time as the statewide data. But looking at statewide data for Pennsylvania tells another story.  If you look at month over month employment change in mining and logging, the April data is showing the largest one-month drop in almost 20 years. Maybe it is all a temporary aberration?

Education and Earnings in Pennsylvania

Out today and worth a read from our friends at the PA state data center. Full brief:  Education and Earnings in Pennsylvania but the money slide.. literally:

 

As always important not to forget the illusion of the aggregate. Same by gender:

 

 

Radium City... and the brownfields among us

News of a lost piece of mining equipment with a radioactive core reminded me of this.  In case you missed this chapter on Pittsburgh history, this was once the Radium City. Actually, the moniker thrown around for Pittsburgh was Queen of the Radium world.

The center of radium refining was once the Vanadium building on Forbes Ave. in Oakland.  It was at one time the world's foremost refinery of radium. Remarkably the building was only decontaminated in 2003, roughly 80 years after the building was used for radium refining. Stranger still I can find no local news coverage of the final decontamination efforts. Strange in that it is not as if there was anything unknown about the dangers. I walk by the building every day. Few know the building's history.

Such a big deal it was that Marie Curie herself visited the building in Pittsburgh to inspect the radium refining operations there.  The bottom image is a certificate for some of the radium produced in Pittsburgh for her. But in true Pittsburgh uber connectedness, this all gets stranger.  The only legacy of the company that refined radium here, the Standard Chemical Company of Pittsburgh, is a plaque at Pitt's Allen hall commemorating Mme Curie's visit.  The plaque was unveiled in 1969 by a young archbishop visiting from Poland named Karol Józef Wojtyła .  Later Pope John Paul II. I am wondering if that was the primary reason for JPII's visit here and if it was his only visit ever to Pittsburgh.

Marie Curie visiting Pittsburgh

They came to Pittsburgh

WSJ has a piece datelined Saint Louis, but much about Pittsburgh: Rust Belt Reached for Immigrant Tide. (use the Google trick if you are thwarted by the paywall)  Note they are talking about city only stats in places.

Mostly repeating myself, as we have gone into this over and over again.....   but for the record it is likely to be a very different immigrant tide compared to who has ever come to Pittsburgh in the past.  Not too long  our friend the late Clarke Thomas wrote books like this on the immigrants of Pittsburgh.

 

 



How much has changed I think still astounds a lot of folks. 30 years ago roughly 70 percent of the foreign born population in the Pittsburgh region came from Europe. That proportion is at most half of that today and trending down. So those dancers there are most likely 2nd or 3rd generation native born Americans. Just in the last decade the majority of the foreign born population in Pittsburgh switched to a plurality at least (soon to be majority?) born in Asia per the trend in the graph below. If I had time I would love to update Clarke's book today.

Revisionism, Unhistory, and Pittsburgh's Mayoral Memory Hole

If you have not see the Pittsburgh Business Times just out, the online version of the article about former Mayor Tom Murphy does not do credit to the real estate they dedicated above the fold on page 1 on the subject. I don't recall them ever running a top of the fold photo so big; go check it out. Add to that the exquisite timing to run it all a week before a mayoral election. You really have to ask if the rehabilitation of the man has begun?

If anyone ever asked me to pose questions to mayoral candidates, I could have some fun with this. I would ask the mayoral candidates straight up what credit they think the Murphy administration deserves (or doesn't deserve) in the redevelopment of Pittsburgh. (has this question been asked?)  PBT describes the Murphy legacy as vexing, and so the question would be for mayoral candidates today.  Consider that Wagner actually ran against Murphy for Mayor and Peduto spent much of his first years in office attacking all things Murphy.  The antagonistic histories both candidates have with Murphy play some not inconsequential roles in how this current race is playing out.  If the incumbent was still in the race, the Murphy animosity goes multigenerational.

If rehabilitation is at hand, it really is quite a change of course for the region.  How much Tom Murphy has been shunted really came to a head when the G-20 came to town? If you remember, one of the big talking points was how Pittsburgh was chosen in part because of the city's David Lawrence Convention Center.  Yet in all that media attention nobody ever mentioned at all  Tom Murphy's role in pushing for the building to be constructed. Whether you thought the center itself was a good idea, or a horrible idea, his complete erasing from history at that point was straight out of Minitrue.

Other than that I won't begin to add to Tim's comprehensive piece in the PBT. Given they are going to be running a monthly column authored by the former mayor, I suspect this debate is only beginning. I do have one incremental thought. No matter where you come down on the overall Murphy legacy, I am pretty sure nobody disputes his role in building the bike trail system within the city. Without him, maybe the city's bike infrastructure would have eventually gotten to where we are now, but it's hard to see how.  Clearly urban biking is something he authentically supported to include a trip on the yet to be completed Great Allegheny Passage. Stuff he was working on long before he became mayor.  I may have to restart my campaign to get the bike/ped span twinning the Hot Metal Bridge named for him.

Pittsburg Yinz Portland Yang

For a quiet Saturday it is worth reading Andrew's musing in the PG: Saturday Diary / Pittsburgh's not Portland, and that's just fine with me.

Pittsburgh... Portland..   I've heard this theme before I am pretty sure, but couldn't immediately remember where.  Then I realized it's been something of a meme for Jim (@burghdiaspora) Russell for some time.  Just a few of his Pittsburgh isn't Portland posts include: Pittsburgh Versus Portland,  Talent Glut Portland,   Pistols at Dawn, Pittsburgh Vs. Portland,  Rust Belt Roboot Buffalo.  Jim by the way has parlayed his blogging into a gig on the West Coast writing a column for the Pacific Standard magazine.

But the Pittsburgh - Portland dichotomy is actually much more than fodder for cultural commentary. Portland is different from Pittsburgh on a lot of very concrete levels.  The Pittsburgh region is the nation's poster child for fragmented local government, yet Portland actually is the literal extreme opposite with an empowered metropolitan government, the only one in the United States.  I mean, I don't even think our elected officials can find all of our municipalities (go ahead, try and find Wall, Pennsylvania quickly).

Then there is 'Creative.' A decade ago Portland was one of the original regions identified as key growth poles according to Rich's theory.  The region reciprocated and all but codified all things creative into the official Portland Economic Development Plan. Pittsburgh was for much of that time (if not lately) deemed more the opposite. The two regions have seen a very different economic history over last decade as well. There is a related interesting news blurb from a couple months ago on the majors being chosen by Portland's college graduates of late. In a world of infinite time I would do a compare and contrast with Pittsburgh of that metrification.  I bet there are some palpable differences.

Not to overlook Portlandia, the series. All I can say is see what links generally come up when you Google 'Pittsburgh Hipsters'. If  Mike and I come up on your (Google personalized) list then trust me, we may be lacking on the Hipster index.  I bet Toland comes up as well, but he may be authentic. His hidden inner hipster comes through on occassion.