feeding the meters

While I admit this is anectdotal at best and most likely routine.... but of late I have noticed a bevy of new parking meters being installed. I didnt think much of it until I also read this story out of Chicago which Bram caught before I did talking about their deal to sell their parking meters.  Note the line about quadrupling of rates.  But like selling your house, if you were to put up the parking meters to market what you would expect to see is a lot of activity such as installing and fixing meters before those prospective buyers come and kick the tires. 

Keep in mind a couple things.. the sale of parking garages downtown should be a very distinct debate from any discussion of whether it makes sense to sell individual parking meters across the city.  Also note the Chicago story is interesting in a meta-news kind of way.  It is from the NYTimes but says the story was sourced from a 'nonprofit news cooperative'.  What does that mean?

Just for historical sake I will post again a link to this undergraduate thesis from a half century ago.  Nominally it's about the early history of the ACCD, but just take note how much of it is devoted to parking issues and development.  See: The Allegheny Conference for Community Development for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (warning, large file) by John David Weidlein. May 1950.  Joe A. and I have in the past both posted links to parts of a complementary film from just a few years after that:: Freedom of the American Road.  that has some focus on Pittsburgh and it's Downtown parking issues. 

unemployment maps on steroids

Spotted via the Transportationist... but from a site Daring Fireball (don't ask me?) is an amazing if sad animated graphic worth taking a look at.  It shows the month by month: Change in US Unemployment Rates by County.  Play the animation and look closely at that PA-OH border near us.

If the big picture depresses you... a small point but there was net employment growth locally in Pittsburgh last month, while Pennsylvania's unemployment rate is flat even though most states saw increases in October; local real estate sales are actually up substantially while local real estate prices are showing sustained moderate increases.  That's a lot of not bad news at the very least. 

In fact the latest bit of Pittsburgh hagiography comes from the Christian Science Monitor today.  Pittsburgh is not technically on their list of the Five Cities that Will Rise in the New Economy, but it gets several gratuitous mentions that takes the hagiography to a new level.  Check out this curious paragraph:

In other areas, healthcare complexes are evolving into microeconomies in themselves. They attract labs and researchers. Patients fly in from around the world, needing hotel rooms, and laundry and banking services. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center annually pays out $2.7 billion in salaries to its 50,000 employees – the equivalent of the entire Canadian aerospace industry.

I mean, not to dis UPMC or our friends to the north, but I never really thought of the Canadian Aerospace industry as a benchmark powerhouse?  Then later on it says this:

Cities , of course, have been reinventing themselves since the days of cobblestone streets. Pittsburgh went from being the nation’s Bessemer furnace to an education and medical technology leader.

Do you notice what is happening in the national and international media references on Pittsburgh?  The coverage has reached a point they don't feel a need to explain their references to Pittsburgh any more. It's almost assumed folks get the point without that "Pittsburgh, huh?"  moment.

Jane Jacobs pub crawl

When I lived in NYC I barely had time to eat, but I still tried hard to visit a different neighborhood in the city each week.  I barely scratched the surface of the city.  That just comes to mind because I caught this note in Metropolis for a Jane Jacobs Pub Crawl which has me feeling a bit nostalgic for living in NYC.  It's one of those ideas I should just fire over to Eve who actually could make it happen... Does anyone do anything like that here? It is said to happen in Jane Jacobs' favorite neighborhood there.  What would Jane Jacobs' favorite neighborhood be in Pittsburgh?

all 'Burgh all the time - the reprise

Well...... there was a brief pause after the G20 tsunami, but it continues.  Note the Burgh mentions in:

Forbes:  America's Fastest-Recovering Cities

Time:  America, Where Every City is a Health-Care Industry Mecca

although the news going all around is all about the fiscal story of late. See the long article in Inside Higher Education for: All Eyes on Pittsburgh

Mumbo Jumbo Public Finance

Awful lot of fodder out there to poke at. Might as well focus on the esoteric that will get lost in the noise otherwise.  Maybe just a note on the state Auditor General's press release on the use of investment 'swaps' by local governments in Pennsylvania.  I still think this news commentary is one of the best and most direct editorials on what was going on in Pennsylvania was this from Bloomberg's Joe Myslak some years ago: 

Magic, Mumbo-Jumbo Were Used to Sell Muniland Swaps

and kind of related to that.  But you would think that with 253 legislators in Harrisburg all looking for something to do at least one of them would take up a cause similar to what New York State is making progress on.   If anything this is needed here more than in New York.  See this news from late yesterday:  NY strikes deal to reform public authorities.  Maybe Joe or someone would be interested in a story on our Stadium Authority without a stadium anymore? You could say it was all mumbo jumbo debt issued by mumbo jumbo governments in Pennsylvania. 

and I pointed this out recently, it does look like the PWSA is out from under the gun on some of it's own swaps induced public finance miasma.  Yet you have to wonder what they had to pay JP Morgan for that privilege.  When you add up the original cost of that debt and all the subsequent costs to get out of it.... not a small number.  and as best I can tell, the current deal is just a temporary measure effective to 2011 or so. So the story is not over with.  If I were bond counsel it's like the debt that keeps on giving. 

I do have one really serious suggestion for our friends in Harrisburg.  The problem with all the small governments in Pennsylvania that got caught up with all these ill-advised debt structures is that they really don't have the wherewithal to negotiate their ways out of the deals... even in cases where they were clearly bamboozled (that is a technical financial term) by the banks.  The state, like maybe even the auditor general even?,  really ought to collectively take on the task of negotiating some form of restitution and relief.  That comes to mind because that is exactly what is in the news today over a lot of Auction rate debt and a deal negotiated between states and Wells Fargo.

USS Monongahela underway again

I know few will care beyond me..... but I actually caught this news on the local NPR station where it was local news this morning.  The USS Monongahela was indeed underway for the first time in a decade after having broken away from her moorings due to storms on the east coast last week.   The ship is awaiting being made into razor blades.

I just wonder if anyone showed any civic support for the USS Mon while it was operating.  The USS Pittsburgh is a submarine out there today and gets suppport from the local Navy League. People remember past ships, some even write about them.  Even ships like the SS McKeesport will occassionally get a little love from folks like Togyer.  But what about ships named for rivers? I bet few paid much attention to the USS Mon.  It even turns out to be the third ship named for the Mon since the Civil War. Who knew?

Lucy and that football

So I have to admit I just don't get the ICA.   A month ago they gave preliminary approval to a proposed budget for the city of Pittsburgh with a big $15 million in revenue itemized only as TBD.   There were clearly going to be issues with whatever new revenue source filled in the blank.  You really have to wonder why there were so willing to give the green light a month ago and then reject it out of hand now. What were they expecting with their first vote?

And a minor point in the big scheme of things... but I see the idea that some of the budget hole can be filled by auctioning of stuff from the Civic Arena.  I hate to ask, but would not proceeds from any such sale need to go toward the debts of the Sports and Exhibition Authority(SEA) which is the owner of the arena?  Not like they don't have money issues of their own.  The difference I guess is that they have some dibs on money from Harrisburg that the city can't quite get a piece of.

Speaking of the SEA.  I note that not only the SEA, but even the interminable Stadium Authority have their own Wikipedia entries authored again by prolific wiki author Blargh29. Whomever that is they know their stuff.  The SEA entry has a great line at the top saying:  "Not to be confused with Stadium Authority of the City of Pittsburgh."  How many folks in town can distinguish the two and the policy implicatons that follow?

Some final thoughts.  Time will tell if this is all a brief spasm or if city/ICA relations have come full circle to where they were in the beginning. If you want to dig into the budget revenues a bit, I had put up this interactive graphic of the city's 2009 budgeted revenues in Manyeyes.  And connected to everything are the finances at the casino.  Revenues down there have clearly settled into a range.  No joke how everything comes back to the revenue generating capactiy of the casino.  Harrisburg has forced the universities to wait for money only to flow from the prospective table games; the SEA depends on casino payments to fund the arena bonds; as bad as the city's finances seem to be now and into the future, they depend ever more on ongoing payments from the casino directly into city coffers on top of everything else. and finally the state, which the city will look to as a last resort, is stuck backing up payments to the SEA from the casino to pay for the bonds building the arena.  Got all that?   So everything is connected in all of these debates.  I sense the potential for a cascade failure.

Cleveburgh Notes

From the Cleveland Plain Dealer the other day:

NEO 77 a joint venture by business groups to coordinate and fund regional economic development efforts

Sounds a bit familiar.

Harrisburg doings

Given the news of late in Harrisburg, which seem to focus on doings in the state house...  here again is my graphic of the current state of campaign finance for Pennsylvania House incumbents fwiw.  The graphic below and the more useful interactive version made via IBM's Manyeyes site:  

transparent Akron

A note on government transparency comes from Cleveland's Writes Like She Talks... check out the plan in Akron to put ever more public data online.  It says it will include daily updates on tax payments. 

Not really related, but the Guardian's (UK) blog on data transparency has a neat post on some maps of urban green space in England.  Anyone want to try and produce some similar maps here? It's beyond anything I can do.

and something that might get a few Burghosphere denizens thinking.. Intrepid Cleveland Blogger Jill Miller Zimon (author of the Writes Like She Talks blog mentioned above) was indeed elected to actual political office a couple weeks ago.

Speaking of Cleveland... Note the intense look at Allegheny County and in particular local politics (including a cameo by Mike speaking of the Burghosphere) in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. See:  Pittsburgh's Allegheny County offers Cuyahoga some lessons in reform. If I were the author I would be wary of what happened to the journalist who wrote the last glowing piece in the PD about us.  I think he was laid off the next day. 

Incrementalism

Just because nobody else is mentioning anything like this... but first some supermarkets have gained approval to sell beer. Now the convenience stores want to follow suit.  You can't tell me the pharmacies are not too far behind. Given the long trail of failed pharmacies (think Phar-mor anyone).. there has to be a reason for all the new investment and consolidation in Walgreen's and Rite Aides everywhere. I'm just saying is all.

What I have never asked the lawyers to parse for me completely... but something I mentioned in the past about these liquor license developments is that new venues for beer sales isn't really anything new... I live blocks away from a convenience store that does in fact sell beer as it has for years if not decades at this point.   So it's not really anything new so I don't quite get what is novel about what is happening now or why beer sales have not expanded already.  It's aparently a perfectly legitimate 'E' license for my local convenience store.  In the distant past the neighborhood protested the location of the liquor license, but the legalities were too solid to get rid of it. I wonder if there is any list of nuisance 'convenience stores' out there?  It all came ot mind because it was precisely the location of a fairly horrible attack just days ago.  

displacement and dice II

Here is the actual report from last month out of the Indiana state government looking at the impact of new casinos on their revenues.  Estimates of the Fiscal Impacts from Out-of-State Casino Competition and Movement of Casino Licenses in Indiana.  The whole idea of displacement when it comes to casino revenues is something Atlantic City is learning the hard way.  It's not like it is a topic that has not been studied or anything.

Not that current casino revenues are building much confidence here in town, but they do seem to be in a range for now.  

Which all inspired a picture. This was intended to be a look at what the potential impact of future casino openings might be on revenues here.  In the graphic below all the circles are 100 mile radii around Pittsburgh and around the potential locations of casinos that may be yet to come.Not included are other already operating casinos which are nearby.   The red is 100 miles around Pittsburgh.  The orange is Lawrence County which until its prospective owner filed for bankruptcy next week was slated to get a casino into operation.   The pink circles are for the locations that are designated to get casinos with both slots and table games per the Ohio referendum that just passed.  So just to give some visual perspective on all that... you get this graphic for what it's worth:

Of course it's not that simple.  Nothing concrete about 100 miles versus 50 or 200, but it is certainly within a range that the professional casino industry analysts use when looking at this type of thing.  If most patrons come from closer it's less of a issue, but if the catchment area is even 150 miles the intersection of those footprints is significantly larger than shown here... at 200 miles even more so.  There are second order effects as well I suspect.  The other nearby casinos I didn't show on this graphic will also be hit by the same competition and will ramp up their own efforts to maintain reveneus... so pressures will compound for local enterprises.

Veterans among us

Still the best Veteran's day post.  The video below is of a local veteran and provided by http://pittsburgheldersguild.blogspot.com/

WW: CPA = zero

Thar she blows....   Reassessment ruling filed.   'he' I suppose.  CPA as in this... not a dis on our accountant friends.

that pay gap

Short piece looking at gender wage issues in Pennsylvania in the PG today. It's not a topic that really ought to forced into a few sentences.  Most have seen this, but last year we put out a report on the causes of Gender Wage Disparity in Pittsburgh.  And for the wonk-obsessed there is a bunch of gender data in another piece:  EEO Employment Data for Allegheny County and the Pittsburgh Region.

But one of the more important things that has defined the "transformation" of Pittsburgh has been the role of women in the workforce.  See the report for the full story, but an amazing quote from the 1947 is this:

(Pittsburgh) will, however, slowly decline unless new industries employing women and those engaged in the production of consumer goods are attracted to the area.

Something else I put in that report that really tells a story (many stories?) unto itself.  For one less than obvious angle, I actually am only now realizing the diaspora story embedded in this graph.  No time to get into it, but ponder this:

Also note (again) the impact of age in the constant debate over how 'educated' Pittsburgh is.  What do we have a disproportionate number of?  Old folks maybe... but in particular older women since women live longer than men in general.  Most metrics of educational attainment at the regional level aggregate together everyone age 25 and over without accounting for age issues.  So consider how different our relative ranking is when comapred to other regions like that compared to looking at just narrow age cohorts.. in partciular the youngest age folks who represent how well we have been doing at educating folks in the recent decade or so. 

obligatory Steelers post

Folks up the pike should be ashamed of themselves over this.   Even those Ravens' fans should be talked to.  What is it?  6 hours drive from Baltimore to Cleveland.

and just because it's the Broncos.   Can't forget our BFF: Denver's Bill Johnson.

the next race

For those political junkies already experiencing withdrawal there is something coming up.  With Walko heading to the bench... O'Toole has one of the first reads on the race to replace him in Harrisburg. 

I had maps of the last time the seat was contested.  See the election returns for Banahasky, Purcell and Walko in the spring 2006 primary for the 20th State House District.    O'Toole mentions Paul McKrell as being interested in the race.  He must have moved out of the 21'st district where he once looked to run.  I kind of wondered if another 21st district denizen would move a few blocks to be eligible to run for this seat.  That is nothing more than idle musing to be clear, but I speak of Len B. who I suspect must live within blocks of the district 20. It would be a stronger base to leverage his Lawrenceville support actually compared to District 21 where he, Dom Costa and Brenda Frazier really split the vote a nearly perfect 3 ways in the last election.   I also just realized, this must be the mayor's home district as well.  Who knows what that means?

Of course there is this other question of who is going to take over the as the chairman of the PWSA which might be a position in the news.

Appalachia Burgh

I see a flood of hits from Rustwire that look to be Brian O'Neill's fault.  It was his Null Space mention in a question during an interview related to his recent book: The Paris of Appalachia.

Vannevar, btw, suggests the goal ought to be for Pittsburgh to become the Copenhagen of Appalachia.

So one of those factoids 5 of us talk about: As Brian mentions Pittsburgh is often said to be the largest city in Appalachia.  Could be, though it obviously depends on your definition of Appalpahia.   This is kind of wonkish oral history.... but a colleague of mine tells me that Pittsburgh was the place where the Appalachian Regional Commission actually decided it's own geographic scope decades ago.  Thus it would make sense that if you look at their maps, Pittsburgh may indeed be Appalachia's largest city... Looks like their defintion only gets to the exurban areas of Atlanta which would obviously be bigger than us.  But I wonder... is that factoid still true if "Pittsburgh" is defined as just the city proper?   I thought maybe the semi-consolidated city/county of Nashville/Davidson county would have displaced Pittsburgh.  That would have been an interesting angle to our own city/county consolidation debate, but they seem to be just outside the ARC's map as well.  Same for Cincinatti...  Birmingham, Alabama is in their geography, but the population there is closer to 200K while Pittsburgh is still only flirting with 300K. Am I missing some other obvious city or is Pittsburgh still tops in 'Appalachia'?

There has been a newfound interest in the definition of Appalachia.  Some of it is the political story...(also this).... Related is the sociology.  I was looking for the map that made the rounds showing counties in the US which had the highest percentage of people who identify themsleves as ethnically 'American', but can't find it.  Then there is the energy story of late since Pittsburgh Seam coal is a subset of the Northern Appalachian Coal Basin.

more numbers

Misc election numbers I have not seen talked about much anywhere. 


Write in votes in City Council District 6 came out to 847 of 3,961 votes cast in that election. So 21.4% which is actually quite an amazing showing for a write-in candidate. Some day folks on the Hill will stop fighting with each other more than with others.  Just a question I wonder about:  Does TP try to keep her seat on the URA board?

City wide straight ticket Republican votes = 1,361. So about half of the 2,697 in the 2007 mayoral race. Not quite sure what it means. Remember LR was the nominated R because he got I think 1000+ republican petition signatures. Who knows if those folks are the same as who pulled the R levers… probably not… Consider though that the 2008 presidential election… 10,847 straight ticket Republican votes. No, not a typo. Over 10K Republican level pullers are out there somewhere in the city proper and just don’t bother to show up in these city elections just as most Democrats stay home as well. But that still is a larger number than most would assume is out there. Not that anyone has ever found a way to motivate them to show up in off-years.

1,259 people showed up at the polls in the city but did not vote for anyone for mayor.. not even a write-in. Not the biggest of numbers and I am not sure what it means. I suspect it's part of the general showing (or no-showing that is) of Democrats across the state.  If statewide D's had motivated folks to come to the polls to support the statewide judicial races, I suspect you would have seen more folks casting ballots without a selection for mayor.  I know burghosphere denizens may find this hard to believe, but a lot of folks who are above average in their interest in politics and the news on bigger issues still don't care a whit about local races like mayor. I think it all comes across as noise to them.  these are folks who skip the local evening news but will often watch the national news with interest. 

It's not atypical for some folks to show up and not vote in particular elections, but I have always wondered a bit  about the final ‘confirm’ button on the new machines. I know people in other contexts don’t quite get the idea and I really wonder if there are not a few people out there who walk away without hitting the button that last time. I think the poll workers are trained to void the vote if someone really leaves a machine in that status, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t hit confirm for a few folks.

The uber cynical have considered that poll workers could change some of those votes left like that. I don’t believe that at all and I am pretty cynical.. but the nature of the new machines does leave the whole process a lot more ambiguous than the old mechanical machines with curtains that only opened once you submitted your vote. That and I always jumped a bit when it happened. You always felt like those old machines were going to shake themselves to pieces as they recorded the votes and then opened the curtain. What could possibly have been going on inside the machines to make all that noise? The gnomes inside could have been engraving the vote with chisels in granite for all the fuss… but you for sure knew when you had submitted your vote.

maps, maps and more maps

More political maps than you can shake a stick at: click here.