Unemployment fell in southwestern Pennsylvania in April compared to one year earlier, but the region’s labor force continues to shrink. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the seven-county Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area decreased from 5.2 percent in April 2017 to 4.3 percent in April 2018, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Within the …
Information technology and robotics lead the region as the most active sectors for business deals and jobs in the Pittsburgh region, according to the 2017 Allegheny Conference on Community Development Business Investment Scorecard. The scorecard is an index which considers the number of new deals in the region, capital investment, and jobs created and retained …
The Pittsburgh region’s population continued to slide in 2017, falling to 2,333,367 people, according to recent population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. It marked the fifth consecutive year population has declined in the seven-county Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area. “The Pittsburgh region is a place that has suffered from a lot of population loss for …
Southwestern Pennsylvania has the highest percentage of “healthy weight” adults among the Pittsburgh Today benchmark regions, according to 2016 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, the most recent available. But here’s the catch: Fewer than 1 in 3 southwestern Pennsylvanians are a healthy weight and more than …
Alfred Hunt knew a good idea when he saw it. And Charles Martin Hall had one. In 1886, the 23-year-old chemist had discovered a smelting process to make aluminum inexpensively while working in a lab he cobbled together in a shed behind his parent’s house in northern Ohio. Hunt, a Pittsburgh metallurgist, realized its commercial …
What are the so-called “waters of the United States” and why did the Obama administration expand the definition? To understand that is to understand the evolution of environmental regulation in the United States and how the nation’s courts have interpreted what’s protected. With the exception of the 1948 Federal Water Pollution Act, hardly any water …
The Pittsburgh region has filled a trophy case with awards for being judged the “most livable” place in the nation by a variety of publications and organizations. But when the livability of senior citizens is considered, the region is less than a standout, an AARP index suggests. AARP scores the livability of U.S. counties based …
There’s an Andy Warhol canvas of a newspaper clipping with a photograph of a can of tuna fish and, beneath it, two middle-aged women and the caption: “Seized shipment: Did a leak kill…Mrs. McCarthy and Mrs. Brown?” The painting, “Tunafish Disaster,” is comedian and Warhol collector Steve Martin’s favorite work by the Pittsburgh-born artist. And …
Determining where water begins and ends seems a matter of physical properties, of whether two hydrogen molecules are bonded to oxygen, and how much of it exists. Where is it located, and will people eventually drink it? Swim in it? Fish in it? This molecule, essential to life, has become another point of political polarization. …
Caring for her father fell to Patrice Cottrell about nine years ago. It involved a few errands, at first. Doctor visits, marshaling his medications, coordinating health care and financial matters and scouting out and evaluating long-term care possibilities followed as his health declined. There were late-night calls when he was anxious about living alone, but …
tronger hiring last year, rising wages and upcoming tax cuts lead those who read the economic tea leaves to be cautiously optimistic that 2018 could reward southwestern Pennsylvania with the largest increase in job growth in five years, finally shaking the malaise that works to contract the local labor force, send residents packing and stifle …
In this 2018 Pittsburgh Today & Tomorrow report, we compare the seven-county Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area with regions across the country in key quality of life measures. Additionally, look for in-depth reports on: the region’s 2018 economic forecast; the rationale for building a new airport; an examination of what effect the Trump administration’s removal of …
As birthday celebrations go, this one was fairly harsh. The local news media was gathered at Pittsburgh International Airport’s Midfield Terminal on a late-summer day last September. Earlier, they’d reported the terminal complex, once lauded for its innovative design, had turned 25. Now, with cameras rolling, airport officials noted its inefficiencies, declared it was time …
We asked a cross-section of regional leaders to respond, in 75 words or less, to this question: What do we need to do to make Western Pennsylvania the best place to live in the world? “The incredible transformation here in such a short time gives me tremendous hope and excitement for the future of our …
What Do We Need to Make Western Pa. the Best Place to Live? Read More »
On May 1, 1969, a western Pennsylvania native with a relatively unknown children’s program testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Communication. Public broadcasting faced having its $20 million budget cut in half, and policymakers were skeptical about the educational benefit of children watching television—until Fred Rogers spoke of his year-old show and television’s potential to …
Air quality in the United States is governed by a complex regulatory structure that sets pollution limits and authorizes federal, state and local agencies to enforce them. The regulations which agencies enforce vary with the source of pollution, what they emit and the air quality in the region where they are located. Federal President Richard …
Creeping into the Fort Pitt Tunnel, angling for space at the Parkway East’s Grant Street exit, or elbowing into a gap in traffic on the Veterans Bridge, tens of thousands of people drive or ride into and out of Downtown nearly every day. Trailing behind them are the often-invisible exhausts of internal combustion engines. At …
Bluer skies over southwestern Pennsylvania owe a debt to local, state and federal regulations that have evolved over decades to spur technological advancements and investment in controlling air pollutants from industrial plants to the cars we drive. It wasn’t until the City of Pittsburgh adopted its Smoke Control Ordinance in 1941 that the dense smoke …
Air polllution’s place in the history of southwestern Pennsylvania is as prominent as the region’s mighty rivers and the steel industry that once crowded their banks. For nearly a century, it was a defining characteristic in the eyes of visitors, who pulled no punches when describing the grim conditions they found. “In truth, Pittsburg [sic] …
Power companies aren’t alone in their shift away from coal. Steelmakers, industry groups and the federal government are spending millions looking for a way to make steel without coke, the carbon-rich form of coal used to fuel blast furnaces. Like coal-fired power generation, coke production is a major source of air pollution, and its processing …
Shell Chemical Appalachia’s petrochemical complex has begun to rise from a dusty Beaver County brownfield that follows a slow bend in the Ohio River near Monaca. It took hefty tax incentives to secure it. The nation’s largest zinc smelter was razed to make room for it. More than 7 million cubic feet of earth were …
A decade ago, as Consol Energy’s 150th anniversary drew near, top executives began to take stock in where the company stood as a leading producer of coal and where that path would take it. Coal was in what CEO Nicholas DeIuliis called a “supercycle.” It was the workhorse of the national power grid and less …
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