In the Summer of 2023 issue, I wrote a column entitled “Wake Up! It’s Time to Save Downtown Pittsburgh.” At the time, people were justifiably hesitant to come Downtown. Now, three years later, as anyone who attended the NFL Draft will attest, Downtown’s transformation is sensational. The Draft brought excitement and vitality to our city like none we have witnessed before. From the rejuvenated Market Square to the great new Arts Landing and across the Allegheny, the streets were joyous, safe and full of life.
The people who made it happen deserve recognition, starting with the Rooneys and the Steelers organization. The list includes Jerad Bachar and VisitPittsburgh, Jeremy Waldrup and the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, and government leaders Josh Shapiro, Sara Innamorato, Corey O’Connor, and state legislators. It includes Stefani Pashman and the Allegheny Conference, Kendra Whitlock Ingram and the Cultural Trust, and Highmark’s David Holmberg, who chairs both. It includes the police, the public workers and nonprofits who beautified the region, the corporations (from PNC on down) and foundations (RK Mellon, Henry Hillman and Heinz Endowments) that financed efforts, and the tens of thousands who pulled together to polish Pittsburgh.
Recent news stories have lamented our region’s continuing population losses. Many don’t believe changing our direction is possible, but events of the NFL Draft prove they’re wrong. Those events show what the future can hold. We can bring people here. We can make Pittsburgh a national example. We can grow again.
Reversing population losses is precisely the mission of Pittsburgh Tomorrow, a two-year-old nonprofit I lead. We intend to do it by reinvigorating our civic spirit and economy and, along with partners across the region, catalyzing a new can-do optimism and belief in this region’s future. And it’s happening.
In April, Pittsburgh Tomorrow launched a marketing campaign on public transit, at the airport, and on billboards around the city, urging visitors to “Trade Up — Move to Pittsburgh.” It promotes a first-of-its-kind anywhere website, LifeinPittsburgh.com, which provides a personal, confidential road map in 80 languages to building a successful life here. It connects newcomers and Pittsburghers alike to basic services, jobs, events, volunteering opportunities and even municipal services. If you want to have fun and enjoy the best our city has to offer, click on “Do The 412” for music, theater, comedy, sports, galleries, food, museums, and family events.
On the Friday afternoon of the Draft, 40 of us — including high schoolers in our Pittsburgh Tomorrow Leadership Corps — gathered in bright blue Pittsburgh Tomorrow hats and T-shirts promoting LifeinPittsburgh.com and handed out 6,000 pollinator seed packets that said “To Plant a Garden is to Believe in Tomorrow” to appreciative Draft attendees. More is coming.
Great as it was, though, the Draft is behind us. What’s next?
When I interviewed Mark Cuban last year at Austin’s SXSW conference, he challenged me to bring together Pittsburgh’s disparate economic development groups — they all have small conferences and pitch competitions — and coalesce them into one. It was like asking for the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West, but for the past year, all of these groups have been meeting and realizing that, together, we can be bigger and do better.
And this fall — Sept. 15-18 — look for a new innovation conference (name to be announced) that attracts national investors to our burgeoning start-up scene in robotics, AI, life sciences and, ultimately, energy. Carnegie Mellon is organizing this part of the effort that includes Pitt, Duquesne, Innovation Works, Pittsburgh Robotics Network, AI Strikeforce, Life Sciences Alliance, InnovatePGH, Allegheny Conference, Pittsburgh Tomorrow and more. Stay tuned.
On the heels of that conference, Sept. 18-20, Pittsburgh Tomorrow and partners across Pittsburgh’s cultural, government and conservation sectors are launching “Pittsburgh Homecoming” to bring back Pittsburgh ex-pats (would-be boomerangers) and all sorts of Pittsburgh-affinity people and others who don’t yet know that Pittsburgh might become their new home. The weekend has an embarrassment of riches: The Carnegie International, the Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival (with a “Jazz Train” leaving New York City destined for Pittsburgh and a streets-closed Downtown jazz party), the Phipps Flower Show, a special “Homecoming” exhibit at the Warhol, the Pirates playing the Brewers, and much more.
We’ll also hold three special Homecoming events. One is a real estate panel on the ease of buying a home here. The next panel is on the ease starting a business here — highlighting opportunity and cutting red tape. Finally, Sept. 18-20 is our climatic zone’s first fall weekend for tree planting and we’re working with conservation partners to celebrate America’s semi-quincentennial with a ceremonial planting of 250 trees along the rivers. Our Pittsburgh Tomorrow Leadership Corps will take part, and we’ll invite Homecoming weekend guests to take part as well.
The ultimate ambition is to create a national conference that attracts investors and money to spur company and job creation here, while also bringing cultural tourists to show the world Pittsburgh’s abundant quality-of-life charms — helping both groups to realize that this is the place to build their futures. These two September events will be a great start.
Next year, we aim to build our Pittsburgh Tomorrow Leadership Corps to number in the thousands — high school and college — connecting our young people to this region and each other, building their understanding of and affinity with Pittsburgh, and increasing the chances they’ll be part of this region’s future.
Finally, look for a growing wave of “Welcoming” events. There are just two ways to grow a region. One is having more births than deaths (which isn’t us) and the other is attracting and keeping more people than the number who leave. The simple logic dictates we must become America’s most welcoming place, and our three-part plan to do just that is underway. The first is expanding the services in LifeinPittsburgh.com every month. The second is a personal concierge team connecting newcomers — individuals and business recruits alike — so they feel they belong here. The third is a series of social events, starting with “Midsummer Mingle” on June 18 at the Allegheny RiverTrail Park and continuing all year at great venues throughout Allegheny County.
Sparking all of it, expect fresh new messaging and marketing campaigns (like our “Your Dog Wants You to Move to Pittsburgh” campaign at Times Square over the holidays last year) that spread the word here and in our target markets elsewhere about the great things Pittsburgh offers.
For the past two-plus years, we and many others have been working to create a movement and a spirit of optimism about Pittsburgh’s future. Now, we have momentum. Let’s keep working together and keep it going.
A journalistic innovator, Heuck has been writing about Pittsburgh for 40 years, as an investigative reporter and business editor at The Pittsburgh Press and Post-Gazette and as the founder of Pittsburgh Quarterly. His newspaper projects ranged from living on the streets disguised as a homeless man to penning the only comprehensive profile in the latter years of polio pioneer Dr. Jonas Salk to creating a statistical means of judging regional progress that has led to similar projects across the country. Heuck's work has won numerous national, state and local writing awards. His work has been cited in the landmark media law case "Food Lion vs. ABC news." He is also the founder and CEO of Pittsburgh Tomorrow, a nonprofit whose mission is to reverse population decline by reinvigorating the region's civic spirit and economy.
