Spring 2023
100 Pittsburgh Leaders
We asked 100 top leaders across Pittsburgh to respond in 100 words or fewerto this question: According to the U.S. Census, in 2021 the Pittsburgh MSA had the inauspicious distinction of having the highest natural population loss — more deaths than births — of any metro area in the country. Pittsburgh lost 10,838 people, followed …
A Couple of Rare Birds
The couple walked briskly down the road, binoculars around their necks. Spring had come to western Pennsylvania and with it migratory birds, but they were only interested in one species, the cerulean warbler, and the check mark they could add to their life list once they saw it. Bird watchers come in many varieties. At …
Renewing the Promise of Pittsburgh
Editor’s note: Historian David McCullough delivered the following words on a Pittsburgh riverboat in a speech to a select group of local leaders at the launch of the Riverlife Task Force. We are publishing this essay for the first time with permission of The Heinz Endowments on the occasion of the launch of a new …
DeCardy, Cohen, Ingram, Merson, McKinney, Bondoc, Myers, Hammond
Chris DeCardy becomes president of The Heinz Endowments in April. Most recently, DeCardy was acting CEO with the San Francisco-based ClimateWorks Foundation, leading a team of researchers, strategists and collaborators working on climate science. Previously, he served as vice president and director of programs with the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, which awards $340 million in annual grants in …
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Efforts So Far Haven’t Worked
Another year has passed in which more southwestern Pennsylvanians moved out of the region than newcomers arrived. The decades-long trend continues to slowly drain people from the region and frustrate ambitions of boosting its population. Southwestern Pennsylvania is a chronic loser in the flow of people between states that offer consistently warmer weather. And the …
Pittsburgh’s Immigrant Puzzle
Allegheny county’s small population bump from 2010 to 2020 owes much to a spike in the number of immigrants who decided to make it their home. They accounted for more than 60 percent of the 27,000 residents the county added overall. Without the gains in foreign-born residents, southwestern Pennsylvania as a region would have been …
Noteworthy Spring ’23
Après Ski Bar For restaurateur Rick DeShantz, a little imagination has gone a long way — and turned into a lot of fun for Pittsburgh this winter as he opened Après Ski Bar at Butcher and the Rye. It’s several tiers of Swiss-themed spaces, with fur-covered lodge furniture, antler chandeliers, assorted fondues on the menu …
The War Against Aesthetics in Contemporary Art
Often when I walk through a gallery of contemporary art, I can hear a murmuring between the works that echoes journalist Herbert Morrison’s voice describing the crash of the Hindenburg in 1937: “Oh, the humanity!” It’s as if the depiction of suffering in any form has become the criteria by which we judge art, rather …
Pittsburgh’s Population Problem
Butler street in Pittsburgh’s Lawrenceville neighborhood wears the face of a young adult enclave. Seven breweries and counting, a cider house, a craft beer store attached to an independent movie theater and bars with outdoor beer gardens flow through the neighborhood, as does a healthy population of young men with dense beards who patronize those …
Pittsburgh’s 2023 Economic Forecast
With the U.S. facing a strong possibility of recession in 2023, the Pittsburgh metropolitan statistical area is at risk of losing more than its fair share of economic activity in such a downturn. Pittsburgh’s labor market has not yet recovered to its pre-pandemic levels, in terms of employee headcount, in eight of 11 major industrial …
Get Ready for Pittsburgh Tomorrow
In the spring issue three years ago, I wrote a long essay about the need for a big plan to reverse Greater Pittsburgh’s downward economic and demographic trends. A Pittsburgh friend called it my Magnum Opus, the product of 35 years of journalistic efforts here, much of it aimed at moving this region ahead. In …