Pittsburgh Tribune-Review - February 2, 2008  

 

 

 

Kotkin & Florida on Pittsburgh at 250

By Bill Steigerwald

 

he Allegheny Conference on Community Development is a powerful public-private civic group that, for good and ill, has shaped or controlled economic development, urban planning and transportation schemes in Pittsburgh since World War II.

This year it is investing a lot of time, energy and resources into celebrating Pittsburgh's 250th birthday. Along with such signature projects as the $35 million restoration of Point State Park, it is sponsoring many arts and cultural attractions. As part of its promotional campaign, the conference has decided that the Pittsburgh 250 celebration is also "a once in a lifetime opportunity to encourage people inside and outside our region to imagine a bright future here."

In that spirit, we contacted two world-class experts on cities and their economies — Joel Kotkin and Richard Florida, the former Pittsburgh resident and CMU professor.

Kotkin, presidential fellow at the Roger C. Hobbs Institute at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., is author of "The City: A Global History." Florida, professor of business and creativity at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, is author of "The Rise of the Creative Class":

Q: What lessons could you draw from Pittsburgh's past to help the city have a brighter future?

Kotkin: From the perspective of economic growth or having a dynamic demographic picture, I would start off by saying, "Whatever we've been doing, it hasn't been working." I'm looking at a chart here: "MSA population growth from 1960 to 2005," and I can tell you Pittsburgh is like at the bottom of the list. It's actually grown as a region slower than — because it's actually shrunk — Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, New York, Boston. We're not comparing Pittsburgh with Phoenix or L.A. In terms of job growth, Pennsylvania has the weakest growth since 1956 of all of the 12 most-populous states. Pittsburgh has been pretty much at the bottom in terms of growth in most fields. The bottom line is that what you've been doing is clearly not working, whether it's for Pittsburgh or overall for Pennsylvania. So why don't you just think about some other approach that might work better? The country has gone through some enormous transformations and Pittsburgh's been a backwater. Now this could be an advantage. Many of the things that other parts of the country have experienced have not been all positive. You have a chance to learn from the mistakes other places have made and do new things right. In a sense, you can take the advantage of underdevelopment and turn it into an asset.

Florida: I asked Jane Jacobs once, "What would you do — as a person who lived in New York in the Village — to rebuild the World Trade Center site? She said, "Well, Richard, you asked the wrong question. What would the people who used that site do? What would the people who used to work there do? What would the people who owned shops there do?" The process can never be top down. If it's top down, it's only going to squelch and disrupt the energy of the people. First of all, I think Pittsburgh has a decent future ahead of it because of the resilience of its people, because of the fact that people love the city. There's something in its DNA that you want to make it better. If the so-called leadership would get out of the way. It's an old-school, 1950s, outmoded, old-boys-club vision of the future. If they just got out of the way and let the new immigrant groups, and the foreign-born students, and young people and old people and folks do their thing — the place has all the ingredients. And I said this in "Rise of the Creative Class," I would still bet on Pittsburgh. I wouldn't bet on it because of its leadership. I'd bet on Pittsburgh because of its people and its can-do spirit. You can't kill Pittsburgh. There's something in the spirit and resilience. I don't know what it is. You can't kill it. That's the thing that amazes me. Maybe Pittsburgh needs a 250th birthday to celebrate the fact that it has succeeded so well, despite this just horrendous level of leadership. In terms of the history, I think the fact that it was the industrial center of the world and the center of world innovation. Obviously it was steel town, but it was a great electronics innovator with Westinghouse; aluminum with Alcoa, chemistry, computing. And also, to broaden that, it also was a great center of creativity broadly. Andy Warhol is an obvious example but all the history of African-American music and theater that comes out of the place. There is creativity in the very pores. What happened, I think, that it got so constipated by this mass-production business model — you have to be a corporate business leader, you have to be a member of the Duquesne Club, you have to behave in a certain way and go to certain events — that it chased a lot of that creative spirit out of town. But somehow that creative spirit continues to regenerate itself. So I think recognizing this broad legacy of creative energy and this incredible resilience of the people. Another example, in terms of music, it's a place that could give rise to the kind of roots-rock of Joe Grushecky, who becomes a model for somebody like Bruce Springsteen. Yet Pittsburgh, except on special occasions, ignores the music of Joe Grushecky. Another lesson is understanding all the things that make Pittsburgh great. The future can be created by the people in the communities. Also, finally, understanding that Pittsburgh has never been a downtown-centered city; that the flip side of the Industrial Age with the big factories and the towers was this idea that we were going to make a downtown-centered city; Pittsburgh understood as a city of neighborhoods and understanding the incredible tapestry and perseverance and resilience of those neighborhoods and really making that the centerpiece. When people think about Pittsburgh today, they don't think any more about the Golden Triangle. When I talk to people all over the world, what do they think of? — the North Side and the Warhol Museum and the Mattress Factory and the South Side and East Liberty and the university district and Squirrel Hill. Increasingly what people see in Pittsburgh is a model of community renewal that's not been downtown-led.

Q: How would you stimulate growth in Pittsburgh?

Kotkin: First of all, I would take a look at what are the assets that Pittsburgh has. It's an attractive area. It's got an attractive periphery. It has some competitive cost advantages — and try to figure out why somebody or why a business would locate there and work on those strengths. Every area has its own DNA, so I can't say, "Well, what's good for San Francisco is good for Pittsburgh," because they are very different places. But I would say, "Look. Sit down with people. Ask them why are they there. What do they like about Pittsburgh? What do they want to change?" Take the pulse and make your assumptions from what you learn — and not just from the statistics. When I go to a place, I always ask, "Why are you here? Tell me what the reasons are. Tell me what the advantages are?" Because that's the beginning of getting some sort of wisdom about how you can make a place better.

Florida: The first thing that has to happen is that the old-boy, in-crowd leadership has to get out of the way. It's time for the Allegheny Conference to close its doors. It's time for the URA to go away. And it's time for the mayor's office to cool its jets. I think we need a new model of economic growth that really encourages entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity. I think it's a combination of startup companies and business-led efforts. Maybe Mayor Davey Lawrence and Richard King Mellon were great for their day; they probably were. But the days of the strong mayor and a business leadership group fixing a city are long over. Cities are too complex, they are too organic, they are too multifaceted. So those folks have to go away. So maybe a 250th birthday is a time to declare that the Allegheny Conference has done its job. The URA has done its job. Let's close them down. A new day has dawned. And we're going to do this in a way which is much more broad-based, much more inclusive and — frankly, for a business-led group — much more market-based.

Q: How would you improve the quality of life here?

Kotkin: Part of the quality of life which we often neglect is opportunity. One of the reasons people leave Pittsburgh and migrate out — and the same thing is true of a lot of Pennsylvania — is that there are not the kind of upward-mobility job opportunities that might exist somewhere else. I really don't think it's a shortage of coffee houses and jazz clubs that is the critical issue. Why do young people leave Pittsburgh? Why do they go somewhere else? I don't think it's because other places are prettier, because Pittsburgh's pretty attractive. It's not because other places have necessarily nicer neighborhoods or nicer houses. It's because of opportunity. You have a tremendous cost advantage in Pittsburgh. You can offer both a suburban and an urban lifestyle at considerably lower cost than your prime competitors. What you don't have is a flourishing, entrepreneurial, opportunity kind of economy.

Florida: I think the quality of life is great. I think the public-project mania has caused property taxes to be completely out of whack. People who want to be homeowners in Pittsburgh do get a good value when they buy a home but they are taxed to death. Part of the thing of getting rid of the giant public-project mania is that property taxes could be reduced. I think Pittsburgh really needs to really, really invest in its street-level culture. I don't mean government needs to invest; Pittsburgh really needs to understand that what's creating vibrancy in the city is not just the symphony, the opera, ballet and sporting events. A lot of the vibrancy in the community is coming from people making music, doing art, being engaged. I think Oakland is the key — getting the heavy hand of planning out of Oakland, making sure that Oakland somehow can have the right redevelopment — better housing, better neighborhoods. The Pittsburgh future is not in Downtown, it's really in a revitalized Oakland in an idea-centered economy around those universities. But here's the thing: Imagine if the billion-plus dollars that were spent on stadiums and convention centers could be spent on attracting new professors, new academic leaders, new business to the community. It could be spent on improving the infrastructure — the parks and the playgrounds, the schools. Imagine if we got rid of that mega-project mania and did many, many important small things that the community thought was important. I think Pittsburgh has a great quality of life — I enjoyed living there. But imagine if that could be done. And let's learn from our mistakes. Let's not make another mistake and spend another billion dollars on the mega-projects of the past.

Q: How would you promote the city's image and attract new people and businesses to Pittsburgh?

Kotkin: I'll tell you what I would not do. I would not waste money on absurd transportation projects, casinos and vastly oversized convention centers — all these kinds of things that are used between regions for locker-room bragging, and you can figure out what that means. I would focus on companies that are growing in the area, people who are moving in; the inherent quality of life that Pittsburgh offers; the cost advantages that Pittsburgh offers. Those are your critical advantages over your competitors. That's really where you ought to make your case. If you had a thriving economy, and people were coming in from all over the country — if immigrants saw Pittsburgh as a destination — then I think all sorts of nice things would happen: Restaurants would open, neighborhoods would come back. You have immigrants who are now going to places like Fargo, N.D., because they see opportunities there. You have to create a kind of opportunity environment and that would be the biggest thing you could do. Instead of spending money on these absurd projects — stadiums, (light-rail) tunnels and casinos — why don't you just fix what you have so it works better, maintain what you have so it works better and find out what are the things that businesses actually need? — not five CEOs of the remnants of companies that have been there for a long time and all they care about are skyboxes. You've got to think about what you're going to do that will make it easier for people to do business in Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh area. Find out. Take your 100 fastest growing companies, sit down with them and ask them what would encourage you to grow faster. I doubt it's going to be a casino that it is they will be looking for.

Florida: Pittsburgh has a terrific image. I moved there in 1987. I thought — and I'm telling you as an outsider — Pittsburgh was a turnaround city. I imagined that I would find a city filled with art galleries and a thriving street-level culture — you know, a fantastic urban ambiance. I felt some of that in certain pockets. But I think Pittsburgh still — around the world — has an image of a revitalizing, turnaround city. I wouldn't run away from that, and in all my work I've said that. I think what Pittsburgh needs to do is understand that the key to its success is to continue to unleash that creative and entrepreneurial energy of its people. That's what inspired me; it's my inspiration. The other thing that Pittsburgh needs is a perestroika. It really does. It needs a glasnost. Just like the Soviet Union shucked off the heavy hand of this government intervention and began to reinvent its economy; Pittsburgh is actually the example of a city trying to get away from that. What happens is that heavy hand smothers all the fantastic things; it mutes them out. So when they go out and promote the new convention center or the new stadiums, nobody cares. They just look at that and go, "Oh, God."

Think about East Liberty. This is a neighborhood they had declared war on. If that neighborhood could begin to heal itself in the face of that war-like urban renewal strategy. All of these gems — the Warhol, the Mattress Factory, a bootstrap, startup organization that becomes a beacon that people talk about. In Toronto, what do the cultural institutions want to talk to me about? "How did Pittsburgh on its North Side engage the community and create community resources and not just static museums?" Oh my God, there are so many examples there.

Another thing we've heard a lot about recently is, "How can Pittsburgh attract immigrants?" Well, Pittsburgh has immigrants. They're sitting in its major universities. They've chosen to locate in Pittsburgh. They've come to graduate school there. They're coming there and leaving. If you want to attract immigrants, well, just try to keep the ones who've already chosen to come to your place. The same thing is what I've always talked about with young college students. You've got 50,000 or 60,000 or 70,000 college students in your town. My God, they've chosen to live there. Try to encourage them to stick around after graduation and see if they can't start a business or contribute some energy.

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