Movies, Reviews and Returns

This is a shout out with props for Dawn Keezer at the Pittsburgh Film Office on the occasion of a critically successful launch of the movie “Out of the Furnace”.  The movie has been, in the parlance of the industry, generally well received.  The reviews are good and Woody Harrelson’s performance is being mentioned as Oscar material, which should generate more press for it in 2014.

Reviews from the Pittsburgh media all mention that the setting presented is far from the current Pittsburgh of gleaming buildings, strong economics and shiny new people.  That’s true and since all of that is the “real world”, there are plenty of opportunities for the news media to report on that reality.  Hollywood’s world of entertainment make-believe serves Pittsburgh with a different purpose: to further the area’s economic strength.

There are fewer visionary risk-takers in Hollywood than popular culture might assume.  Entertainment industry executives, as in most fields, see a winner and happily follow behind on the safe path to profits.  My point here is basic and a strict numbers game: the more winners filmed in Pittsburgh, the more movies will come to be filmed in the city and the more money will be spent.  I think it should be clear by now that the work of the Pittsburgh Film Office with Dawn Keezer out in LA is producing those results.  Make no mistake about the fact that the State of Pennsylvania’s movie tax credits do play a starring role in getting movie producers and financiers to consider western Pennsylvania in the first place.  But that’s the way the game is played.  Play it well, provide the right physical resources, develop the talent pool of supporting industry professionals, and the returns will surpass anything hoped for.

Congrats to Ms. Keezer, Pittsburgh, Braddock and those involved in Out of the Furnace for helping provide another boost to Pittsburgh’s economic revival.

A Holiday Bagatelle [parenthetically speaking]

A press release announcing development of a small [less than 100 room] boutique hotel is cause for about as much news play as was actually generated by the recent announcement for the Ace Hotel in East Liberty.  This is not a 1,000 room convention center behemoth generating hundreds of jobs.  But it is an indication of Pittsburgh’s evolution to [returning to] a more important economic and social center.

Ace Hotels are usually [too often] referred to in the media as “hip”.  OK, my personal caveat here: once something/someone/someplace is called “hip” [or “cool”] it’s not [or no longer is].  I picked up that viewpoint from something Miles Davis is reported to have said.  And in my worldview, Miles is the definition of cool.  Also beware: declaring oneself hip or cool immediately negates any prospect of it.  Hip can only be bestowed as well as unspoken; it can never be assumed or declared.

Underlining the City’s inherent integrity, Pittsburgh never has and I suspect never will self-define as hip or cool.  And it should always be so.  But I’ve digressed.

So Pittsburgh is getting another gift of [currently defined] hip.  Pittsburgh is already hip in so many authentic ways.  A singular example is the continuance of the Carnegie International, the world’s first and longest running biennial art celebration.  Rock on Steel City!  But layers of hip must be added and the Ace Hotel is another one.  After all, something had to replace the ol’ Holiday House supper club on Route 51 in Pleasant Hills which in its heyday regularly hosted members of the Rat Pack [who along with Las Vegas’ demolished Desert Inn also defined hip].

There’s not much to comment on here other than boo-yah for the ‘Burgh and to note Ace’s other locations: London, Los Angeles, New York, Palm Springs [more Rat Pack references], Panama City [Panama, not Florida and if you’ve not been there or noticed, PC is becoming the Dubai of Central America], and the self-referentially hip [meaning no longer hip] Portland, OR.  What I believe will yield needed buzz for Pittsburgh is the list of media outlets that consistently cover Ace hotels.  Go to the Ace Hotel Web site and view the link to “Press”.  These are the media outlets that Pittsburgh wants to add to its portfolio of “buzz” and “mentions” [or as they say in Washington, DC, “gets”].  Pittsburgh wants to get press in “Asiana” Airlines magazine, “Elle Décor” [both European and US editions], “L’Officiel Voyage” [France] and “Blonde” [Germany]; style and lifestyle books all.

Finally, speaking of building layers, there’s a segue here to building economic layers [of success].  It’s rarely reported but known in certain quarters that Ace hotels are favored by the technorati [such as Google employees].  Any doubt that Google’s growing presence in East Liberty influenced Ace’s decision to look for an opportunity in Pittsburgh, targeting that particular neighborhood?  There should be no doubt.  But that’s how success gets built, layer upon hard won layer.  Rock on.

An Open Letter to Dr. Subra Suresh, CMU’s newly named President

Dr. Suresh:

 

Allow me to add an enthusiastic welcome to Carnegie Mellon and Pittsburgh on the eve of your formal installment as University President.  By accounts from both CMU press announcements and Pittsburgh media, the University and the City are honored that you’ve chosen to accept this position.  Your work at Brown University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the National Science Foundation speaks volumes for what you’ll accomplish in Pittsburgh.

CMU and Pittsburgh need more citizens of your experience as stakeholders in our urban ecosystem.  While I have little doubt that the University and its Board of Trustees are excited about your history of establishing programs and identifying requisite funding sources to realize those programs’ success, I am especially heartened by your work at MIT.  While at that school you were instrumental in establishing the Center for Computational Engineering.  Endeavors along those lines are specifically what Pittsburgh needs.

In a recent talk before the Pittsburgh Venture Capital Association, you highlighted how a relatively small initial investment from a governmental program such as the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps can be leveraged into very large investments from the venture capital community ultimately producing large numbers of start-ups and hopefully longer term enterprises.  Please bring more of that to Pittsburgh.  Lack of capital is often cited as the number one reason Pittsburgh conspicuously lags other cities that have not much more in the way of intellectual resources.  I applaud your introductory emphasis on capital investment, no matter its source.

Capital is the key here: both human and financial.  CMU already has the human capital.  Such an oversupply in fact that it exports most of it to other places willing to award more financially to CMU’s best thinkers.  Financial capital, money, has been the element lacking in this latest incarnation of Pittsburgh economic development.  The late 19^th and early 20^th centuries had Andrew Mellon and his cohorts.  Pittsburgh blossomed, not unlike California’s Bay Area has done in the late 20^th century.  I urge you to make financial capital acquisition a top, perhaps the number one, priority.

You’ve spent much time in Cambridge, Massachusetts at MIT.  Walking down Massachusetts Avenue, I noted that two of the largest and most impressive structures carried names of their benefactors: Eli and Edythe Broad on the Broad Institute, and David H. Koch of the eponymous Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.  Using these two examples it must be noted what impressive achievements their investment in MIT given that the Broads call Los Angeles home and David Koch is basically a Texan, among his many residences, though also an MIT alumnus.

The parallels between work being done at these two institutes and work happening at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute is striking.  Both MIT affiliated institutes were founded within the last 10 years which is also the time frame for UPCI’s founding.  It’s acknowledged that UPCI also partners with many faculty members from CMU, but I believe CMU can add significant fund raising muscle to their efforts.  The hard truth is that biotechnology has yet to produce the financial rewards that computer technology has.  UPMC, Pitt’s Medical School, and UPCI all are loaded with talented, creative individuals and alumni.  But my suspicion is that currently, the alumni list at CMU has a larger number of individuals with access to financial capital; individuals who understand cutting-edge research and its requirements.  These are the people that you, Dr. Subresh, can personally tap for help in CMU’s and Pittsburgh’s technology efforts.

 

Allow me to insert a personal story that illustrates the excitement I’m hoping you will bring to CMU, the Oakland neighborhood, Pittsburgh and the tri-state region.  While competing at last year’s Head of the Charles Regatta, I was walking with friends past both the Broad and Koch Institutes.  The window displays in both buildings are impressive to say the least.  Watching the genome of a rabbit being mapped before your eyes, or the molecular structure of a cancer cell being explained in mind-blowing full color is an engaging experience for the passer-by.  To that end, I was walking with friends from Austin, TX who were so impressed with what they saw that they dropped the usual chauvinistic central Texas viewpoint to comment that “We have multi-colored guitar sculptures on our streets, and here they show some of the world’s scientific breakthroughs.  Wow!”  That summed it up, and that’s what I want for Pittsburgh.  You can help bring that to CMU and the City.

Getting It Done

This past week I was part of my rowing club’s trailer loading brigade in advance of the Head of the Hooch in Chattanooga, TN.  For those of you not familiar with rowing protocols and various aspects of the sport, trailers are the means of transporting rowing shells [boats] and as such must be loaded with care resulting in a long, cumbersome and tiresome assignment for the men and women of the participating crews.

 

This week’s trailer loading involved more boats than our club has ever loaded onto a single trailer so it was particularly difficult.  What started out at 6PM with over 50 participants helping,  slowly but inexorably dwindled in numbers as the sun set and the evening wore on.  By 9PM there were less than a dozen of us and many boats still to go.  All this was made more time consuming because the best light we had was from the landscape lighting at the Four Seasons Hotel next door.  At that point I knew this loading was going well toward midnight.

 

As is common at that late hour during any such “all nighter”, or close to it, we started the “ol’ gallows humor” going.  The stories told are those of one’s youth, college and high school mostly.  And a lot of “when I rowed in college….”.  Ya, ya, you rowed uphill, in the snow, both ways.  Right.  But what became apparent at 10:30PM, with only 8 people left to load and another couple hours ahead of us, was that here in a side alley in Austin, Texas three of us were from Pittsburgh.  And we were the loudest, should I say most enthusiastic, of the group and definitely kept things lively.

 

So there you have it.  When the job needs to get done, it takes Pittsburghers to do it.  No fuss, little complaining [OK, at least a little], pitch in, make it work, get it done.  Go home with a smile on your face and an attitude of at least it could have been worse.  Yep.  I hope and believe that sort of attitude can translate into more jobs and a rising standard of living for all Pittsburghers as the city and region move forward.

Blue Collar, Schmue Collar

A quick rant regarding recent comments in the media on Pittsburgh that's related to coverage of the Pirates. Allow me use Michael Keaton's blog for ESPN.com as the foremost example, although what I’m complaining about permeates the media when referring to Pittsburgh in any context. 

Keaton is a great fan of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh’s sports franchises so I criticize with affection as I would to a family member.  But he almost never fails to make reference to Pittsburgh's "blue collar" attitudes, in this particular case those attitudes being a key to the Pirates’ success.  C’mon people!  How many times?  Years?  Decades?  does Pittsburgh have to labor under that old saw?  I mean really, it's the fallback explanation used by every second rate reporter in sports, business, or arts reporting.

And Mr. Keaton: blue collar work ethic, huh? Like NYC doesn't have a blue collar side? Houston? Dallas? London? Shanghai? I won’t get wonky on this one: a rant is supposed to make liberal use of grand assumptions and platitudes. But look at the most recent statistics that tell us Pittsburgh is less blue collar that most of its cohort cities in the US.

Great cities run on a diverse mix and that refers to job and economic mixes as well. And do only blue collar types work hard? I worked on Wall Street and I'll put up my 12 hour days, 8 days a week as a "slave of New York" next to any time card punching dude. Success is hard work anywhere, period. Stop the back-handed compliments from people who do not or no longer live in Pittsburgh.

Finally, if you’re using the term “blue collar” as a proxy of a close knit, well functioning community, then why don’t you just use that description?  Pittsburgh’s always been a great city, when it was dominated by heavy industry and even now when it’s largely a knowledge based economy.  Communicating the facts in an interesting way is difficult.  It would be great if more folks who love Pittsburgh did it.

Rising Standards

No need to list the now constant stream of media mentions on Pittsburgh’s rebirth, re-growth, renaissance, and re-emergence as a “place to be”.  These things take time and to come to this point it has taken two generations, over 40 years really, since the initial collapse of steelmaking as the region’s economic cornerstone.  While I believe rising economic development is not inevitable, the momentum is certainly there in Pittsburgh’s favor.

I believe Pittsburgh is further fortunate in that it does not get ahead of itself when it comes to civic self image.  Success does not distract Pittsburghers from their life paths.  This isn’t LA or Dallas or Miami, thank goodness.  Driving through the city and surrounds you won’t find a lot of faux-French chateaus being constructed in the hills.

But as with general economic growth in the US over the last 20 years, and similar to what we’re seeing worldwide, the benefits of growth are spread unevenly.  Perhaps more unevenly than any time in the last 100 years, since the Gilded Age.  So it’s appropriate to be thinking about how to mitigate the natural and normal inequalities of growth, as much because we want a solid economic base as because it’s simply better for all the area’s residents.

A rising tide does indeed float all ships.  But let’s make sure the tidal flow touches all and provides them the opportunity to rise.  Everyone who is a thought leader, an opinion maker, a mover and shaker so to speak, has got to be talking about development in all parts of Pittsburgh and the surrounding region.  No community, whether geographically or demographically defined, should be left behind or even allowed simply to lag.

OK, this is one of my blog pieces where I can offer no “solutions” or even opinions of such.  As mainly a free market capitalist, I believe the situation will eventually right itself.  However let’s not sit around and hope for the best.  If any city in the US is an example of what involved citizens can do, Pittsburgh with its generally recognized public-private partnership that produced the City’s first renaissance is the argument for some direct involvement.

Progress most likely will happen on the margins, both geographically and socially.  The worst blighted neighborhoods in Homewood or the Hill District, parts of the Mon Valley or outlying counties, for example, will probably not see incomes increase immediately.  But I believe measurable economic progress can penetrate those communities, among others, in reasonable amounts of time; measured in months and years, not decades.

As I mentioned above, Pittsburgh thought-leaders, in the media, academia, government, and business must acknowledge and give voice to this issue of raising the economic bar for the entire city and region.  Only by seeking solutions to this issue, one that Pittsburgh is certainly not alone among cities in facing, can progress me made.  Acknowledge, think and then act.  I have no other prescription at this time.

This Has Got to Stop

Along with the news today that HJ Heinz is laying off 350 staff members at Pittsburgh headquarters is a less noted item about the purchase by Facebook of a local high tech startup, Mobile Technologies.  Mobile Technologies developed a product called Jibbigo that is a translation service application which can be used on your smartphone.  I don’t need to go into details of why this could be a very important piece of technology for any large social media platform, like Facebook.

 

My problem is the statement by Mobile Technologies founders who spun out of Carnegie Mellon: “once the deal has closed, many of us will be joining the company at their headquarters in Menlo Park, California.”  You can rest assured that given the size of Mobile Technologies, all of their current staff will transfer to Menlo Park.  So why can’t Facebook, like Google, establish a Pittsburgh engineering office?  This “brain drain” of sorts, which has happened time and again over a generation in Pittsburgh, has got to stop.

 

I fully comprehend that high tech must be fluid and respond to opportunities as they present themselves.  That ability lays the groundwork, the very ecosystem, for future success and innovations.  But especially for those enterprises coming out of CMU there has been too much of a history of innovative companies grown on their campus only to be removed to more “glamorous” locations as soon as the dollars beckon.  This has got to stop.

 

I don’t have an answer for this and in all reality there is no “answer” for the cycle of job creation and flow.  It’s a sign of a healthy environment when an area like Pittsburgh repeatedly produces innovative ideas and enterprises.  And it’s only natural that the best and the brightest, be they people or ideas or companies, migrate to where they’re most appreciated: that is, where the capital to foster growth is located.  However, I would like to see more leadership from “the top”, by which I mean the top of the particular organization in Pittsburgh where these creative enterprises are formed.  In this particular case, as in so many recent others, that top is the leadership at Carnegie Mellon University.  What is CMU doing to foster Pittsburgh’s future growth besides taking in tuition payments and spitting out high value employees for Boston, Seattle and the Silicon Valley?

 

Look for me to follow up this piece with something addressed to CMU’s incoming President.

Staying Relevant

On a recent Saturday morning I lounged in bed as the sun came up through the windows.  A rare treat even for a weekend morning.  The lounging part, not the sunshine.  I hit the clock radio button and listened to a few minutes of NPR’s “Weekend Edition – Saturday” program.  But in those 30 or so minutes, I heard three separate pieces where “Pittsburgh” was mentioned.  We can question the relevance of radio news in general, and NPR in particular, within this ever evolving information age but aside from that I have to observe that this is another example of Pittsburgh getting back to “relevant”.

Two years ago I had a discussion over coffee at Taza d’Oro [a true gem - keep pedaling folks] with a prominent local magazine publisher. We were concerned that Pittsburgh had lost “relevancy” in the evolving American economic and social landscape.  I remember while growing up that Pittsburgh would judge itself against New York and Chicago and San Francisco.  But then a few years back Pittsburgh was absent from being noted anywhere in the then breathless pieces on the boom towns of Atlanta, Dallas and Phoenix.  Worse, it wasn’t even garnering negative notice like Cleveland, Detroit or Newark.  Pittsburgh risked irrelevance.

But recently Pittsburgh has pulled itself back into the national, if not quite international, conversation.  Years of commitment and hard work from a broad range of citizens helped make this happen and hopefully this will continue to expand.  But my unscientific listen to NPR provided a continuing sign of hope.

By the way, the three pieces started with a discussion of Detroit’s bankruptcy woes where the head of the Detroit Chamber of Commerce noted that “great American cities like New York, Pittsburgh have gone through some form of receivership” and now “those cities are vibrant urban centers.”  Next up was Howard Bryant of ESPN talking second half of season baseball and “the story I like best is the Pittsburgh Pirates”.  And immediately following was WESA’s Larkin Page-Jacobs piece on the “outing” of Robert Galbraith as JK Rowling by Duquesne University “in Pittsburgh” Professor Patrick Juola resulting from his computer modeling techniques.

None of this is curing cancer or stopping world hunger, but it all adds to a perception that in Pittsburgh stuff is happening, brains are being used, and Pittsburgh placing with the best urban centers.

California. Dreaming.

Metaphysicians teach us that we don’t have to know the means to achieving our dreams; we merely have to dream them.  We have to have the wish and desire.

With that in mind I am writing a dream piece having just returned from a wonderful weekend in California’s Bay Area, specifically mid-Peninsula, staying with friends in Menlo Park and attending Commencement ceremonies at Stanford University.

Given the rudimentary nature of my blogging it may surprise many that I work in high tech: computer software to be exact.  And I have for over 20 years.  I have thus spent a lot of time in the Bay Area and know it well, physically, socially and psychically.  And for me, two places on earth recharge my “batteries”: New York and the Silicon Valley.

From the first time I visited Silicon Valley I have said to myself “Pittsburgh needs more of this.”  I don’t tilt at windmills and I’ve always felt that Pittsburgh has the elements needed to recreate that unique atmosphere found in the Bay Area.  It’s just waiting for a catalyst.  [Negative free ions coming in from the Pacific Ocean notwithstanding.]

I believe most of my blog postings are attempts to specify what those catalysts might be.  But as in all of life, there’s a special magic to how things grow and develop.  We humans “study” things, whether in the physical or social sciences, to determine the how and why.  That’s hard.  I want to go easy here and just dream the un-definable.  So here are some thoughts in no particular order.

SRI, the Stanford Research Institute, in Menlo Park looks a lot like the Reizenstein School area that’s being developed into Bakery Square Two.  This seems to be a prime location for attracting big name, established high tech companies and at the same time incubating local firms that will hopefully become the marquee, big name corporations that will solidify Pittsburgh’s technology future.  Make that redevelopment happen as soon as possible.  Ideas are looking for terra firma to grow in Pittsburgh.

Panther Hollow is an uncut jewel.  I want to see it “developed” end-to-end.  But not overdeveloped.  By that I mean I want the majority of the green hillsides retained.  I would like to see transparent, translucent and transcendent architecture grown into those verdant hillsides.  That’s not hyperbole; look up Panther Hollow toward Pitt’s Cathedral of Learning the next time you head west on the Parkway out of Squirrel Hill [if you dare do that at 60mph coming around the bend] and see what a great set piece that view is.  I would like to see the world’s most notable architects as well as the most innovative up-and-comers put in site-sensitive structures that use modern materials that add significant structures in a way that doesn’t overpower the natural setting.  I want Frank Gehry, Norman Foster, Rem Koolhaas and Herzog & de Meuron, and also a pre-graduate class from CMU’s architecture department to design signature pieces.

Pittsburgh’s Hill District, while showing signs of attention, if not quite revitalization, is another un-polished gem.  Location, location, location is the old real estate expression [as well as useful in single bars] that pertains to the Hill.  But there is a very important historical aspect to the Hill that should be reborn not only because history, and Black history in particular, is important, but because this could be a tourist and development draw.  I myself am a jazz fan; a true fanatic actually.  Pittsburgh’s Hill District gave birth to so many jazz legends I am reluctant to list even a couple as I will be missing so many: Stanley Turrentine, Errol Garner, George Benson, Billy Strayhorn and Billy Eckstein.  The list goes on.  There needs to be residential and commercial development to support any kind of artistic life but perhaps a small museum space or cultural center where jazz can be performed?  I believe the residential redevelopment [it was for decades already a very vibrant community] is inevitable.  So someone [Duquesne University, Carlow University, Pitt – all who share a border with some part of the Hill] anticipate the rebirth and get in there, deeply.

A high or mid rise condominium tower near Pitt’s campus with a spectacular view of the Cathedral of Learning.  Expats like me want a place to come back to especially as we consider our “retirement years”.  [Whatever that expression really means.]  I’m looking for something refined and restrained, elegant, with glass and steel. And notable.  See above and pick an architect.  I think it would be a hit project for the first developer that takes this risk in Oakland.

That’s it for now.  Those are my most pressing ideas at this point.  I may be repeating some of these but …I feel these are worth harping on.

Re-creation in Recreation

The American College of Sports Medicine recently ranked 50 cities for being the most or least fit cities across the nation.  Pittsburgh came in at a respectable number 16, sandwiched in between Raleigh, NC and Philly, and not too far from trendier cities like Denver and Austin.  These lists of rankings, especially when featured on CNN or USAToday are definitely showing their age.  Those of us that took some statistics courses know that with the right criteria, Lagos can be viewed as London.  But this particular ranking got me to thinking about recreation, lifestyles, and the attractiveness of a city for desirable [read: higher income] demographics.

I posit Pittsburgh has all the recreational opportunities, and then some more, of larger or simply better reputed “cool and hip” cities.  Think the ones on every such list: Boulder/Denver, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Diego, and San Francisco Bay Area to name the obvious.  OK, the ocean-side beachfront we will never have.  Deal with it.  But even a large venue for sailing is just a couple hours north on Lake Erie.  And how many really swim off the frigid, shark infested Pacific beaches of northern California?


My point here is not to list Pittsburgh’s recreational opportunities.  That WOULD be tiresome and those that participate already know of them. Well OK.  A few of the outdoor oriented or “extreme” sports include street and BMX biking, mountain hiking and camping, white water sports, flat water sports as in rowing or kayaking, and triathlon.  Then there’s always the great equalizer of participant sports, running, of which Pittsburgh is developing a good core culture and an even better reputation.

 

So what I would like to see is more local political and development leaders play up the participant sports availability.  I note that outdoor recreation is mentioned in most thorough presentations of Pittsburgh’s quality of life.  But it’s never really highlighted.  My contention here is that participant sports attract a higher income and educational level demographic.  Those people form the basis for economic growth.  ESPN and “Sports Illustrated” magazine tout Pittsburgh’s reputation as a “sports town” but that comes with too many pictures [both mental and actual] of clearly overweight fans with their butts firmly placed in seats cheering on the local heroes.  Fun stuff as far as it goes but not always an attraction for 20-something creative types looking to migrate into, or simply stay [after CMU or Pitt degrees are attained] an exciting lifestyle.  More emphasis on serious participant sports and recreation, please.

That’s the Attitude!

Here’s something that’s definitely in the category of not solving world hunger or curing cancer.  But it represents a very hopeful development in the social, and by extension, economic life of Pittsburgh.  And I’m not talking about the Penguins in the playoffs.

A Sunday, May 5, 2013 article in the “Post-Gazette” by food writer and critic Melissa McCart highlighted the influx of new, young, enthusiastic chefs and restaurant entrepreneurs in Pittsburgh.  There’s nothing here that needs to be overly explored.  It’s simply that the article, “Chef Appeal: Pittsburgh's growing restaurant scene attracts staff from bigger cities” was positive from start to finish.  There was never an “and but” in there.  I note that Pittsburghers too often look on the “but” side of things.

I was especially impressed with the comments of these young restauranteurs.  Within the piece there was a dialogue where often Ms. McCart would challenge their positive statements by noting that while this or that is getting better in the Burgh, it’s still a far cry from the more acknowledged food centers.  And in every single instance the reply back from these chefs was “Not so.”  It’s just as good, and in many ways better here.  Wow.

These people represent the kind of energy and attitude that Pittsburgh has been seeking to develop for decades.  This is the spirit that has jumped more than a few generations to hearken back to Carnegie, Mellon and Frick.  It may be simply food and dining out, but those aspects of a city’s life are important social adhesives.  Heck, the Italians and French have built an entire tourist industry on such.  Awesome news Pittsburgh.  Keep the momentum going.

And here’s a postscript: while editing this piece I discovered in the May 7, 2013 edition of the “New York Times” Style section an article titled “Replanting the Rust Belt” featuring the crop of new, sustainable chefs making great food in Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Especially interesting is that they all agree: to be great cities, great food is needed.  For sure!

It's the Employment Thing

It’s been widely reported that metro Pittsburgh generated a paltry 2,000 jobs in the latest Quarter and its unemployment rate shot up a full percentage point from the mid-sixes to the mid-sevens.  Even with the caveat that unemployment rates for specific metro areas are less exact than national numbers [is the phrase “even less exact” a better characterization?] this is still a disturbing trend.

Is Pittsburgh back to status of first-into-recession/last-out?  Well, maybe, sort of.

Things are not as good anywhere as reported and, I personally believe, getting worse over in the entire US economy. But what explains Pittsburgh’s next to last ranking among large metro areas when it comes to job creation?

Is it the tax climate? What about Minneapolis or Boston - they're worse than Pittsburgh. Is it the weather climate? Oh c'mon, can't use that excuse given growth in other cities with far worse weather. And besides, one man’s “bad weather” is another’s “outdoor recreation opportunity”. Is it an "inside the center/outside the center" thing? By that I mean Allegheny and much of Washington and Butler counties have people that could be from anywhere else in the country, New York to L.A. But travel to the more outlying counties and we too often find, as but one example, lower educational levels.  Having traveled throughout that territory I can personally attest that the attitude of locals is too often less than welcoming to outside interests. You’ve got to want economic development before outsiders will look at you.  But I digress.

Is it reporting problems? How can Pittsburgh be SO far behind after being at the forefront recently? I mean PNC is growing, Dick's Sporting Goods is growing, I see new hotels and stores everywhere, just look at South Hills Village and Ross Park. But the retail hiring took a huge hit in the numbers I saw. So what is it?  I don’t have answers but the questions need asked.

If Pittsburgh and the central counties need to bear the burden of metro economic development then that’s just the way it is.  Here’s one thought.  In previous posts I’ve fingered CMU, as important as they are to Pittsburgh, for what I see as mediocre commitment to local economic development. From what I can tell, Cohon’s administration has not done enough to bring development into Pittsburgh. Currently, CMU exports most of its talent to the Silicon Valley. I pray the new President Suresh, from MIT with its enviable development record in Boston, will be different. Have you been to Cambridge recently? It's already living 2050 in terms of what is being researched there, especially around MIT. Oakland needs that. Redo Panther Hollow as a Silicon Hollow I say!

 

One win. One loss.

The new Pittsburgh Dataworks consortium announced last week is the start of what can be a big win. Of all the good things happening in Pittsburgh economically, this has the potential to be the biggest. Yes, bigger than gas extraction from the Marcellus shale.

Big data is where it's going. It's moving very fast however and Pittsburgh is merely "on trend", maybe even behind the curve. The Bay Area and Boston are years ahead. But it’s very important here that IBM is involved. That's huge given the history of what happens when IBM stakes a claim.

Consider the Silicon Valley. Admittedly it was first a plucky company called Fairchild Semiconductor that basically "started" the Silicon Valley. But when IBM put down roots a few years later and eventually transferred some hundred engineers from New York, the Valley really took off. That was now over 50 years ago.  A more recent example is Austin. IBM established its engineering group for PCs, in conjunction with the Micro Chip Consortium [MCC] in the late 70s, taking off in the early 80s. IBM is still in Austin with a massive campus just north of town. The rest is history, as they say. That was approximately 30 years ago.  Big [bang] economic development takes time, but it's gotta start somewhere.

It will take some time for Pittsburgh’s efforts and technology has a much shorter "half life" these days. That does concern me. But big data probably isn't going away. And the folks that work in big data are geniuses; PhDs in mathematics mostly. Big data people make big money. They supply high value add and are rewarded as such.  This is a big win.

 

A big loss was recorded this week when Texas A&M University with Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced GlaxoSmithKline, headquartered in Pennsylvania by the way, will partner with A&M to build a $91million flu vaccine facility.  Seems to me that Pitt and UPMC had been exploring a drug development and testing facility in Pittsburgh but gave up saying there wasn’t enough government subsidy for the project.

I am sure there were differences in the proposals and maybe even the configuration of the two facilities.  I remember that Pitt’s facility was estimated to cost well north of $100 million.  But was private sector involvement by a pharmaceutical firm ever considered? Note too that MD Anderson Cancer Center is also involved in the Texas site.  I believe UPMC’s Cancer Center is ranked top 10 in the US but MD Anderson is usually considered number one.  OK, but, putting the pieces together to make this happen is a huge boost for biomedical jobs in Houston [the big city close to A&M at College Station] but also central Texas as well.  Both places are already enjoying the nation’s best economic growth rates.

The oil and gas sector won’t grow forever.  But healthcare and pharmaceuticals will always be a part of human existence.  Pitt and UPMC should have worked harder for something like this facility.  I suspect however there is great need for others.  Pittsburgh should make sure it’s next up to the plate.

 

Easy Pickin's

A story this week in the “Austin Business Journal” features Silverton Partners and their recent success with moving Pittsburgh incubated start ups down to Austin. Hey, that’s the great thing about America and the capitalist system: mobility as a component of economic advancement.  But by using “Pittsburgh” as a stand-in punching bag for its self promotion, the ABJ got me thinking: why does Silverton have multiple successes luring Pittsburgh bred high tech to central Texas?

To level set, as best I can tell, Silverton has done this twice.  Once with a company named BlackLocus and another with Insurance Zebra.  Let’s acknowledge that two data points make a line but not a long term trend.  Silverton has had a couple winners this way and being smart they are making public relations hay with the story.

Both companies came through Pittsburgh’s South Side-based Alpha Labs organization.  Obviously Alpha Labs is in business to nurture and grow technology centric companies.  But according to their own Web site, helping the Pittsburgh region grow the number of those companies is also a goal.  This from the Web site:

“Do we have to stay in Pittsburgh after the program ends?

Companies are expected to remain in the Pittsburgh region after the end of their program. Our goal is to help you build a successful technology company while adding to the critical mass of flourishing tech companies in the region.

We believe that Pittsburgh is a great place to build a company and after your experience at AlphaLab, we're confident you'll agree.”

Hmmmm, seems like Alpha Labs track record is spotty.

I’ve got a couple of concerns.  First I have to question Alpha Labs work.  C’mon, Silverton wasn’t the only smart guys in the room when the “beauty contests” were being staged in front of VCs.  [Both BlackLocus and Insurance Zebra presented their business plans at nationally recognized conferences for venture capitalists.]  I have a hard time believing that folks at Alpha Labs didn’t know they had a couple of startups in their midst with good prospects for “events” such as a sale or a public offering.  Where’s the vision at one of Pittsburgh’s top incubators?

But I also have to question the work done by one of Alpha Labs sponsors, Carnegie Mellon University.  I have a dog in this hunt for a lot of reasons.  CMU is a bedrock of Pittsburgh’s growing innovation reputation.  My baby brother, as well as his wife, are CMU grads.  And I contribute annually to CMU’s gift giving campaign.  [For full disclosure, I’m a Pitt alum and it is the love of my life.]  So it pains me to see that CMU has done a less than stellar job of not only keeping its talent in Pittsburgh, it also has not pulled its weight in term of local economic development, in my humble opinion.  Stanford doesn’t let their incubated companies stray too far from the Bay Area.  Heck even the University of Texas has been wildly successful in retaining startups in Austin.  But CMU?  They’ve practically acknowledged defeat in Pittsburgh with their new Silicon Valley campus.  From the looks of it, that West Coast beachead is a one way street out of Panther Hollow for the sunny shores of San Francisco Bay.  [Albeit next to the 101.]

There’s a good piece in a recent CNN online edition written by a Harvard MBA student telling Boston powers-that-be why so much Boston area talent heads to New York or Silicon Valley upon graduation.  Dated March 18, 2013, authored by Jon Lai, and featured on CNN.com or “Fortune” magazine’s Web site, the piece could be a list of issues any American city faces, other than New York, San Francisco and to a lesser extent, Austin with its currently high “cool” factor.  Retaining talent and their output is not easy.  But Pittsburgh needs to get better at it.  BlackLocus is but one example of what happens when it goes right.  By the way, they were bought early on by the Home Depot Corporation.  They are now a software development center for Home Depot.  That development center could have located anywhere.  It should have been Pittsburgh.  It’s now another feather in Austin’s cap.  Don’t make the pickins so easy next time.

Access to Talent

Progress is often made at the margins and in small ways.  Today’s “Pittsburgh Business Times” reports that a New Jersey company, Ness Technologies, is opening a development center in Southpointe, Washington County.  I believe the key phrase in their announcement is the following:

”In a news release, Ness said it was drawn to the Pittsburgh region by its proximity to the region's colleges and associated talent pool.”

This is what we want to hear: a talent pool associated with local universities.  It’s the phrase you read over and over in places like Denver, Boston, Seattle and Austin.  Those of us working in high tech know that the San Francisco Bay Area has an overabundance of both talent and higher educational institutions pumping out that talent; that’s uncontested.

But the wagon Pittsburgh should hitch to is the one where operations from higher cost locales look to lower cost areas where the quality of life and the brainpower provides a natural place to co-locate and grow.  Obviously I believe Pittsburgh has offered that for a long time.  There’s always need for more efforts to get the word out because there are unlimited opportunities to tap into that need.

That Vision Thing

 

I was in Park City this last weekend and was thinking how small that town is to host fifty thousand film people. [The locals told me it is horrible during Sundance.] That may be why hundreds of condos have spouted up in the hills just within the two years since last I visited, even in this economic climate. There's money to be made hosting visitors, even if only for a couple weeks a year.

My baby sister was with me and she and I agreed on an observation: when you look at Park City you realize it really is just a redone mining town in a narrow hollow. Admittedly it’s a mining town with 8,000 ft peaks surrounding it, all subject to “the greatest snow on earth”.  But except for the well tended houses painted in fashionable colors, it could be any old mining town in western PA. My sister's comment was interesting.  She noted that while Elrama, Elizabeth or Monesson [and we hale from that part of the world so I'm not picking on those towns] are not going to sprout 5-star resorts any time soon, maybe a "little vision" is what some of these places need.

Ya, that vision thing.  You have to imagine it, dream it, before you can make it into reality.  Many small towns in the South and Texas [two different places and perspectives for those who don’t know] seemingly overreach when it comes to Chamber of Commerce boasting.  On many drives through the South you will note billboards advertising “charming shops and restaurants” or “antiquing galore”, when the reality is a local diner and some used furniture or second hand stores.  But that’s OK; they're trying.

And sometimes they succeed, even mightily.  For example, glossy upscale travel journals have touted places like Fredericksburg and Salado, Texas.  These towns really are nice places to spend a long day or a weekend.  They have both developed points of historical interest, very good restaurants, charming B&B’s and “boutique” [sort of] inns.  A main street with one or two dozen shops for the well heeled can provide jobs and enough cash flow to fix up the overall look. And that's often enough to make the most hardened factory or field worker come to expect a great cup of coffee in the morning or a decent restaurant meal on the weekend.  It raises everyone’s standards and expectations, even if it doesn’t and is not meant to, change their overall lifestyle.  It’s hard work to grow income organically [that’s what big city ecosystems are for].  It’s a lot easier to attract and capture income that’s been generated somewhere else.

But ya gotta have the vision first.  You have to have the desire to bring others into your world.  I hope it’s coming for many places in western PA.

Hotels and Hospitality

I believe hotels and lodging are a hole in Pittsburgh’s economy waiting to be filled.  What got me thinking on this topic, just when I was afraid that after two blog postings I had run out of ideas for thinkingPittsbugh?  A stroll across downtown Austin headed to a friend’s condominium in the W Hotel inspired me.   No it’s not the W Hotel that has me thinking – in my opinion the W chain is simply a limited amenity/high price point product that if you want something “hip” better to stay at the local Aloft.  Most of the time W hotels are only marginally comfortable and oddly styled.  If Pittsburgh never sees that marque on its skyline it will validate the City’s reputation for integrity.

 

No, I was passing the gaping block long crater on Congress  Avenue that will become the Austin JW Marriott.  JW Marriott is relatively upscale and sized large for convention business.  This is the big hole in Pittsburgh’s hospitality offering and one that many in City Hall, the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, and more than a couple developers have been trying to fill for decades.  More certainly since Pittsburgh’s shiny, acclaimed LEED Platinum convention center opened up.  So why is Austin, with a convention center half the size of Pittsburgh’s, not to mention a smaller airport and overall population, getting this 1,000+ room monster as well as a new Westin and Fairmont downtown?  “Hospitality” is my theory.

 

A knowledgeable friend who manages real estate investments for wealthy foreign investors tells me that his clients basically trust three markets in the world: London, New York and San Francisco; and mostly just the first two.  So with that as background he takes a very skeptical view of supposed tier one markets in the US, Austin being one of those along with Boston, DC, and Los Angeles, among others, and tier two and below markets, where Pittsburgh lies.  Right now he says it is almost impossible to obtain financing for large hotels on either the construction loan phase or the long term take out that commercial investors provide.  Obviously up front equity is key to getting a project out of the ground.  But what determines the environment where deep pocketed equity partners fund a large hotel project?

 

Turns out it’s more apparent than one would think.  The city where a project gets built needs to have a reputation, a culture, a history of hospitality.  Think New York, New Orleans and San Francisco.  Places that welcome visitors as well as have attractions that people want to see.  How did Austin get on that list having only been around for some 100 plus years and with maybe a live music and a restaurant scene a little different than most other places?  Well, that’s exactly how it got on that list.  That and hard work by folks who believe they have reasons people will spend travel dollars to access a concentration of live music, a whole bunch of Tex-Mex restaurants, and a college town atmosphere where bar hopping in fewer than the usual amount of clothing is not considered anything to be remarked upon.

 

They put that together and came up with what I call The Big Three: South by Southwest Music Festival [expanded to Interactive Media, Film, and Education festival weeks], ACL Music Festival [about to go to two separate weekends], and now, Formula One racing on the only dedicated F1 track in America [strategically situated driving distance from Mexico and a short flight from the rest of Latin America].  I won’t go into the economic details of these three events.  Let it stand that all three bring in visitors for at least a week, with SXSW accounting for over two and a half weeks of activities.  Each event brings in over 100,000 visitors who are ready to spend money on a good time.  And with SXSW, where corporate sponsors and attendees use it as essentially a marketing event, the money spent on local hospitality is astounding.  Hotels are filled for literally 70 miles in all directions.

 

The economic benefits are many and varied but to the point of this post, it’s how three events can really generate the business to sustain both hospitality and general development in hundreds of millions of dollars and adding thousands of jobs.  My aforementioned real estate investor friend confirmed to me a while back that the economics for hotel owners is simple.  During the total six weeks these events represent annually, the room revenue is high enough [sometimes triple and always at least double rack rates for the rest of the year] that the hotel operators make their base line revenue within these weeks.  The rest of the year is gravy.  And those new condo towers in downtown Austin with prices that few locals can afford?  Well, local reports note that eight condos valued over $500K each were sold in one building as a result of F1 weekend.

 

Pittsburgh is a city of “real men” who “build things”.  That’s engrained in its collective DNA; its mental image of itself.  Whether the resident is actually male or female, it’s the internal perception that creates a big part of the reality.  The most common factor spoken by local economic development officials whenever the Pittsburgh area scores a development win: XYZ Company came here due to the “work ethic” of local residents.  There is little room for partying in Pittsburgh, nosireebob.  Jobs related to hospitality and entertainment are somehow second rate.  The question needs to be asked, “Really?”  When good hospitality jobs pay more than average salaries in most other business sectors, when an outsider’s perception of a city as being enjoyable can lead to future investments, and when a welcoming environment yields overall benefits to the quality of life, can anyone still say a city, Pittsburgh or any city, doesn’t need more party?  Laissez les bon temps roulez!   Government officials, third-party economic development agencies, and energetic local boosters of all stripes need to encourage “hospitality”.  Entertainment events involving collective activities centered on enjoyment, that is.  The City has examples already of how the Steelers and Penguins generate economic vitality downtown whenever they are playing.  Fun should not be only related to sitting in a seat watching a sporting event.  It’s time to get creative on the fun factor, Pittsburgh.

Of Friendly, Welcoming and Growing

I’ve been thinking lately of similarities and differences between my current hometown, Austin, TX [yes I’ve just outed myself on that one] and former hometown, Pittsburgh.  At some future point I’ll detail why in my opinion Austin and Pittsburgh are so uniquely similar, and similar in unique ways.  But for this posting I draw on conversations over the years of living in each place.  I believe I have now reached a point where I have lived in Austin for as many years as I lived in Pittsburgh.  OK, for clarification, I grew up and resided through college in “the Pittsburgh area”.  The City line was about five miles up the road from my burg.  To Pittsburghers, that’s an important distinction.  Michael Chabon, another nominee in my pantheon of Pittsburgh saints [even though he currently writes from “Bizerkeley”, CA] lectured one night at Southwestern University in Georgetown, TX about 15 miles north of Austin and I was fortunate to have attended.  He began the lecture by explaining to the gathered Texans that even though he loved Pittsburgh, and wrote lovingly of it, AND considered himself a Pittsburgher, to “native” Pittsburghers he would never be one.  He noted that Pittsburgh’s a place where, close to quoting him here, if you were born just a step outside the City line, and the moment you could take a breath you were whisked across that line into Pittsburgh, you would not be considered a “Pittsburgher” by the City’s natives.  I believe the audience shared the joke partially because Texans resemble that remark.

But this leads me into my comment for this post.  Years back I had lunch at the Holiday Inn in Pittsburgh’s Oakland section with a “mover and shaker” who directed a joint effort between CMU and Pitt to incubate technology companies from the universities’ academic pursuits.  He said something that I have carried with me ever since: “Pittsburghers are friendly but not welcoming”.  And he meant it as an indictment resulting in an impediment to growth.  He said that enterprises found it easier than one might think bringing talent into Pittsburgh as their initial impressions were usually good and they found the social climate “friendly”.  [I seem to remember local TV station KDKA in the 70s used the moniker “The Friendly City”.]  The problem was that those new transplants too often left after a relatively short amount of time.   In leaving, they took ideas, training and often whole enterprises with them.  And where did they go?  Places like Austin, but also other places either more socially welcoming like North Carolina and Atlanta or places more economically wide open like Seattle and the Silicon Valley.  The mover and shaker believed that along with more developed sources of capital funding, a more welcoming social net would equalize in and out migrations to something consistent with economically dynamic cities.

Think of why you shop at a particular hardware store, frequent your preferred airline, or settle in a certain neighborhood.  I’d be willing to bet these and dozens of similar decisions are made due to social bonds.  People who welcome us into their lives get a hold on us that makes all the other things around us fade to the background; one example being your neighborhood.  You love your ‘hood.  You grill with neighbors and share the picnic.  You gossip over a glass of your preferred refresher.  You worry about someone up the street who you haven’t seen in while.   Sure, in the midst of all that you don’t like the paint color on a neighbor’s house.  Or worse, the crying need for fresh paint, whatever the color.  Maybe there appears a wall with graffiti a couple blocks over nearer the highway.  Or you’ve reached the end with a neighbor’s dog using your front yard as their latrine.  But overall, the social network keeps you grounded to your neighborhood.  And as a result, you’re reluctant to leave for another part of town, or part of the country.  For newcomers, THAT’S what was missing in Pittsburgh, I’ve been told.

I contrast that view with Austin.  Back in the 90s when I first moved here there was a guy in my startup company who was originally from Cleveland, OH.  He even graduated from UT’s football rival Ohio State.  He told me the reason he settled in Austin was that after motorbike touring the country during his vacations, he never encountered a place as “welcoming” [his words] as Austin.  I hear that same comment all the time in the local Austin media.  After big events such as ACL Fest and SXSW you’ll hear and read of entertainers, business people or just participant fans say they decided to look for work or housing and move here because so many people open their homes, hearts and attitudes to them.

Pittsburgh has come so far economically in the last 20-plus years so it’s now seeing higher in-migration.  And often Pittsburghers will ask newcomers, sometimes sheepishly fearing a veiled put-down I suppose, “Why did you move here?”    By contrast, I interact daily with Texans who are not only natives, they are fifth and sixth and beyond generation natives.  And their attitude to me is always “What took you so long to get here?”  So I end this piece with a question.  Or lots of questions.  What attitudes need to change?  Can you change the character of a city quickly enough to keep up with the pace of global economic change?  Can you rely on an initial core group of newcomers, perhaps themselves more open to other newcomers, to form the basis of social and economic progress?

Welcome - Some Initial Thoughts

Well, here goes; my first attempt at public blogging.  Well, it’s actually my first public blog realized.  Up front apologies to anyone reading this for whom it turns out to be not worth the time.  But as metaphysicians teach us, no energy is wasted.  So on to topics of Pittsburgh.

My goal here is to put out into the blogosphere topics of concern to those lucky enough to live in Pittsburgh and its surrounds as well as those interested in what happens to this essential American city.

I am not currently fired up about any issue in particular, outside of Big Ben’s lackluster play during the 2012 season.  But since my aim here is not to devolve into discussion of Pittsburgh sports, unless it involves civic development, I’ll leave those thoughts to others with more knowledge of the topic.  As a kind and gentle first blogging, allow me to pay tribute to two individuals who should be recognized as Pittsburgh pillars.

The “Pittsburgh Quarterly” magazine, published and edited by Doug Heuck, is a civic treasure.  Doug’s contribution to the intellectual development of Pittsburgh needs to be acknowledged.  The magazine’s byline reads “where commerce and culture meet” and isn’t that two of the bedrocks of Pittsburgh’s development over the centuries.  Pittsburgh is an agora.  A place where individuals and ideas meet, manifest in the confluence of its three rivers.  As I was taught in urban studies class many years back, there are “natural” cities scattered across the planet.  And only a few in the United States: New York, San Francisco, Pittsburgh and maybe Boston.  Places where a “city” – a nexus of commerce – had to form due to natural, geologic and geographic forces.  Doug is continuing the forward movement of those forces in Pittsburgh. That’s hopefully stimulating others to expand the intellectual crucible placing Pittsburgh in the same commercial and cultural class as America’s other “natural” cities.

Can I nominate Holly Brubach to the pantheon of Pittsburgh saints?  She has written truthfully, poignantly, incisively and always lovingly of her hometown.  The list of Holly’s writings is found on Amazon.com as well as the archives of the New York “Times”, “The New Yorker” magazine, and several fashion journals.  She needs neither introduction nor praise from me.  But a piece she did for “Departures” magazine in the July/August 2012 issue rates a shout out even six months later.   Titled “In a Pittsburgh State of Mind”, simply put, Holly nailed it.  From the glowing photos wonderfully lacking in all the usual Chamber of Commerce shots [although for Pittsburgh we always want more of those to be spread around], to her prose that lightly touched on all that has changed over a couple generations but were mentioned only as a springboard to discuss the magic that is Pittsburgh, Holly showed an insight that makes a reporter an insightful story teller.  “Departures” is unfortunately not a generally available publication.  It’s the in-house pamphlet for conspicuous consumption of those possessing an American Express Platinum card.  [Note to readers: I acquired my issue from a friend.]  But we should all celebrate such a wonderful piece of writing aimed at a target demographic who should know more about Pittsburgh.