Stick to the Game Plan

Let’s face it.  The reason anyone starts a blog site is a bit of ego, some hubris, and lots of need to get things off their chest.  Guilty as charged.

So with that as an introduction I need to say that I believe there are so many good things happening in Pittsburgh now, and the City finally, FINALLY, has taken on a more optimistic spirit, with local cheerleaders aplenty, that besides an occasional special shout out to something of particularly exciting import, I am left with pointing out areas I perceive as lacking.  If you, the reader, can stand for that on a periodic schedule, thank you and read on.

A September 4, 2015 article in the “Post-Gazette” headlined “Tech industry driving office growth in Oakland and beyond”.  Duh uh.  The “tech industry” is about the only thing, other than healthcare, driving office growth anywhere, in this country at least.  Forty years ago or so the various economic development groups in Pittsburgh all realized the best path to revitalization was using Pittsburgh’s higher education community to build up a “technology” sector.  While that decision was prescient in hindsight to most of us and merely “on trend” to the really smart folks who lived economic development, something interesting happened on the way to building a technology based economy: “technology” became the economy.

Technology is THE engine of the 21^st century economy.  Heck, it’s the engine of our lives.  I realize that sounds like a platitude these days, akin to lending insight into the obvious, but it’s the reality that needs a full hearted embrace by the larger community.  “Dem mills ain’t comin back”.  Sorry but take a look at any employment report for Pittsburgh or the US in the last 20 years and it will tell you there’s a continual decline in our manufacturing sector overall.  Within that sector however it’s the “high tech” manufacturing that shows at least some income growth.  And that’s the story of all sectors.  Technological advances drive steelmaking, auto manufacture, healthcare, finance, retail, communications, and on and on.  If you can name it, it is an industry that is growing because of technology advances.

So let’s dispense with any lingering reverse snobbery in this region that still believes men and women who work in offices and research labs are somehow not as “authentic” as guys who 50 years ago sweated at much physical risk in a steel mill.  Technology IS today’s industry.  And everyone else is in a sector meant to serve the larger purpose of technology.  But I’ll leave that line of thought for a future screed.