PITTSBURGH

[Allan]

I have to agree with monsoon & Heckles on the beltway. Beltways just lead to more congested roads and more sprawl, which almost always has a negative impact on the central city.

[BrandonTO416]

In one of my earlier posts, something could easily be taken out of context unless I explain.

Pittsburgh shouldn't be afraid of tearing down old decrepit housing or the like - if and only if there are clear plans to redevelop with new urban stuff.

Example. Let's pretend there were like 10 city blocks with almost completely vacant housing such as this (this isn't vacant or completely decrepit, but you get the idea)

Now this stuff on the other hand looks cool when rennovated!

[BrandonTO416]

ACTUALLY. I think the first two pics could be rennovated quite a bit to be livable and be perfectly fine - its just I question whether the investment to rennovate it would be better then just tearing down and building new urbanist style housing in its place.

[DBR96]

The thing is, it's not only the city that's been losing population. It's the whole region. Pittsburgh was the only one of the 25 largest metropolitan areas in the country to lose population during the 1990s. That's not good. Part of the reason for this population loss was the fact that overall job growth was not nearly as fast as it should've been. And part of the reason job growth hasn't been fast enough is because of infrastructure deficiencies in the Pittsburgh. region. There've been several companies in the past 10 years that considered expanding in/relocating to Pittsburgh, but that ultimately chose other cities, and one of the recurring reasons for their decisions to turn down Pittsburgh was "poor transportation infrastructure and mobility." Based on my observations, the healthiest cities (economically) have BOTH good public transit AND a good highway system. Pittsburgh has neither of those at the time. As for sprawl, I don't think a partial beltway would promote sprawl as much as some people think. For one; it's a PARTIAL beltway; not a big ring like I-285 or I-270. Also, remember that the terrain in the area isn't as flat as it is in cities like Atlanta or St. Louis. The terrain would make sprawling more difficult than normal.

[BrandonTO416]

Well, in regards to the businesses not choosing Pittsburgh for transportation, I think the solution is to continue expanding the transit system - particularly the T. And in addition, taking existing interstates and expanding them to 8 lanes; while making the PA Turnpike non-tolled.

Pittsburgh already has one of the best airports in the world, so that isn't the issue.

[monsoon]

[BrandonTO416]

That may be true, but Pittsburgh still needs to pro-actively go after corporations and jobs. That means having a government agency, local politicians, and chambers of commerce actively visiting businesses well outside the region, calling them, making them offers until they actually come.