Pittsburgh Builds On Its Steel Legacy

By Tim Puko, FrontDoor.com | Published: 2/12/2009

Pittsburgh's growth depends on how the city confronts the problems the steel industry left behind.

Any profile of Pittsburgh usually inspires a perfunctory mention of the city's history of steelmaking dominance from 30 years past and its subsequent economic collapse. But newcomers to the area would find no usefulness in this stale reference.

Rather, locals are focusing on the innovative spirit that fueled Pittsburgh's former glory and channeling it toward the growth of a new kind of economy.

Long before southwestern Pennsylvania was home to the rigid, dying steel industry, it was a birthplace for ideas. Not only steel, but oil energy, electricity, aluminum manufacturing and air brakes all have their origins closely tied to the region. Pittsburgh's steel industry launched in the 19th century when the city was a crucible of capitalist investment -- new industries sprouting, startup businesses growing fast and some burning out even faster -- that local leaders want re-created today.

"One of the continuing threads that we've seen is that this is an area that is welcoming to new ideas, that supports new ideas, that has people willing to take a chance on new ideas," said Anne Madarasz, museum division director at the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh. "That's one of the reasons we've had this metamorphosis over time, that we didn't die in the late 1970s. We had already set the seeds. ... and had a new economy to grow out of that old regional economy that others didn't."

Building On Its Steel Foundation

The steel industry scarred the region, but it also left behind the foundation for Pittsburgh's reinvention. That new economy started with health and higher education, two sectors built decades ago because of the success of steel. The next hope for Pittsburgh is its tech sector, rich with startup spinoffs from the local universities, often using the same land, the same workspaces and the same infrastructure that steel left behind. The question is how far that can take the region.

It has been 10 years since the Wall Street Journal dubbed the town "Roboburgh" because of its growing robotics industry, and now tech companies pay some of the best salaries and make up more than a quarter of employee wages in the region, according to the Pittsburgh Technology Council's State of the Industry Report.

"The convergence of advanced technologies and innovation, a well educated workforce and a strong industrial heritage, has repositioned Pittsburgh as one of today's choice destinations for corporate locations or expansions," said Michael Langley, CEO of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development. "Despite a global economic crisis, the Pittsburgh region economy remains strong, and employment is at a near-record high."

Many smelly mills have disappeared, their rusty remnants razed to make room for new shopping centers, corporate headquarters and new research complexes. Regional leaders are pushing another renaissance. They're promoting Pittsburgh's high concentration of green buildings and selling its old-style neighborhoods to environmentally aware and cost-conscious consumers who want to walk to work, shops and theaters.

Bringing New Life to Downtown

Much of this development has improved Pittsburgh dramatically in just the past 10 to 15 years, said Luis F. Rico-Gutierrez, director of Carnegie Mellon University's Remaking Cities Institute.

"We walked about a block to Liberty Avenue (downtown on our first night in Pittsburgh). It was a little like an old Western movie, empty, desolate. Instead of tumbleweeds, there were Giant Eagle (supermarket) bags. And my wife said, 'Where did you bring me?' ... I don't think that happens anymore," said Rico-Gutierrez who arrived in 1996 after working in Mexico and Spain, and he has lived in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood ever since.

The Cultural District has enlivened the downtown area since then, and Pittsburghers have found renewed confidence in their town, he said. "The people I met were wonderful to me. I feel I can contribute to the place. ... My kids love Pittsburgh. You can talk about anywhere in the world and they always bring it back and say 'Well, my city's better.' ... I can walk to places, it's very commercial, it's also very real. You know, we're seeing a little bit less of that, but I can walk out and speak with the person whose selling the produce and the next block will be a school, a hospital, a little business selling magazines."

NEXT: Overcoming challenges to build a new economy >>

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