Baltimore Travel Writer Gives 'Burgh Great Review

http://www.baltimoresun.com/travel/bal-tr.pittsburgh12aug12,0,5801764.story

Young People Can't Find a Job in Pittsburgh? Wrong!

Great news for new college graduates in the region. According to CollegeGrad.com, three local companies are among the top 100 nationally in 2007 for entry-level hiring. The complete list is here.

So who are these local companies where you young folks should apply? PNC, 84 Lumber and Education Management Corporation (EDMC). 84 Lumber is projected to hire 1,700 new graduates; PNC- 1350; and EDMC- 625. Obviously, all of these positions being filled are not local. But according to last Friday's Pittsburgh Business Times, 60% of PNC's new grad hires will be local and about 400 of EDMC's will be.

In addition, there are many other companies on the list who have a local presence and will be hiring new grads in the Pittsburgh area.

While we're on the subject, I have to address an issue for young people setting out to interview soon. My wife is a manager in her company and she has recently been interviewing/sifting through resumes (95% of whom are new grads) deciding who she is going to hire. You wouldn't believe the horror stories she has about clueless new grads and their interviewing skills. Let me give you a few tips:

1. Wear a suit! Whether you're male or female doesn't matter. EVERYONE should wear a suit. And khakis do not count and are not acceptable.

2. Answer the question! I don't care how idiotic a question you are asked in an interview, DON'T refuse to answer it (as one of my wife's recent, young interviewees did).

3. Remove personal interests from your resume. Honestly, no one cares that your hobbies include being the biggest Harry Potter fan in the world. In fact, it will creep most people out.

4. Your resume must be PERFECT! Punctuation and grammar MUST be 100% perfect. Running it through a spell-check doesn't count. Look it over in detail and have other people look at it too.

5. Don't say what your REAL goals are! If you're applying for a job that is not related to your field and that you don't plan on making a career, KEEP THAT TO YOURSELF. Am I telling you to lie? Yes, if you want to get hired. No one wants to hire someone who is going to quit in four months after they find a job in their field. Let me clarify- I am not telling you to lie about your accomplishments and credentials, just your intentions.

Good luck, young bucks! I hope you find a good job and stay in the region.

Three Pittsburgh Suburbs Rank in Top 10 Nationally for Affordability

Money Magazine recently ranked the Best Places to Live in 2007. There were actually several different rankings they did, including the list of the Top 25 Places Where Homes are Most Affordable. This list was compiled by taking into account average income in a town and average housing price (i.e. where salaries actually enable people to afford to buy a home in the local market).



Anyway, West Mifflin, Penn Hills and Brentwood all ranked in the top 10 nationally for affordability. Here is a link to the Trib's coverage of this.



It's some thing that all Pittsburghers know already, but it's good to see us getting some national pub for it.

Pittsburgh Region Adds 9,200 Jobs in May

It's been almost a month since my last post. That's not because there hasn't been any good news. I was just on vacation, etc. Onward to the news...

The region's economy improved again, adding over 9,200 jobs last month. And Allegheny County's unemployment rate of 3.9% was well below the national avergae of 4.5% as well as the state average of 4.2%

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/business/s_514396.html

Naysayers point out that this job growth rate is still barely a trickle in a region with 1.15 million jobs. But I ask you- isn't it better than LOSING jobs? Be patient, people. It IS getting better.

Hate the Game, Not the City: More Good Rankings for Pittsburgh

In recent years many organizations have created rankings about whatever subject they specialize in, in most cases expressly for the purpose of creating publicity and/or brand awareness for their company or their products. Some of the rankings are done scientifically, but most are just done by arbitrary voting or by cherry-picking statistics.

Tourist and business development organizations around the country use these rankings as promotional tools for their cities. And each city's naysayers (in Pittsburgh it is the anti-yinzers and yinzers alike) try to downplay anything positive and glorify the negative.

Anyway, any time Pittsburgh gets a nice ranking, you'll always see it talked about here. But I must have missed a few. The Trib had a great article Sunday that compiled several good rankings Pittsburgh has received recently.

You can read the article to find out all of the specifics, but here are a few of the phrases used to describe Pittsburgh (by completely independent sources): "bargain destination", "geek-friendly", "city of the future", "cleanest cities", "best arts destination", "hot for business relocation and expansion".

Must Read Column Alert!

Wow! A Pittsburgh columnist writes something positive? This is such a rare occurrence that I almost didn't comprehend it. Ruth Ann Dailey wrote a great column in the Post-Gazette today called "Loving the Pittsburgh we have". A great read.

This column is in the very spirit of this blog. It very easily could have been titled "Wake up Yinzers and people who think they're not Yinzers but by virtue of being negative really are Yinzers, and realize what we have here!" Enjoy.

Pittsburgh Ranked in Top 10 Best Places to Relocate a Family

Another day, another good ranking for Pittsburgh. And at least this one won't be disputed by locals because it is common knowledge.

Pittsburgh ranked sixth among 50 "large" metro areas (population over 1.25 million) in a ranking of the "2007 Best Cities for Relocating Families", published by Worldwide ERC and Primacy Relocation.

The five "big" cities that finished ahead of Pittsburgh on the list were all actually smaller than Pittsburgh: 1. Fort Worth-Arlington, TX; 2. Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro, TN; 3. Kansas City, MO-KS; 4. Indianapolis-Carmel, IN; 5. Austin-Round Rock, TX.

In my opinion, a "big" city is one that has at least 2 million in the metro area. None of these is that big (KC is close). So in my opinion, Pittsburgh really ranked #1 among big cities!

Interesting to see where cities supposedly "similar" to Pittsburgh ranked: #14 Detroit, #22 Cleveland.

The Bottom Five: 50. Miami; 49. NYC/NJ; 48. Chicago; 47. Fort Lauderdale; 46. Philadelphia.

We're, Like...Really Good at Medical Stuff

As most people who live in the region already know, the local medical/healthcare industry has gradually, over the last 35 years, replaced manufacturing as the backbone of the Pittsburgh economy. UPMC and other Pittsburgh medical institutions are consistently ranked very highly in national publications. I think we take these assets for granted and don't praise them enough.

I've got to tell you, there are some very impressive things going on in Oakland lately that deserve some recognition. Check out these recent headlines:

• Children's Hospital Surgeon to Lead National Study on Head Trauma
• UPMC Doctors Perform First U.S. "Beating Heart" Transplant
• DOD Taps UPMC to Run Its First Injury Prevention and Performance Enhancement Laboratory

Good job, guys!

We Have Less A-hole Drivers than Most Cities

Well, the annual AutoVantage road rage survey is out. And Pittsburgh is ranked as having the second most courteous drivers in America, behind only Portland, Oregon. Miami had the most road ragers for the second year in a row.

As a serial angry driver myself, I don't have a grasp on the concept of not road raging. But I guess the rest of my Pittsburgh brethren do. The next time you see one of these rare road ragers in the 'Burgh, it's probably me. Sorry. Anyway, congratulations for being good drivers, Pittsburgh!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/15/road.rage.ap/index.html

Pittsburgh Adds 10K Jobs in March; Local unemployment at lowest level in 37 Years!

The Pittsburgh region added 9,900 jobs in March, pushing the local unemployment rate down to 3.6%, a figure that is better than both the state (3.7%) and national (4.4%) averages and is the region's best showing since 1970. The year-over-year increase was 6,700 jobs.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/business/s_505397.html
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07121/782320-28.stm

Critics might say that 9,900 or 6,700 jobs is nothing in a region with 1.15 million jobs, or that the job growth is in the low-paying service sector or the temporary construction sector. But wouldn't you agree that it is better than LOSING jobs?

Pittsburgh Rated #1 Most Livable City in America...Again, Too Bad You Yinzers Don't Realize That

The new "Places Rated Almanac" has once again ranked Pittsburgh as "The Most Livable City in America". This is the seventh edition of the "Places Rated Almanac" (formerly published by Rand McNally) and Pittsburgh is the only city to finish in the Top 20 every time.

This is my favorite ranking because it is a well-established, completely independent and unbiased list that basically flies in the face of everything you negative Yinzer and Anti-Yinzer morons believe. There really is no way for you to dispute it, other than to say any ranking is arbitrary, which it is. The funny thing with you idiots is--and this destroys your credibility-- that any time a NEGATIVE ranking comes out for Pittsburgh, you claim it is the gospel truth. But when rankings like this come out, you dismiss them. Make up your mind. You can't have it both ways.

Here is the most interesting part to me. Not only does Pittsburgh rank #1 over every city in America. None of the cities that we are SUPPOSEDLY similar to--Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Buffalo, Baltimore-- even sniff the Top 10 in this ranking. Nor Chicago, New York, or any of these Sun Belt cities. Do you know why? Because they don't provide a quality of life that is even remotely close to Pittsburgh's.

As someone who has traveled and lived around the country extensively--32 out of the 50 states as of this posting-- I have always said that Pittsburgh is a combination of three cities: Seattle, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati. Coincidentally, Seattle finished #3 in the ranking and Philadelphia #5. The similarities to Seattle are the hills/natural beauty, arts scene and weather. The similarities to Philadelphia are the corporate presence, the toughness/gritty/blue collar background, the history, the ethnicity and the passion for sports. And the similarities to Cincinnati are the racial demographic, the Midwestern feel (even though Pittsburgh is in the East) and the rivers.

Anyway, it's time for Yinzers and Anti-Yinzers to decide if rankings are valid. Any rankings. That means if you dismiss this ranking, you have to also dismiss the negative rankings too. Make up your mind.

Magazine Names Pittsburgh "City of the Future"

Foreign Direct Investment Magazine, an off-shoot of the Financial Times in London, released its latest "Cities of the Future" ranking for North America. In the 2 million-plus "major city" category, Pittsburgh finished third behind Chicago and Toronto, but ahead of Atlanta, Baltimore, Montreal, Mexico City, Boston and Miami.

Any kind of ranking is arbitrary and subjective, but it's nice that Pittsburgh's improvement is being recognized internationally and is expected to continue into the future.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07114/780399-28.stm

Ka-Ching! Big Profits for Pittsburgh's Corporate Giants

In the past week, PNC, Mellon, Wesco and PPG have all posted substantial profits- to the tune of almost $1 billion combined. Say what you want about the rich getting richer and about heartless corporate monoliths. But the fact is when local companies are doing well, it does nothing but benefit all of us in the form of more and better jobs, and a more stable local economy, not to mention increased support for local non-profits and foundations.

• PNC posts $459M profit
• PPG records $194M profit
• Mellon announces $243M profit
• Wesco posts $48M profit

Pittsburgh Housing Market Continues to Buck National Trend of Declining Sales

Home sales in Western Pennsylvania increased in the first quarter of 2007 over the first quarter of 2006, bucking a national trend of declining sales in formerly hot housing markets.

This is just more evidence of the trend pointed out in three separate reports by Fortune Magazine, CNN and Money Magazine, that the Pittsburgh housing market continues to be one of the safest real estate investments in the U.S. Many out of town buyers are investing in Pittsburgh real estate.

It just makes good financial sense to invest in Pittsburgh real estate. When you can buy four homes in Pittsburgh for the price of one in California, and there is virtually no risk of a price decline, what's the downside?

Pittsburgh and Cleveland Join Forces to Create "Bioscience Belt"

This is great to hear. Regional collaboration, whether it's in the form of counties in southwestern Pennsylvania working together or if it's working with the next closest major metro area, is a positive win-win for everyone involved.

Population Loss to Subside- Then What Will You Find to Bitch About?

I apologize that this news is a couple days old, but I didn't start this blog until today, and I had to get in some comments on this because it's my biggest pet peeve.

I will actually give the two major local dailies a little credit for reporting on this (but not much because anyone with a little bit of motivation and investigative skills could have been reporting on this for years like I have...but I digress).

Anyway, both the P-G and the Trib have articles about predictions by Pitt economic and demographic researcher Christopher Briem (he has a great blog) that the ongoing population loss in the region has almost run its course and that we are poised for slight population growth in the relatively near future.

You mean it's no going to go on forever?!? Well, you would never know that from the incessant coverage the issue gets. And as the title of this post asks, "What negative item will the local media and the Yinzers find to obsess about now?"

I have written for several years in various local publications that the common perceptions about the region's population loss are incorrect. And that's because of misguided focus and lazy reporting by local media.

The thing that local media focus on the most is the loss of young people. But that has almost nothing whatsoever to do with our population loss. As Mr. Briem pointed out as far back as 2002 in a Post-Gazette article, Pittsburgh retains young adults at a batter rate than Cleveland, Philadelphia, Detroit and even Miami, to name a few. A year later in 2003, a Pittsburgh Trib article pointed out that the city retains its young professionals at a higher rate than Columbus, Seattle, Raleigh, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. So why don't the Pittsburgh media report on the REAL reasons for the population loss? Answer: Because they want to feed on Pittsburghers' low self image of the city by accentuating the negative.

So what are the real reasons for the population loss? Two things: more deaths than births, and not enough international in-migration. More deaths than births is a result of a higher than average senior population, which has actually been declining rapidly due to the fact that they are dying off. Essentially, here is what is happening right now: old white people are dying, the black population is steady, the local Asian community is seeing growth (about 4,000 people in the last six years) and the local Hispanic community is seeing growth (about 1,000 people added in the last six years). But despite the gains in international in-migration, there is not enough to offset the "natural" population decline. The states of California and New York actually have extremely high out-migration rates but they have population gains because of a high number of immigrants coming in from other countries.

Anyway, as is the point of this whole blog, I'm trying to uncover the positive nuggets of information that local media (both print and broadcast) leave unsaid, and correct misguided assumptions and misperceptions among Yinzers, media and politicians.

Pittsburgh's Fortune 500 Companies are Movin' on Up!

Welcome to the first post of Good News Pittsburgh!

The new 2007 Fortune 500 list was released on Sunday (read the end of the post to see why I waited two days to write about it). And it is generally good news for Pittsburgh area companies.

As noted in the Pittsburgh Trib article above, Pittsburgh's corporate status improved from having six Fortune 500 companies headquartered here to having seven, albeit temporarily. The increase from six to seven came from Allegheny Technologies which rose from #536 to #455. However, the list also includes Mellon, which recently announced a merger with Bank of New York that will move the company's official headquarters to NYC. That means that next year, after the deal goes through, we will be back down to six again.

But the good news--which is never reported by the mainstream Pittsburgh media-- is that we will be back up to eight in approximately two years courtesy of the meteoric rise of American Eagle Outfitters (now up to #683) and Dick's Sporting Goods (now up to #633). In total, we have 12 Fortune 1000 companies headquartered in Western Pennsylvania, not to mention Alcoa and Mellon, which only on paper are headquartered in New York.

Add to that the North American headquarters for Bayer, GlaxoSmithKline and FedEx Ground and we're doing just fine, thank you. And, oh, did I mention that we have two more companies headquartered here, Giant Eagle and Highmark, that would both be ranked in the Fortune 500 (around #350) if they were public instead of private? I'm not even going to go into the other local companies that don't even make it into these conversations: 84 Lumber, GNC, Mylan Labs, DQE, etc.

The point is- we're doing OK. Really. It's not all gloom and doom. But you wouldn't know that from the facts that are conveniently omitted by the major newspapers in the area. And that brings me to the reason why I waited until Tuesday to comment on this, even though the list actually came out Sunday. I did it to illustrate my point about how incompetent theses local media entities are. Two days after the fact, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Pittsburgh Business Times still have absolutely NO MENTION of the new Fortune 500 rankings in print or online. And the Trib FINALLY has something this morning.

Predictably, the P-G and the Business Times will both copy off of the Trib now that they've seen the article and are aware of it. Way to be on top of it, guys! And that's how it works in the Pittsburgh media: lazy reporting. Just wait for the press release to come out and then print it word for word. God forbid someone actually do some research for an article or write something original. Or commit the biggest faux pas possible--gasp!--do a story on something positive in the region!

Believe it or not, there ARE positive things going on here, and people DO want to hear about them. That's why I created this blog. This is what you'll get- positive stories that go unreported or under-reported in the pathetic local media.

Until next time! Hey, that was pretty good for a first post, huh?