The BBC examines the politics behind the White House's selection of Pittsburgh as the site of the upcoming G20 summit.
The BBC examines the politics behind the White House's selection of Pittsburgh as the site of the upcoming G20 summit.
No-one puts it better than Frank Coonelly, president of the city's baseball team the Pittsburgh Pirates: "It's a remarkable transformation, not just of the economy but of the city itself from an industrial steel town to a city that now really is driven by hi-tech and service sectors. Read
4 Comments
Globalization is not an either/or scenario. You dont either change to services or die by staying manufacturing based. You should do both. Articles like this always seem to overlook the might of industry at home and I feel overvalue the impact of service sector jobs.
The article fails to point out that Pittsburgh, like the few other successful rustbelt cities, is still home to the largest conglomerates of the steel and aluminum industries as well as direct foreign manufacturing interests. Much like Chicago and NW Indiana, foreign manufacturing makes a huge part of the local industrial output and ultimately is the foundation for the service economy to well, service.
Think about it, if theres no manufacturing, what are all the services there to do? Keep accounting records for the lawyers who go around suing the brokers who had bad accounting? Somewhere along the food chain there has to be production - thats where the actual wealth of the nation is created.
the other thing that is overlooked is that the city has been able to survive, also, because of a cultural infrastructure built by andrew carnegie that has allowed the downtown to remain a vital destination even when everything around it was tanking, few other rustbelt cities can lay claim to the cultural infrastructure that pittsburgh has taken for granted.
Future, great point. It was actually one a fellow grad student made to me years ago after visiting Pittsburgh for a conference.
Agreed, Jack. I still think our economy should be making-based, though I'd prefer making high tech stuff to cheap crap. To me, high quality IS high tech, and making something that will last for years and years is more valuable than spewing out (and then throwing away) disposables.
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