Editing History of Pittsburgh (section)

==Reinvention (1973–present)==
[[File:GOLDEN TRIANGLE SHOWN FROM THE MT. WASHINGTON AREA. IT WAS GIVEN THE NEW REFERENCE IN THE EARLY 1950'S DURING THE... - NARA - 557273.jpg|thumb|300px|Downtown Pittsburgh in July 1974]]
[[File:Pittsburgh from Mt Washington by Jennifer Yang.jpg|300px|thumb|right|A similar picture of Downtown Pittsburgh from Mt. Washington in December 2005]]
During the 1970s and 1980s, the U.S. steel industry came under increasing pressure from foreign competition and from American mini-mills constructed inexpensively using salvaged steel.{{cn|date=March 2024}} Manufacture in Germany and Japan was booming. Foreign mills and factories, built with the latest technology, benefited from lower labor costs and powerful government-corporate partnerships, allowing them to capture increasing market shares of steel and steel products. Separately, demand for steel softened due to recessions, the [[1973 oil crisis]], and increasing use of other materials.<ref name="Lorant"/><ref name="wolf">{{cite book |title=And the Wolf Finally Came: The Decline of the American Steel Industry |url=https://archive.org/details/andwolffinallyca00hoer |url-access=registration |first=John P. |last=Hoerr |publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press |year=1988 |isbn=0-8229-5398-6}}</ref>  The era began with the [[RIDC]]'s "Building on Basics" report in 1974.<ref>{{Citation| title = Area's Economy Reported Strong| newspaper = Beaver County Times| location = Beaver, PA| date   = September 23, 1974| url    = https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Pf0qAAAAIBAJ&dq=regional%20industrial%20hiram%20milton&pg=5972%2C2066214}}</ref>

===Collapse of steel===
{{Further|Steel crisis}}
Free market pressures exposed the U.S. steel industry's own internal problems, which included a now-outdated manufacturing base that had been over-expanded in the 1950s and 1960s, hostile management and labor relationships, the inflexibility of [[United Steelworkers]] regarding wage cuts and [[work-rule]] reforms, oligarchic management styles, and poor strategic planning by both unions and management. In particular, Pittsburgh faced its own challenges. Local coke and iron ore deposits were depleted, raising material costs. The large mills in the Pittsburgh region also faced competition from newer, more profitable "mini-mills" and non-union mills with lower labor costs.<ref name="wolf"/>

Beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the steel industry in Pittsburgh began to implode along with the [[deindustrialization]] of the U.S.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.post-gazette.com/businessnews/2012/12/23/In-desperate-1983-there-was-nowhere-for-Pittsburgh-s-economy-to-go-but-up/stories/201212230258 |title=In desperate 1983, there was nowhere for Pittsburgh's economy to go but up |newspaper=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |access-date=February 10, 2014 |first=Bill |last=Toland |date=December 23, 2012}}</ref> Following the 1981–1982 recession, for example, the mills laid off 153,000 workers.<ref name="wolf"/> The steel mills began to shut down. These closures caused a ripple effect, as railroads, mines, and other factories across the region lost business and closed.<ref>{{cite news |last=Barnes |first=Tom |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1129&dat=19891229&id=w9NRAAAAIBAJ&pg=6490,8938762&hl=en |title='80s Gave City, State Surprise, Shock and Sadness: A Top Rating, a Suicide, a Mayor's Death, Nature's Wrath. |work=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |date=1989-12-29 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Wade |first=Chet |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=wdNRAAAAIBAJ&pg=5743%2C8338588 |title=How You View the Decade May Depend On Whether You Kept or Lost Your Job |work= Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |date=1989-12-27 }}</ref> The local economy suffered a depression, marked by high unemployment and underemployment, as laid-off workers took lower-paying, non-union jobs.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.post-gazette.com/businessnews/2012/12/23/For-Pittsburgh-a-future-not-reliant-on-steel-was-unthinkable-and-unavoidable/stories/201212230223 |title=For Pittsburgh a future not reliant on steel was unthinkable ... and unavoidable |newspaper=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |access-date=February 10, 2014 |first=Christopher |last=Briem |date=December 23, 2012}}</ref> Pittsburgh suffered as elsewhere in the [[Rust Belt]] with a declining population, and like many other U.S. cities, it also saw [[white flight]] to the suburbs.<ref>{{cite web | title = Western PA History: Renaissance City: Corporate Center 1945–present | work = WQED's Pittsburgh History Teacher's Guide series| url = http://www.wqed.org/education/pghist/units/WPAhist/wpa6.shtml |access-date=April 14, 2007 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080317235201/http://www.wqed.org/education/pghist/units/WPAhist/wpa6.shtml |archive-date=March 17, 2008}}</ref>

In 1991 the Homestead Works was demolished, replaced in 1999 by The Waterfront shopping mall. As a direct result of the loss of mill employment, the number of people living in Homestead dwindled. By the time of the 2000 census, the borough population was 3,569. The borough began financially recovering in 2002, with the enlarging retail tax base.

===Corporations===
Top corporate headquarters such as [[Gulf Oil]] (1985), [[Koppers]] (1987), [[Westinghouse Electric (1886)|Westinghouse]] (1996) and [[Rockwell International]] (1989) were bought out by larger firms, with the loss of high paying, white collar headquarters and research personnel (the "brain drain") as well as massive charitable contributions by the "home based" companies to local cultural and educational institutions.  At the time of the Gulf Oil merger in 1985 it was the largest buyout in world history involving the company that was No. 7 on the Fortune 500 just six years earlier.  Over 1,000 high paying white collar corporate and PhD research jobs were lost in one day.

Today, there are no steel mills within the city limits of Pittsburgh, although manufacture continues at regional mills, such as the [[Edgar Thomson Works]] in nearby [[Braddock, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania|Braddock]].

===Higher education===
Pittsburgh is home to three universities that are included in most under-graduate and graduate school national rankings, [[The University of Pittsburgh]], [[Carnegie Mellon University]] and [[Duquesne University]].  [[Carnegie Mellon University]] and the [[University of Pittsburgh]] had evolved in the mid-20th century along lines that followed the needs of the heavy industries that financed and directed their development. The collapse of steel put pressure on those two universities to reinvent themselves as research centers in science and technology which acted to pull the regional economy toward high-technology fields.<ref>Annette L. Giovengo, "The Historical Roles of Pittsburgh's Research Universities in Regional Economic Development," ''Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine'' 1987 70(3): 257–277</ref>  Other regional collegiate institutions include [[Robert Morris University]], [[Chatham University]], [[Carlow University]],  [[Point Park University]], [[La Roche College]], [[Pittsburgh Theological Seminary]], Trinity School for Ministry (an Episcopal seminary) and the [[Community College of Allegheny County]].

Beginning in the 1980s, Pittsburgh's economy shifted from heavy industry to services, medicine, higher education, tourism, banking, corporate headquarters, and high technology. Today, the top two private employers in the city are the [[University of Pittsburgh Medical Center]] (26,000 employees) and the [[West Penn Allegheny Health System]] (13,000 employees).<ref>{{cite web | title = Top Private Employers | work = Pittsburgh Regional Alliance | url = http://www.alleghenyconference.org/public/cfm/d_and_d/index.cfm? | access-date=April 14, 2007 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20061010050140/http://www.alleghenyconference.org/public/cfm/d_and_d/index.cfm |archive-date = October 10, 2006}}</ref><ref>[http://www.wpahs.org Allegheny Health Network]</ref>

===Civic improvements===
Despite the economic turmoil, civic improvements continued.  In the mid-1970s, Arthur P. Ziegler, Jr. and the [[Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation]] (Landmarks) wanted to demonstrate that historic preservation could be used to drive economic development without the use of eminent domain or public subsidies.  Landmarks acquired the former terminal buildings and yards of the [[Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad]], a {{convert|1|mi|km|adj=on}} long property at the base of Mt. Washington facing the City of Pittsburgh.  In 1976, Landmarks developed the site as a mixed-use historic [[adaptive reuse]] development that gave the foundation the opportunity to put its urban planning principles into practice.  Aided by an initial generous gift from the [[Allegheny Foundation]] in 1976, Landmarks adapted five historic Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad buildings for new uses and added a hotel, a dock for the Gateway Clipper fleet, and parking areas. Now shops, offices, restaurants, and entertainment anchor the historic riverfront site on the south shore of the [[Monongahela River]], opposite the [[Golden Triangle (Pittsburgh)]]. Station Square is Pittsburgh's premier attraction, generating over 3,500,000 visitors a year. It reflects a $100 million investment from all sources, with the lowest public cost and highest taxpayer return of any major renewal project in the Pittsburgh region since the 1950s. In 1994, Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation sold Station Square in to [[Forest City Enterprises]] which created an endowment to help support its restoration efforts and educational programs. Each year the staff and docents of Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation introduce more than 10,000 people – teachers, students, adults, and visitors – to the architectural heritage of the Pittsburgh region and to the value of historic preservation.<ref>{{cite web |title=A Brief History of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation |url=http://www.phlf.org/about-landmarks/a-brief-history-of-pittsburgh-history-landmarks-foundation/ |year=2008 |publisher=Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation |access-date=November 6, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080929032210/http://www.phlf.org/about-landmarks/a-brief-history-of-pittsburgh-history-landmarks-foundation/ |archive-date=September 29, 2008 |df=mdy-all }}</ref>

During this period, Pittsburgh also became a national model for [[community development]], through the work of activists such as [[Dorothy Mae Richardson]], who founded Neighborhood Housing Services in 1968, an organization that became the model for the nationwide [[NeighborWorks America]]. Activists such a Richardson shared the aim of Landmarks to rehabilitate Pittsburgh's existing built landscape rather than to demolish and redevelop.

In 1985, the [[J & L Steel]] site on the north side of the Monongahela river was cleared and a publicly subsidized High Technology Center was built. The Pittsburgh Technology Center, home to many major technology companies, is planning major expansion in the area soon.<ref name="WQED"/> In the 1980s, the "Renaissance II" urban revitalization created numerous new structures, such as [[PPG Place]]. In the 1990s, the former sites of the Homestead, Duquesne and South Side J&L mills were cleared.<ref name="WQED"/> In 1992, the new terminal at [[Pittsburgh International Airport]] opened.<ref name="WQED"/> In 2001, the aging Three Rivers Stadium was replaced by [[Heinz Field]] and [[PNC Park]], despite being rejected by voter referendum. In 2010, PPG Paints Arena, replaced the Civic Arena, which at the time was the oldest arena in the National Hockey League.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.post-gazette.com/planb/ |title=Plan B |newspaper=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |access-date=November 6, 2008 |archive-date=July 10, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170710155618/http://old.post-gazette.com/planb/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Also in 1985, Al Michaels revealed to a national TV audience how Pittsburgh had transformed itself from an industrial rust belt city.<ref>{{cite web |first=Don |last=Hopey |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19851003&id=zewdAAAAIBAJ&pg=3874,1045161&hl=en |title=Pittsburgh's Image Belies Workforce |newspaper=The Pittsburgh Press - Google News Archive Search |date=1985-10-03 |access-date= April 25, 2016}}</ref>

===Pittsburgh today===
Present-day Pittsburgh, with a [[Economy of Pittsburgh|diversified economy]], a low cost of living, and a rich infrastructure for medicine and  [[Education in Pittsburgh|education]] and [[Culture of Pittsburgh|culture]], has been ranked as one of the [[World's Most Livable Cities]].<ref name="rankings">{{cite news |url=http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07116/781162-53.stm |title=Pittsburgh rated 'most livable' once again |newspaper= Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |date=April 26, 2007 |access-date=September 16, 2007 |last=Majors | first = Dan }}</ref> Tourism has recently boomed in Pittsburgh with nearly 3,000 new hotel rooms opening since 2004 and holding a consistently higher occupancy than in comparable cities.  Medicine has replaced steel as a leading industry.<ref>Gabriel Winant, ''The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America'' (Harvard University Press, 2021), focus on Pittsburgh. </ref> Meanwhile, tech giants such as Apple, Google, IBM Watson, Facebook, and Intel have joined the 1,600 technology firms choosing to operate out of Pittsburgh.  As a result of the proximity to CMU's National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC), there has a boom of autonomous vehicles companies.  The region has also become a leader in green environmental design, a movement exemplified by the city's convention center.  In the last twenty years the region has seen a small but influential group of Asian immigrants, including from the Indian sub-continent. It has been generally considered as the most recovered city from the rust belt.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1955&dat=20061126&id=e_ghAAAAIBAJ&pg=2959,10228914&hl=en |title=Asians Study in Pittsburgh, Then Stay to Start Businesses |work=Reading Eagle |date=2006-11-26}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:right"
|-
!Year
!City Population
!City Rank<ref name="census"/>
!Population of the [[United States urban area|Urbanized Area]]<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.demographia.com/dm-uad.htm |title = US Urbanized Areas 1950–1990 Urbanized Area Data | access-date =April 24, 2007 |work=Demographia}}</ref>
|-
|1950
|676,806
|12
|1,533,000
|-
|1960
|604,332
|16
|1,804,000
|-
|1970
|540,025
|24
|1,846,000
|-
|1980
|423,938
|30
|1,810,000
|-
|1990
|369,879
|40
|1,678,000
|-
|2000
|334,563
|51
|1,753,000
|-
|2010
|307,484<ref name=PopEstCities>{{cite web|url=https://www.census.gov/popest/data/cities/totals/2011/tables/SUB-EST2011-01.csv |title=Table 1. Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places Over 50,000, Ranked by July 1, 2011 Population: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2011 |format=[[comma-separated values|CSV]] |work=2011 Population Estimates |publisher=[[United States Census Bureau]], Population Division |date=June 2012 |access-date=August 1, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120821200638/http://www.census.gov/popest/data/cities/totals/2011/tables/SUB-EST2011-01.csv |archive-date=August 21, 2012 }}</ref>
|61<ref name=PopEstCities/>
|1,733,853<br> (Ranked 27th, between [[San Antonio]] and [[Sacramento]])<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www2.census.gov/geo/ua/ua_list_ua.xls |title=2010 Census Urban Area List |publisher=[[United States Census Bureau]] |access-date=May 16, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121010135905/http://www2.census.gov/geo/ua/ua_list_ua.xls |archive-date=October 10, 2012 |df=mdy-all }}</ref>
|-
|}