No, not at all. In fact I’d much rather have retirees in the Rust Belt, than Millennial hipsters. The latter, is what doesn’t belong in the Rust Belt. They should just move to Silicon Valley.
Why is it better for a working class person with a job in a factory to work in the Rust Belt instead of North Carolina?
You somehow want to revitalize the Rust Belt by bringing back factory jobs for working class people. Except that will never ever happen, and you know it. Factory jobs are a thing of the past. It used to be that there were plenty of farmhand jobs for working class people, those jobs have dried up too. We’re not going to revitalize the corn belt by bringing back farming jobs, are we?
If you want to revitalize a declining city you need to bring back jobs. Those jobs aren’t going to be at steel mills or automobile factories or coal mines. So quit complaining about people who don’t work in steel mills.
Alright, then that begs a few questions. Exactly what kind of jobs we should bring back? And what kind of demographic cohort do you expect to take over the Rust Belt? If you answer these questions then maybe I’ll have some insight on what you are talking about.
The problem with your question is that implies we can just pick from a list of options and get the results we chose. But that’s not how cities work.
How do you attract jobs? There are plenty of ways. But they are a bunch of difficult things to do and are all indirect levers.
So my region is going through a population boom. Why is that? We could list all the reasons, but the main reason is that the presence of technology jobs attracts people to fill those technology jobs, which attracts companies looking to hire technology workers, which attracts people to fill those jobs. So there’s a positive feedback loop. Except there are negative feedback loops too. Higher wages means more people but the housing and transportation infrastructure can’t handle it. Move to downtown Seattle and where do your workers live and how to they get to work? And then there are things like taxes and corporate welfare, maybe North Carolina will have lower taxes and hand out taxpayer money if you move there? But what about universities and schools and culture and so on?
It’s cheaper to live in rural Ohio than it is to live in LA or the Bay Area or Seattle or NY, so why don’t more companies move their headquarters to rural Ohio? Because it doesn’t work that way.
At some point there’s going to be some major job consolidation in the technology industry and all these high paying tech jobs are going to collapse and Seattle’s economy will be trashed, and people will be wondering how to revitalize Seattle. But it won’t be by attracting–how did you put it?–hipster millennials, and then just expecting the magic to happen. Today it takes a virtual army of human workers tapping away on keyboards and sitting around in meetings to make the technology sector happen. In the future it’s going to be one guy in a room who just presses a button. So what then? Pine for the good old days when hipster millennials could get good jobs at good wages just for tapping on keyboards?
Also, did you know that millennials can be working class? And some of them aren’t even hipsters?
Well since you put it that way, the Rust Belt will become the next Silicon Valley, and all of the longtime working class folks will have to leave all the major cities in the Rust Belt, and flock out to Small Town USA. And I certainly can see it happen. And working class folks might as well make content with it.
Actually the cost of living in Pittsburgh is pretty high:
*Cost of Living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Updated Prices May 2024.
And to top it all off the high tech crowd has worked to gentrify Pittsburgh, and steel era Pittsburgh was much cheaper than today’s Pittsburgh. With all the gentrification that has actually made Pittsburgh more expensive. And you made be proud of Pittsburgh’s change but a lot of the working class Yinzers are not.
Not compared to Silicon Valley it’s not. In fact, living in San Francisco is over fifty-percent more expensive than living in the Burgh.
I’d like a cite that the working class here is unhappy with it. You might be thinking of some of the outlying counties, but by and large, the majority of people here are happy. They’re listening to Trump and his empty promises about bringing back steel and coal – pipe dreams!
Was it cheaper back in the steel days? Yeah. So was everything else. It’s called inflation.
It’s not about “gentrification”. It’s about facing facts. And if your idea of “gentrification” is clean and pollution free, then hey, bring on gentrification! (Trust me, nobody wants to go back to that, not even the poorest of the poor)
But hey, why not come here and see for yourself?
I’m pretty sure when a bunch of working class Yinzers get priced out due to gentrification, they will really be pissed. And yes I have visited Pittsburgh and I wasn’t impressed. See a bunch of hipsters run around the city, clearly disgusted me, and I told myself, “Boy, steel era Pittsburgh was so much better”.
As someone who is anti-hipster I don’t want any part of today’s Pittsburgh. I only visit places that is suitable for the working class.
you’re extraordinarily self-absorbed. you’ve also yet to explain why anywhere or anything should worry about “impressing” you.
who are you anyway?
So you weren’t here during the steel era, but you somehow know it was much better in those days. Gotchya. :dubious:
We have our fair share of hipsters, but no more than any other city. Why should young people go to other, pricier cities for a tech job, when there are ones available right here?
We still have need for truck drivers, construction workers, road workers (there’s ALWAYS road work around here! 
), maitenance crews, welders, etc. You really think that steel and coal are the only possible blue collar jobs out there?
People here generally tend to be open, friendly, not at all snobby, and welcoming*
You know, I never heard this much yammering about bringing steel back until Trump started his crap about it. Everyone pretty much accepted it was a dead issue.
*Provided you don’t root for the wrong sports team. Then may God have mercy on your soul.
As per post 82, he is a young man.
Never mind who I am. You don’t need to know, so MYOB.
Well then, we can give your views the weight they deserve, which is absolutely zero. If you’re not willing to tell us where you’re coming from, or what your credentials are, then why should we give a shit what you have to say? :dubious:
Turing test fail.
Just forget it. I am entitled to keep my identity secret. And like I said before until Pittsburgh gets a population rebound, I am not buying any bogus optimism said about it.
And we’re entitled to think your argument is bullshit. (Yeesh, it’s an anonymous message board, how much more “secret” could you get? Paranoid much?) I’m not going to give any weight to some random guy on the internet, who won’t even offer up any reasons WHY we should listen to him. Your opinion means jackshit.
:rolleyes:
Anonymous for folks who use a unique username here rather than all over the internet, and who also do not post their email address here and all over the internet.
I just take it as given that he has nothing to support his position, or he would have presented his argument and supporting facts already, so it really doesn’t matter who he is. He stands on his words here, which present his opinion in this IMHOpinion forum. There’s nothing in this forum requiring that his opinion be rational. The degree to which he wishes to be taken seriously is up to him, whomever he is.
I have a hard time parsing what exactly you think that would look like. Hipsters, if that is even really a thing anymore, are signs of moderate affluence. A city that has a thriving working class( I don’t know what you consider working class, but I’ll just assume you mean wage earners )is going to be one that has some degree of moderate affluence.
If “recover” means “be like it was before”, then I think that would be a bad idea in any case. If “recover” means “be better than it is now”, then of course it could.
Hipsters believe it or not are taking over the inner cities, especially with gentrification. And, even worse Hipsterdom is like exploding, and just about major city in the US, is no longer suitable for the working class. Thanks to the hipsters. If the hipsters take over the Rust Belt, then the Rust Belt will no longer have it’s long time working class population. All the working class folks will just have to head out to Hickville USA. And her I’d much rather live in a hicktown than live in a hipsterfied neighborhood.