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'Progress' through delusion?
Colin McNickle is the Trib's director of editorial pages. Ring him at 412-320-7836. E-mail him at: cmcnickle@tribweb.com.
As ignorant as was Thursday's New York Times front-page story on how Pittsburgh's economy supposedly "is the envy of many recession-plagued communities," worse was KDKA-TV's intellectually vapid report on The Times' story.
As with David Streitfeld's print story, Andy Sheehan's TV report failed to mention a few salient facts.
The erstwhile Steel City so worthy of emulation is essentially bankrupt, remaining in state receivership. Its pension plans are bust. It has to bribe people in the hope that they'll send their children to its badly broken schools. And our "leaders" keep insisting that their multibillion-dollar wealth-transference schemes are "growth."
The biggest hoot, however, was how Mr. Sheehan's report set up former Mayor Tom Murphy as being responsible for this "success." Current Mayor Luke Ravenstahl offered his gee-whiz testimonial; Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato, a malfeasant who fancies himself a governor, might as well have been a lipstick salesman on a pig farm.
KDKA Radio's report was no better. It threw in Bill Flanagan, spokesman for the Allegheny Conference on Smoke and Mirrors. Later, talk show host Marty Griffin, apoplectic over the Trib's Friday "Lance" on The Times' story, carried heavy buckets of water for Potemkinburg and Mr. Onorato. (By the way, Marty, we don't "hate" Pittsburgh. But we do hate what's being done to it by "leaders" who, apparently, have your number.)
Joel Kotkin, the noted urbanologist who knows a thing or two about Pittsburgh, e-mailed my colleague Bill Steigerwald after spotting The Times' "love letter to the Pittsburgh elite." He found it most extraordinary that there was no comment on depopulation -- "There's one way to deal with deindustrialization," he offered -- and the city's receivership.
"How is this a model for cities?" asks Mr. Kotkin, whose new book, "The City: A Global History," is winning international acclaim. "Are they all supposed to shrink? If Pittsburgh is so dynamic, why more deaths than births and little immigration?"
Fewer taxpayers, more pensions, more extravagant spending; a base made up of nontaxable "businesses," like universities and hospitals, Kotkin notes. "Is this financially sustainable?" Of course not.
Jake Haulk, president of the Allegheny Institute for Public Reality, was just as incensed.
"The truly amazing deception is to skip over the facts that for seven years the region had no net jobs increase, far below normal national average home price escalation and new home construction, the loss of retail jobs, airline jobs, etc., ad nauseam," he said in an e-mail.
"The region is one of only a few metro areas with net population loss since 2000," the Ph.D. economist reminded.
As Kotkin did, Mr. Haulk recounted how no region or city has ever benefited so much from the wealth created in prior decades and the attendant creation of respected universities, hospitals, libraries and cultural amenities. "But the politicians and unions will eventually overwhelm the powerful legacy inherited."
The truly sad thing about such Pollyannaish reportage and bogus "livability" rankings is that they "give local cheerleaders and politicians ammunition to say they are doing the right things when, in fact, they are not," Haulk says.
Delusion is no foundation for progress.
Colin McNickle is the Trib's director of editorial pages. Ring him at 412-320-7836. E-mail him at: cmcnickle@tribweb.com
