Ranking places as "most livable" or the "best" for anything may be a suspect exercise using methods that wilt under scrutiny, but for the winners, they're a marketing coup. More
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Trending Negative
Twitter conversations related to the recent death of a 25-year-old African American man in Baltimore injured while in police custody demonstrate once again how social media can turn on a city where injustice is perceived. More
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Blueprint of a Landbank
Land banks are seen as a promising way to stem the spread of vacant and abandoned property. A recent business plan by the Steel Valley, Twin Rivers and Turtle Creek Valley councils of government offers a glimpse of what a local land bank might look like. Here are the highlights. More
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Banking Against Blight
Local governments and community groups have long waged war against blight. Now, a new ordinance also opened the door for the City of Pittsburgh to establish a land bank to address its vacancy-related issues, not the least of which is how to turn around the seven percent of city residential property that is both tax-delinquent... More
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Behind the Times – The Road Ahead
The dynamics of minority workers and their role in the southwestern Pennsylvania labor force are complex, broad in scope and not fully understood. And for decades, those who’ve tried to diversify the workforce have found it largely resistant to change. Data that depict a southwestern Pennsylvania labor force conspicuously low in minority workers lend little... More
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Behind the Times – About the Data
This report is based on data collected and analyzed by the Workforce Diversity Indicators Initiative. The first round of analysis focused on workforce participation, job sector employment and worker income. Local data were benchmarked against 14 peer regions. The data are largely drawn from U.S. Census Bureau Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics program’s Quarterly Workforce Indicators. The... More
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Behind The Times – Minority Workforce Participation
Southwestern Pennsylvania’s decades-old recovery from the collapse of its industrial economy has long been recognized as nothing short of remarkable. More recently, other regions watched with envy as it proved resilient to the harshest consequences of recession. “Pittsburgh’s transformation has captured the attention of other communities now confronted with economic crises of their own,” the... More
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Behind the Times – Jobs and Income
Rayfield Lucas had heard there were well-paying jobs to be had in the shale gas industry. Jobs that offered the opportunity to earn his way to a future more secure than the maintenance and warehouse work he’d done in the past could ever promise. He went for it. A little more than a month after... More
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The State of Aging in Allegheny County
Older adults are growing in number and influence across the region and the nation. See the new report, The State of Aging in Allegheny County, to learn about the demographic phenomenon that has profound implications for everyone in southwestern Pennsylvania. More