Despite the luxury condos popping up near Bakery Square and the nationally noted restaurants opening downtown, Pittsburgh remains a relatively affordable region compared to its peers. Pittsburgh has the eighth lowest cost of living out of the 15 Pittsburgh Today benchmark regions, according the Council for Community and Economic Research’s data for the second quarter of 2017.... More
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Living Dangerously
Despite the improvement in the region’s air quality in recent years, southwestern Pennsylvania still fails to meet federal health-based standards for various major air pollutants, such as ground-level ozone, sulfur dioxide and fine particulates, known as PM2.5. And that regional pollution elevates risks of cancer, respiratory ailments and other serious health problems. More
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Bridging the Digital Divide
Public libraries, a piece of the region’s educational mosaic, are reinventing themselves in response to the demands of new technologies and changes in how Americans consume information. No longer viable simply as repositories of books and periodicals, they’re becoming multifaceted community education hubs, using data to better understand their users and gaining popularity by offering... More
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Working Women
Women account for a larger share of the southwestern Pennsylvania labor force than the national average—the result of a decades-long upward trend in a region where women had historically been slow to enter the workforce. But despite their increasing numbers, the quality of the jobs they hold and their earnings generally fall below those of... More
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A Shrinking Resource
Not that long ago, the state Department of Education was a robust repository of expertise for 500 Pennsylvania school districts, offering curricular guidance ranging from math to art to best practices for improving school effectiveness and education outcomes. Those days, however, are largely gone as a new environment has taken hold, one in which federal... More
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Local Artists: Struggling, But Not Starving
Most Pittsburgh artists are getting by financially but find it difficult to make a living off of their art alone. And African American artists are much less likely than their white counterparts to rely on their art as their sole means of support, according to recent survey. More
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Shale Gas Production Rises, Again
Production rose again last year in the Marcellus shale play, which continues to reign as the most productive shale region in the United States, according to data from the United States Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Drilling Productivity Report. More
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A Question of Learning
Scientists work to make computers more effective teachers As a digital revolution changes classrooms across the region and country, one key question lingers at the end of each school day: Do the new technologies actually enhance students’ learning? The answer is unclear. After decades of research in fields such as cognitive science, the debate is no... More
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Rethinking Education
In recent years, U.S. education has seen an increasing emphasis on standardized testing. Running parallel to those trends, however, is an emerging shift toward personalized or adaptive learning, which recognizes each student’s strengths and needs and focuses on developing the skills to succeed in the 21st-century workplace. At the Elizabeth Forward School District in Allegheny... More