Pittsburgh's 2010: My Crystal Ball

Published Jan. 1, 2010 at 4:34 p.m.
‘Tis the season for predictions. Here are mine for Pittsburgh for 2010. These aren’t hopes or wishes; they’re what I think we will see in the region over the next 12 months.

1. Sports: Pirates observers (few people today hold themselves out as fans any longer) will endure yet another losing season in 2010, but the team will fall short of 100 losses. This is hardly a prediction, of course; it’s all but a guarantee. The Pirates are well on their way to becoming this generation’s Washington Senators. (The team has a couple of options: Make a deal with the devil, and lure Tab Hunter out of retirement. Or execute a move similar to one made famous at the trial of Al Capone: Take the entire major league roster, coaches, managers, and all, and ship them to the Pirates’ Class AA affiliate, the Altoona Curve. Bring the entire Curve roster and staff to Pittsburgh. Put them in Pirates uniforms. A AA-grade franchise deserves AA-grade players. Play ball!)

2. Arts: 2010 will be a breakout year for Pittsburgh’s emerging “young creatives,” especially the visual artists and musicians who have been quietly taking over the North Side and some northeastern neighborhoods for much of the last decade. Look for at least one Pittsburgh-based performer to take the national stage. The arts communities in Lawrenceville, Garfield, and the North Side will overtake the institutions of the Cultural District as the faces of Pittsburgh’s arts culture.

3. Business: The number of tech spinoffs from Pitt, CMU, and UPMC will increase. Pittsburgh will emerge as an East Coast hub for Google, which will hire more staff and occupy more space in East Liberty/ Larimer than it currently forecasts. At least one long-time “name” Pittsburgh company will go out of business in 2010. Pittsburgh’s unemployment rate will trail the national unemployment rate for an additional 12 months.

4. Education: Pitt and CMU will continue their two decades-long journey to the upper echelons of the international higher education community. The dollar value of sponsored research at both Pitt and CMU will continue to increase; their respective endowments will begin slow recoveries. The tuition tax debate of 2009 will enable the emergence (or in some cases, re-emergence) of Pittsburgh’s “second tier” of colleges and universities as leading voices on the future of region’s economy and culture: Duquesne, Robert Morris, Chatham, Carlow, Point Park. Negotiations over nonprofit contributions to the city’s finances, in the wake of the tuition tax détente will reach another crisis point in 2010 before a deal is reached.

5. Politics: The Ravenstahl administration will experience a serious corruption scandal in 2010. Much of the city will yawn, and the Republican and progressive Democratic Party constituencies that have been trying to unseat the Democratic machine for years will gaze at their navels, still too disorganized to capitalize on their good fortune. Harrisburg will not bail out the city.

6. Demographics: The Pittsburgh media will search for good news in Pittsburgh’s modest but growing Latino and Indian and South Asian communities. More often than not, they will miss the story. New grocery stores are interesting and colorful and fun for shopping; new professionals migrating to Pittsburgh have a greater bearing on the region’s prosperity. 2010 will be Pittsburgh’s year of the woman (women?) in leadership, across politics, business, and the nonprofit sector.

7. Law and Order: The U.S. Justice Department will announce a major antitrust investigation aimed at a Pittsburgh institution. The homicide rate in Pittsburgh will increase in 2010.

8. Community: The opening of the Consol Energy Center will anchor a revitalization of the Uptown neighborhood, but the Rivers Casino will continue to struggle to meet its revenue projections. Demand for housing will raise housing prices sufficiently that Pittsburgh loses its status as the nation’s most livable city. This will be a good thing.

9. Media: A Pittsburgh-based newspaper will cease daily print publication in 2010. Blogs and other social media won’t fill the gap.

We will see how things turn out. Check back a year from now.


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