Monday, November 22, 2004

This city is doomed

Hey, did you know that Pittsburgh's population has been declining? I picked up this nugget of information in today's Post-Gazette, in a story about the financial bail-out package passed by the Legislature over the weekend:

Rep. Dan Frankel, D-Squirrel Hill, defended Pittsburgh, saying factors like industrial collapse and population loss had hampered the city more than any alleged mayoral mismanagement did.

Here's a newsflash for you, Mr. Frankel: The city has been losing people for at least 60 years, and it has been losing people rapidly for at least 20. The city had plenty of time to prepare. But instead of managing decline by reducing city services and cutting workers to keep pace with the population loss, Pittsburgh's "leaders" instead tried to kick-start the city's economy through a series of government-driven economic redevelopment programs. Despite a consistent record of failure, the city continued to pursue economic polices that were discredited in much of the rest of the nation, and continued to treat city government as an employment agency.

How fitting that this statement should see print on the day that Lord & Taylor shuts its doors. "Alleged" mismanagement? Get down off the mayor's lap, Mr. Frankel.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dan Frankel, sitting on the mayor's lap: "Is that an economic development tool, Your Honor, or are you just glad to see me?"

8:42 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

JP, don't you think Murphy would win if he ran again? Wouldn't the machine run several candidates similar to the challengers to dilute the primary vote?

Ohio Update: The Ohio Vote Suppression blog had to admit that so far the recount has given "W" another 6,000 votes over Kerry. Doh!

64 of 88 counties in, 79 percent of the provisional ballots counted, and Bush only has a 138,000 lead.

But don't worry, fellow Dems, Kerry's a closer!

Thanks, Iowa!

6:12 PM

 

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