Pittsburgh’s Path to Recovery

By Matthew Stepp, Globalist

Ask the average American what they feel Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, represents and you’ll likely hear Steelers football, blue-collar, middle-class workers, steel mills and coal plants.

If anything, Pittsburgh is considered the quintessential rust-belt city — historically focused on manufacturing and industry, but one that has fallen on hard times since the 1980s. Back then, strong foreign competition shuttered plants.

Counter to this image though, Pittsburgh is remaking itself by leveraging its regional strengths in education and health care and making strategic investments in innovation capacity.

Pittsburgh is now one of America’s leading centers of regional innovation and a model of state innovation policymaking. More here.