upscaling pittsburgh yet again

dude weaves stfu…

if you’re naive enough to think that the city pays companys DIRECTLY then you’re an ass and not worth the time.

us “paying” the company is giving them the bid to build, at a rate in which no one else can touch or get from the city, as well as, padding it with help from the mayors office and urban development.

Maybe you should try saying what you mean for a change? Tax abatement is a far cry from PAYING a company to do something. Pittsburgh has dug itself a huge hole through tax abatement, but at the same time, if NOTHING new comes here, then how do you grow a tax base in the future?

very poor train of thought, and that is why we are all fucked up. Maybe the city should get away from that mentality.

http://www.ura.org

“The Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh (URA) is more than a redevelopment authority – it is the City of Pittsburgh’s economic development agency. As a developer of last resort, the URA develops properties which the private sector will not undertake.”

Tell me that this statement doesn’t strike you as odd. If it isn’t in the best interest to a private company to do something, why the heck would it make sense for a public entity to do it? Corruption, maybe?

Another reason why I haven’t been inside the city limits for over 2 months.

I agree it’s a poor train of thought. Pittsburgh has screwed itself, but no one else seems to have any bright ideas. The fact is the weather sucks here, the roads suck here, and there’s no incentive to opening new business in the city. As soon as I graudate, I’m getting the hell out of here, just like everyone else.

because i’m used to typing down so people understnad.

prove the taxes were abated.

We can’t get away from it since every where else is doing it and is successful in doing it. One of my brother in laws is kind of high up at a small to mid sized company that was paid a huge amount of money, er incentives or what ever you want to call them, to move just outside of Orlando. The bad thing that Pittsburgh has done is made these deals with lame companies, like US Air, who take the moeny and then go ahead and move or cut jobs. There is not a city in America that is not doing this.

but if everyone jumps off a bridge…

If it has been proven for years not to work, why must our fucked up city continue to use the same method? If I try to fix a server at work and it doesn’t work, and I keep trying the same thing, it will not get fixed it until I try something else. Maybe the city should try something else.

cutting deals with the private sector to bring money into the city is a good idea, but not in the idea of building expensive apartments.

we SHOULD be lowering parking taxes, lowering occupational taxes, and inviting corporations to set up here by helping with relocation costs and tax breaks. Bring business to Pittsburgh BEFORE you try to rent $2k apartments. Make Pittsburgh not just a leader in medical and technological advances, but a Mecca of emerging technology and corporate growth.

it would mean racking up a pretty good debt for a few years, but you have to spend money to make money.

stfu whitey. lofts got hot in cities once all teh real estate was sold out. ppl didn’t choose lofts first, lofts got hot once the brownstones were sold out. last i checked there’s a shit load of property around the burg. go hit a club up :rolleyes:

lofts have been cool in my book since i saw Tom Hanks move into one in Big… stfu

you just sound like that typical goth kid or dork that is so against things because he can’t fit in.

metro for life bitch! we get the bitches, maybe you can get pictures or something

we have to chase all of the undesirables out of the city first.

please kid, i did the metro thing. my old boss sent me home from work once bc my dress clothes weren’t trendy enough. he used to let me rock his sl500 on friday nites for dates and shit. soba, bar lousie, dish… nucka i was there the week they opened. mosta the guys were hollow dudes spending dads cash and the girls were worse.

city living won’t catch on. the taxes are hella high, the cops love handing out tix. my boss just bought a loft in the strip. $250,000 (sucker) now he hates it!!! after a month he’s considering selling, but he’d lose his shirt so he’s stuck. just not worth taxes and hassles… getting groceries and such become hour long trips.

city living could catch on, but it would take radical renovation of the city.

exactly.

[Soapbox] The process of providing development incentives is not necessarily a bad thing. Give somebody something for hopefully much more in return. It’s an investment. Unfortunately, this particular city has certain characteristics that make this approach unsuccessful. Demographics. Corruption. Laziness. History. Climate. Geography. These all work together to pull the city down.

There are some things we can’t change (climate and geography) or would have little success in changing (demographics). That doesn’t mean that we don’t work on the things that we can.

Corruption - We could actually elect honest officials with some ethics. This would create a transparent system of governance with no more back room politics and secret handshakes. Officials would be accountable for their decisions and reap the rewards of their personal successes and failures.

Laziness - We could actually get off our butts and do an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. There is plenty of work around Pittsburgh. You might have to break a sweat and get dirt under your fingernails. Just like back in the day…

History - Pittsburgh has a long legacy of being hamstrung by unions and this turns many employers away. This brings in companies that don’t rely on a union workforce. They are typically technological, professional, or medical jobs. The workers in these fields are rarely unionized and this gives the companies more flexibility. There is nothing wrong with the service industries, but they rarely generate wealth like the industrial and manufacturing sectors. They simply move wealth from one entity to another.

I thought that declaring Pittsburgh “distressed” would have some effect on the above problems by breaking down the walls and allowing for a frank discussion of the issues. Unfortunately, it seems that people are deeply intrenched in their behavior and are unwilling to change. [/Soapbox]

speaking of developing…

did you guys hear that the city is gonna start puttin commuter trains on the old tracks, developing the strip district slopes on west carson and letting private companies buy passes to use the city busway roads. onoroto is pretty smart.

Well, let’s see. Jumping off a bridge is not really an applicable example here…

If you got a job offer to make a lot more money elsewhere you would consider it. No different. Why should a business locate here versus some other place that is willing to give them money? Tell me what Pittsburgh has that can not be found in any other city that is paying companies millions of dollars in incentives? In the situation I was describing we are talking about roughly 60 full time jobs. Florida bent over backwards to get this company to move the office there. So yes, if every other city is jumping off of a bridge to create jobs then we should as well.

And what do you suggest the city try?

got me what to try, i’m not that “up” on those things. But I know if something doesn’t work, doing the same thing will not fix the problem.