PANDA Platform Issues Back to Pittburgh Campaign

This proposal was originally made by the American Town & Country Alliance, a Tides Center project located in Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh's mayor talks of having a fantasy in which, after he has reinvented Pittsburgh into an "urban Disneyland" (his phrase), he starts a campaign to get former Pittsburghers to return.  This proposal is significantly different.
 

Back to Pittsburgh Campaign

• Capitalize now upon an existing positive trend — the largest migration to the Pittsburgh area is of former residents who are retiring and want to come back to Pittsburgh as it is.

 
• Retirees bring money into the region as effectively as any export industry.

• The region already has extensive health-care infrastructure and services for senior citizens.

• Seniors drive less during rush hours, resulting in lower traffic congestion.

• Seniors are more likely to settle into the region's traditional communities reducing the abandonment of housing and assisting with community revitalization.

• Seniors are more likely to use transit, keeping ridership up.

• Seniors have a greater appreciation for the historic character of their communities and with their lifelong experiences can be a civic resource.

• Seniors are less likely to perpetrate crimes and are a stabilizing influence in a community.

• Some returning seniors may own businesses; of those some might even bring their business investment with them.  TOP /\

• Recruit former residents with skills presently needed in this region. —  Mayor Murphy plans to wait until we have a long list of unfilled tourist industry jobs before he recruits the return of former Pittsburghers, but there is already a shortage of skilled workers in a number of jobs that once employed former area residents; e.g. machinists and tool and die workers are greatly needed in the area's existing manufacturing.  TOP /\

• Returning former Pittsburghers want to find Pittsburgh, the city, as a real city — Former residents can be most easily enticed to return if what they find is the Pittsburgh and towns of their memories.  They will be most attracted if they see we have preserved and restored the traditional communities which they fondly remember.  They will be much less likely to return if we have transformed everything to look just as it does where they are now — after all, why then would they want to give up better weather and go through the hassle of moving.   TOP /\