Weekend Seinfeld post

I have posted this before, but an AgentSka post reminded me of it recently. Not for any reason other than this is still the funniest Youtube posted video I have ever seen.

down up down up

Half empty, half full... News accounts say the latest realstats data says real estate sales are down a lot, prices down some, but still the biggest number to parse is that foreclosures are down. Down by just a bit? For the 2nd quarter foreclosures are down 20% over the previous quarter. I think that makes it down like a third or more from a comparable 2nd quarter of 2008. Back then the news was all about the escalation in foreclosures locally. Isn't the unexpected turnaround in that data the bigger story by far?


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State unemployment rate is unchanged. My honest answer to almost all questions about the "Pennsylvania economy" is that there isn't really a Pennsylvania economy. A number of different regions make up PA, regions that really are not bound together except by some artificial boundaries set long ago. As an economic entity Pennsylvania probably never existed from its inception. The linkages say between Pittsburgh and the growing Northeast part of the state have to pale with our connections to West Virginia and Ohio. Nonetheless, artifacts of history or not, the monthly unemployment rate for Pennsylvania came out yesterday.

But FWIW, here is something I normally do for the region. This is the relative picture of how Pennsylvania and US unemployment rates have compared over the last 3 decades:

Calling their bluff

I want to play poker with these folks... I think this is called bluffing. I can see the end game now: city pays Lamar some fraction of that million to get them to finish the billboard and get them off the hook for the entire amount. Otherwise I figure that if they try to use it for some other commercial purpose, or leased to another billboard firm (is there any other billboard firm around?)... then Lamar could have other legal recourse as well I am just guessing. Maybe a non-profit use of the device would be ok?

Wait, I have it. Forget the live streaming on the Internet. City council live on the big screen!

Please send check forthwith....

I really thought today I'd have to pull something from the stack for whenI have nothing else to put up. I thought this was awfully understated news: Casino given week to settle arena funding dispute. (I didn't catch at the time, but the Trib had a piece on this dispute last week). Remember all the ink over the whole casino/arena payment issue when the casino license process was working its way to a conclusion. Post-arena construction, or maybe it's post Stanley Cup it almost does not make it to print.

I thought I had a copy of that agreement between I guess it was Barden and the SEA or the state over the promised payments, but maybe not. I do have a copy of the SEA Bond at issue. The big thing that I still find curious was the debate that flared up briefly over the state's ambiguous status guaranteeing this bond. It wasn't clear to me at least at the time, but it turns out it the state is backstoping the payments. But then why did the bond need bond insurance. Oh, nevermind.

Looks like it could get ugly and headed to court. Not much middle ground. $7.5 million now or in 3 years looks like the issue. I am unclear if the dispute extends to the other payments the casino is expected to make such as to the city, county, and other groups. You would wonder how the SEA is getting by without these payments, but they have the proceeds of the bond net of what has been spent thus far on construction so I presume it's not a cash issue for the time being.

****

But some general public finance notes:

Talk is escalating of a potential chapter 9 bankruptcy for the Detroit Public School system which would be historic I think. Not sure when the last large school system went bankrupt.

But also there is a new one. There has been plenty of coverage of the financial miasma at the Jefferson County (Alabama) Sewer system.. but it looks like the actual Jefferson County government down there is heading toward bankruptcy as well.

How low can USAirways employment go?

So here is a headline running now: "US Airways to lay off 600, but none in Pittsburgh".

I first wondered.. does US Airways have 600 employees in Pittsburgh in total. The article says they are at around 2,100 locally. Remember this was once the largest private employer in the region depending on what you count. A great headline circa 2000: Jobs, flights in Pittsburgh protected in US Airways sale .

Think about that. The focus of most all job growth efforts immediately following the collapse of steel employment was all centered around the USAir hub operation at the airport. And for the most part all of that is entirely defunct.

Put this in context of the whole Pittsburgh story of late, resilience and restructuring and all of that. It's not just that steel went away and we rebuilt. We dug the hole deeper at some points. Lots to overcome between the early 80's and now.

But here is the real question. There was a time when everyone argued that the availability of flights was by far the most important competitive factor for the region. So now we have a recent history that goes almost the opposite. As flights from Pittsburgh have collapsed, the Pittsburgh story has gotten a whole lot brighter. I DO NOT imply any causality like that for the record. But what was equally baseless was the causality many just assumed went the other way.

when rankings really matter

We are low on the esoteric quota here of late... This ought to make up for it.

I fully admit I do my fair share of benchmarking. You can learn a lot from ranking things, but a lot of times the interpretation can be overblown. Here is a case where rankings may cost real $$. I am reading in Bond Buyer that Congressman Doyle is fighting some provision on how the 'top 100' school districts are counted. Who cares eh?

Turns out that part of the ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) is a bond program for school districts called the QSCB (Qualified School Construction Bond) program. The program, of which I knew little until reading this, has 40% of it's spending limited to the 100 largest school districts. The remainder goes to states. Apparently the City of Pittsburgh School District is close to being ranked literally number 100.

So close that if school districts in the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Hawaii are included, the city school district does not come in as one of the top 100 and thus becomes ineligible for these bonds. The congressman is opposed to those school districts being ranked against the Pittsburgh School District. The argument is that for those school districts are essentially state-wide districts and states receive money separately via this program. That's all I know, but seems to be a rare case where the details of the counting really really matter. Any school finance beat reporters out there?

Now to play with numbers though. If the largest school district in the county/region is barely in the top 100 school districts nationally... what does that say about the comparative level of school district fragmentation here?

Pittsburgh to Paris

Trib recently had a fun comprehensive look at the ties that bind us to France. Funny no mention of the erstwhile mayoral candidacy of Josh Wander whose main claim to fame was his past campaign to send the Statue of Liberty back to Mr. Bartholdi's descendants. Imagine the story line that might have played out in the media if he had been on the ballot when Mr. Sarkozy arrived here. Nonetheless today is Bastille Day.

Anyway. Was just in France. I've been posting about the market for the new Pittsburgh to Paris flight. So here is some primary (albeit anecdotal) research: Pittsburgh to Paris flight was overbooked. Return flight about 90% filled. Good for peak summer season this time of year. Going over I could identify one group that looked like it might be one of those groups going out of their way to buy tickets on the flight to help prop up sales. The issue may come down to how demand holds up during the shoulder and off-seasons. A decent showing for now, but the prices were remarkably cheap for peak travel season.

As for Paris. Louve, Orsay, Rodan..... Bah. For some of us there is the Paris Sewer Tour. I have to say that I am not quite sure I would feel safe on a similar tour sponsored by the PWSA. Who knows what is underground here? For those who saw Saving Private Ryan. This is really what Dog Green looks like today. Hard to believe. and at the D-Day museum what do I find myself staring within 5 minutes of looking around? A display case with a bottle of Fort Pitt Beer.

No sign of Jerry Lewis in the French popular culture, but French TV had an inordinate amount of dubbed Starsky and Hutch reruns. Not as bad as all the Arnold films which are big hits around the world, but you have to wonder what people think of US culture given what we normally 'export'.

Beyond the angst - How goes Pittsburgh?

There have been some great comments here of late. One post last week had a brief discussion of Edmund Burke as metaphor for Pittsburgh. Whether one agrees or not I'd love for mayoral debates or city council sessions to be quoting political philosophers. Generally though, on the general theme of how Pittsburgh is doing comments here and everywhere seem to boil down pretty quickly to folks who think its all great or all horrible around here... especially with regards to the city. Is it ever that simple?

Some angst of late over latest population numbers for the city of Pittsburgh is a case in point. Continued decline part of vast failure or slower decline moving out from a steel-inspired 'lost decade' or two? Half full? Half empty? Both? Neither? The city clearly has issues. Pensions=bad... worse than bad... denial everywhere.. taxes high... going to go higher it seems to me. bad bad bad. Population ever lower.. at the very least not good at this point.

Depressed yet? Here is the thing. A little bit of news in passing last week was that Downtown office vacancy rate actually went down. So global economic meltdown... historic recession... and dire dire talk about the commercial real estate market everywhere and the Downtown real estate market is doing better? And that is despite ongoing construction adding to supply. It's not just Downtown. The Oakland vacancy rate can only be measured as an imaginary number. That is even as every available bit of space has office space squeezed into it. Remember Duranti's? Now some medical offices. I really want to know how the former patrons there are getting meals. Oakland has had some serious construction in recent years with new biomedical towers, new RAND building and even with Children's now gone of late. I am sure the parcel on which I work is destined to be biomedical tower 10 or 12 or whatever we are up to at this point.

OK.. I really am going somewhere. Here is the factoid of note in all of this. Read my pension rants if you think I have any reason to shade the positive, but here is something to think about. In 1960 the number of jobs located in the City of Pittsburgh was just about 300K. Today the number of jobs located in the City of Pittsburgh is for all practical purposes identical at 300K. We are approaching a fairly remarkable metric for a major city, but we may soon have more people working in the city daily than living here.

So for all who say the city is a failure and everyone is leaving. That may be true for residents, but you can't begin to say that for jobs. Consider the loss of population from the city and realize that roughly 70% of all jobs in the region are there providing goods and services to the population here. What does that mean for the competitiveness of the city as a place to work? Clearly a lot of jobs supporting the residential population moved out to the suburbs along with the population movement. Yet the city has the same number of jobs in total. It must have grown in those jobs that are not merely providing retail and services to the local population but are supporting a larger clientele regionally or beyond. In other words it has become more competitive as a place to work. In normal circumstances that would be amazing. Add in all the bad things that have happened here and its something else altogether.


What's it mean? Lots of things, but for now it's just the point that there isn't any one answer as many want to ascribe for everything. For everyone who says that X or Y (fill in your policy of choice) is going to force businesses to flee the city for the suburbs you have to think about how that argument has gone over the last 50 years. Things like high parking taxes or occupation taxes or fill in the blank have not resulted in jobs leaving the city. Could there be a counterfactual loss of even more jobs that could have been located here if things were different? Maybe, but you have to ask yourself where would those jobs go. Hard to fit more jobs in present Downtown or Oakland. Building up is always a possibility. Both Downtown and Oakland are relatively pretty vertical places already.


OK... enough I guess. The 'why' to explain all of that I can't begin to answer. Why has Pittsburgh as a city gained competitiveness as a place to work where most comparable old center cities have gone the other way ravaged by suburbanization, edge cities and. More people commute out of Detroit everyday for work than commute in.. think about that a bit. Transportation obviously has a big part of that. No real ring road and the edge cities they inspire, but think about transit and the radial Port Authority routes some like to (Searching for Mr. Squiggly) critique... for some reason Pittsburgh supports a greater center city employment concentration than most anywhere else. I find it hard to believe that the Port Authority of the past helped support that. Consider that as we continue to strip the Port Authority down to it's minimalist (i.e. cost efficient) end game.

Not ignoring the population loss. We'll get to that.

Counting Colberts

I have to say I am really disappointed in myself that I didn't catch this story myself. Used to be tested on morse code flashing light even.

But I didn't catch this from a couple weeks ago...Colbert on the Census:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Noncensus
http://www.colbertnation.com/
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Jeff Goldblum

Pirates... what is there to say?

Didn't catch this recently, but the Onion recently reported:

Pirates want everyone in Pittsburgh to stop staring at them.

With the news of ever more trades being pushed, I am just curious how low can the Pirates' salary go. They are striving to achieve that ultimate in cost-efficiency it seems to me.

I won't say it. But maybe others can fill in other local organizations seeking similar strategies. Results are usually similar no matter the context.

Innovation-less Burgh?

Speaking of innovation in the nonprofit sector. Government is a nonprofit sector I suppose......

News that the Social Innovation Accelerator is shutting down is awfully abrupt and unexpected. A unique event, or maybe a signal of something else? The organization was founded by Tim Zak who now runs CMU's Australia campus and has an itinerant blog himself going back a few years: http://timzak.blogspot.com/ Is all a bit curious since yesterday the news was about social innovation in Pittsburgh being in the news with White House exposure.

iBurgh*

Breathe Briem... Breathe. I almost thought this was a joke that the city wants to beat out Boston as a high tech place for digital citizenry.

Ok. I admit it, I suggested some government iPhone apps. Was I serious? Sure. But let's be clear. There is a long long way to go, and some easier things to do before we ought to be pushing the envelope. Maybe we should worry about putting some more basic city documents online first.

Probably a good time to answer the question nobody really tried to answer. I asked who 'this person' is. The answer is that was Smithfield. As in 'Ask Smithfield'... who was the gateway on the City of Pittsburgh's web site more than a decade ago. He was suppose to be the answer person. I don't know if they actually used the technology of the 'Ask Jeeves' web search engine some may remember, but that was the idea. Smithfield was going to be the online gateway to help you get all your city questions answered and access city data. It was window dressing at best. Let's not waste time on window dressing if it does not address the real need. The potential there that the public will be confused and think this is progress. In other words:

Do not get distracted by the bright shiny object!

Are we ahead of where we were a decade ago? In some ways yes, but in an lot of ways no which is remarkable given the tech base here and the sheer change in IT everywhere. The county put some campaign finance material is online for sure (what was that? last month?). But there is a lot more to do. Now granted some of the documents I want are not what the public would want, but are probably more important to have out there than some iPhone gimickry. Why are the only pension reports and bond prospectus available online from me?** That makes little sense. I bet the city owns a scanner somewhere. One of those summer interns could put all sorts of stuff online with no incremental cost.

This is a true story... and I will say as a disclaimer it's not reflective of anyone working on Grant Street these days to my knowledge, but I honestly once had a face to face conversation with a city official that went like this.

Me: Can I get a copy of X?

Response: We don't have money to maintain a library available for requests like that, but if you were able to provide such funding I could help you.

I am sure it was meant to be funny, but it was not meant as a joke. I didn't get the report. A very public and statutorily required report by the way. I thought the response so great that I left with a smile though. Unfortunately it's not the funniest such exchange I have ever had like that.

So I guess I could now get that same response via an iPhone. Maybe with some musical background as well. Cool.

OK.. I'm sorry. I am sure everyone is well intentioned. But eGovernment and digital citizenship is something more than this. A colleague who has since left town has done an awful lot of work in eGovernment while here and for the more academic researchers he is also the editor of the Journal of Information Technology and Politics which has a lot of articles looking at the nexus of technology and citizenship.


________________________
* What happened with iJustine by the way?

** Muni bond prospectus' used to be quite a pain to get individually. At least a lot harder than general corporate financial filings. That has recently changed. But the point is still there.

Medicare R US

Before Medicare... the AP has a good look at the Cleveburgh economy: Eastern Ohio economy may take cues from Pa.

A really great interactive map of medicare spending in the US is online here via MSNBC.

Note that we have some of the higher spending per Medicare recipient.. and I am pretty sure because of the age and income of our population we have a lot more such patients that other similarly sized regions. Multiply those facts and thus the reason that recession or not the local health care industry is weathering the times pretty well at least thus far.

G20 and remembering Clarke T.

Reuters covers the G20 crescendo.. and the author is blogosphere's Jonathan Barnes.

I can't not mention Jonathan's homage to the late Clarke Thomas in his post today. I was thinking of Clarke the other day because I had to look something up in the Carnegie Library's Pennsylvania Department. As I mentioned, that just happens to be where I last ran into Clarke not too long before his passing diligently researching whatever his project was at the time. May we all have the same passion for what we do.

So in deference to that I will skip the more rant-like thought I just typed up. Some things are more important. Maybe tomorrow.

(Greater) Pittsburgh, meet your government(s)

Greater Pittsburgh, meet your government. Just for fun, I count 461 municipalities in the 7 county Pittsburgh MSA these days. Scaled to population that looks like this:

Obligatory caveats: You can click on the image get a bigger PDF version. Image made with Wordle. Names are scaled within to 2008 population estimates I gave it, but it obviously isn't proportional linearly. I actually had to scale down the City of Pittsburgh text because it was scaling it far bigger than what you see here which didn't make sense. 461 municipalities are for the current 7 county MSA definition. and I have not counted manually, but I am thinking some places are just so small relative to others that the algorithm used must have dropped them out of the graphic altogether. Is the software telling us something? Otherwise take it FWIW.

update

I think Wordle was weighting things with a quadratic. Adjusting it accordingly seems to be more cognitively consistent. Also tweaked some fo the names and things to get this. Also the full PDF version is larger now as well which makes it a bit clearer.

WQEX redux

Thinking some about QUBE, then seeing the news about funding issues at WQED you have to wonder what the strategic vision is for the station that was trying to mold itself into an omnimedia brand. One thing from that news story jumped out at me. They say they "may also have to eliminate some national programs purchased separately, such as "The Lawrence Welk Show." You have to pay for the Lawrence Welk show?? I jest of course. As best I know it may be the highest rated show they air. Who gets those royalites?

But in thinking about WQED I realized I didn't know what the current state of WQEX.. or lack of state may be a better way to put it. It was a big local story for years, but has been quiescent for a bit. Just seems that the current financial miasma might spur a new look at WQED's desire to sell its underused 2nd channel... so underused that I bet many have forgotten about it, or never even knew about it in the first place at this point. I'll let wikipedia fill in the basic story fwiw.

WQED once wanted to sell the channel for $20 mil I think if they could have ever sold it a a commercial station. I doubt it's worth a fraction of that now even if they were allowed to sell it. What are the economics of the 2nd channel these days? I can't even figure out what Wikipedia is explaining about the channel broadcasting on a 'virtual' channel. I assume it's on one of my cable channels that I never look at. That must be worth something to someone out there? Anyone know what ratings the channel gets if it's even high enough to be measured? If WQED had been free to sell the channel outright, this would have been resolved years ago.


The proposed WQEX sale wound up involving the highest levels of telecommunications policy in the US. The most important FCC ruling on the issue is here. I learned years after the fact that I am quoted in there... not by name, but some of our work is directly referenced. Interesting ruling just looking at the names involved. The Powell is the son of Colin who was chaiman of the FCC at the time. The policy debates directly involved John McCain on the Senate's commerce committee between his races for president. More context and a 2002 version of the WQEX saga written up in the nation is here.


So what now for WQEX and it's parent? I have no idea. But given that WQED sold Pittsburgh Magazine last month, I have no doubt they still want to get rid of WQEX. How to do that is a question I am sure someone is pondering. With the news that the City Paper will be live streaming former WQEX talk show host Lynn Cullen on the Internet soon.... I can see it now: City Paper TV! Potter in audio, visual and printed form. The OmniPotter.

If that does not work... maybe they should show Rick Sebak documentaries 24/7.

Cleveburgh notes: Downtown Revival

Just thought this was interesting in today's Cleveland Plain Dealer today:

Cleveland's downtown revival starts at the water, port adviser says

They had to pay some management consultant come and tell them that. We had Prince Charles come to give us that advice. Granted it was 20 years ago.

pensions and G20

Already covered in local media, but the Philly Inquirer had a piece over the weekend on the potential takeover of some municipal pension funds by the state. See:

Proposal would have state take over city pension plan. by Jeff Shields . July 4, 2009

Here is something to think about... Lots of talk about how leasing of the parking authority assets could be used to shore up the city's pension systems.. For all numbers I have heard on what the net payoff would be... give or take $200 million that is... the city's pension system would still be one of the worst funded in both the nation and across the state and would still be caught up under this plan. That amount would pretty much put the pension plan back where it was just 2 years ago. At that point the ICA at least was talking about it as: "At some point, it's impossible to catch up".

*****

and the WSJ has a blurb on the upcoming G (20 minus 12) conference that is coming up with some discussion of what it means for the G20 conference here later on. Remember, these folks are coming here for real work, not sightseeing.

*****

update: more on pensions. I just saw noticed this though it's clearly not new. An ammendment dated may 20 to the Act 47 has this little blurb in it:

changes in actuarial assumptions as further detailed below, a more current actuarial valuation would almost certainly find the total City retiree liability to be well above $1.0 billion. With the additional principal balance on pension obligation bonds issued in 1998 to help fund retiree benefits going forward, the City’s current overall retiree liability is believed to rise well above $1.25 billion. (emphasis added)

note the use of the word above.

Hmm..... And people think I'm pessimistic. Was that $1.25 billion number bantered about in the Act 47 debates down at city council? and the city vehemently disagreed with this post of mine where I pointed out the billion dollar bonus. In fact I think the city's position is still that any talk like this is "likened .... to yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater."

more enegy burgh

Catching up on things. Over the weekend the Trib looked at the local energy economy. It may seem like a new story, but it has been obvious for some time... even before the spike in energy prices which now has a lot of folks thinking about it.

Take a look at Slate's look at the coal economy in Central and Northern Appalachia (that would be us btw): The Big Sandy. Obscure economic indicators, Part 4: Central Appalachian Coal Futures. By Daniel Gross. Posted Friday, Sept. 10, 2004, at 4:50 PM ET. Pittsburgh seam spot coal prices spiked far above where they were when that Slate article ran, but have subsequently collapsed as steel driven demand has just destroyed the demand for coking coal.

My own thoughts on seeing thumper trucks rumbling through rural Pennsylvania last year. Also CNN's look at local energy issues following the post-spike energy prices.


My own thoughts from a few years ago on Energy Burgh.


I do have one question though.. I have not looked into this systematically... but are retail biodiesel sources drying up? Also, there were a number of biodiesel refineries that were going to be big in the region. Not sure the status of all those projects at the moment.

QUBE redux

News that the city may get cable competition at some point.

Remember: QUBE TV had city on the cutting edge in '80s. Seriously, if you still have two coax cables in your home it's because of the high bandwidth requirements of interactive TV in the city a decade before the Internet would reach the retail consumer and even before some of us were 'surfing' with Archie or Veronica*. I argue QUBE is counterintuitively the reason the city later lagged behind the latest upgrades for years because it didn't need the additional bandwidth for so long. So basically everyone leapfrogged the city until just a few years ago for things like cable Internet or even digital cable I bet.

* I'm feeling old these days. I wonder what proportion of readers here even remember life before the WWW?