Pockets of Weirdness

Where are Pittsburgh's pockets of weirdness?

I picked up the phrase from this short piece on Baltimore, in the Style Magazine of the New York Times:

Over a meatloaf dinner at the Metropolitan Coffeehouse & Wine Bar in Federal Hill, my old friend, the writer Michael Yockel (he hired me at City Paper), is picking apart my theory about his hometown. I’m suggesting that it’s one of the last genuine midsize American vernacular cities — a big small town that’s somehow retained its rough edges, its singularity, its historical quirkiness. Every city, Yockel counters, has its pockets of weirdness — it’s just that Baltimore has had some effective PR over the years thanks to a certain filmmaker. ‘‘And there’s a John Waters waiting to happen in plenty of other cities!’’ he says.

Really? Pittsburgh certainly has its quirks and its characters, but I tend to think of the city as reliably middlebrow, desperately clinging to its sense of orderliness and normalcy. Retro beehive hairdos and Divine wouldn't play here - or if they would play in some corners, the city as a whole wouldn't embrace a would-be John Waters flaunting them as urban iconography. (Does Baltimore?) But maybe, as with so many things, I'm altogether wrong, or at least out of the loop.

Where are Pittsburgh's pockets of weirdness?

PILOT Redux

Today's PG report on State Sen. Wayne Fontana and his effort once again to generate government revenue based on local land holdings by large Pittsburgh non-profits reminded me of this Pittsblog post (and the associated PG story) about PILOT programs elsewhere. That's "Payment in Lieu of Taxes," and if non-profit land holdings can't be taxed directly, then PILOT programs are good alternatives - and better, generally speaking, than tuition taxes - to pick a non-random example. (PILOT programs aren't problem-free, of course.) Both the current story and the earlier PILOT story were reported by Rich Lord. I suspect that he isn't the only one who noticed the passage of almost three years since the first story was published.

Why Are Some Cities More Entrepreneurial Than Others?

Speaking of Pittsburgh's history.......

Harvard's Ed Glaeser has a post on the New York Time's Economix Blog looking at that question with an early reference to Pittsburgh and the work of Pitt's Ben Chinitz.   Also has some interactive graphs to go along with the analysis on the topic.

The answer is that most answers people talk about are just talk.

Keeping Tabs on Pittsburgh's History

If you're looking for a holiday gift that says "Pittsburgh," you can't do better than Frank Toker's new book: Pittsburgh: A New Portrait, recently published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. (Pop City ran a profile of the author, who teaches at Pitt, last week.) Weeks ago, one of my "Pittsburgh Renaissance" posts briefly noted that the apparent thesis of the book - that the city's neighborhoods have kept it going over the decades - isn't credible. But that argument isn't the strength of the book (thus the phrase "apparent thesis"); the book includes virtually no evidence to support the claim. But that debate is irrelevant to the real merits of the work. Frank Toker has produced a brilliant and meticulous cataloging of the city's 20th century architectural and planning history. No matter how long you have lived in the region, this book will teach you a lot about its past. The future, of course, is another story.

Meanwhile, if you are a Pittsburgh history junkie, then don't stop with Frank Toker. The Pitt Press has just published a neat book by another Pitt faculty author, my law school colleague Jim Flannery. Titled "The Glass House Boys of Pittsburgh Law, Technology, and Child Labor," the book details the history of child labor in Pittsburgh's glass bottle factories. Jim reminds a region obsessed with its glorious history that not all of Pittsburgh's history is so glorious after all.

Put both books on your holiday list.

Losing Pittsburgh's Edge

The "tuition tax" post below generated more readership and comments than I expected, but most people missed the point. On the tax question and my suggestion itself, I'm not a tax lawyer, so I don't have the tools or the time to fully defend the details of what I suggested (what I called an "amusement tax" on salaries earned by professional athletes competing in Pittsburgh). Is this sort of thing constitutional under the federal Constitution? In general, absolutely. Cities and states can tax income earned within their borders by nonresidents, and the city of New York, to the consternation of New Jersey and Connecticut commuters, does precisely that. Is this sort of thing permitted under relevant Pennsylvania law that authorizes Pittsburgh (a city of the "second class" under PA law) to enact tax legislation? As I read the relevant statute, it is. But if for some reason it isn't, then in concept the law could be changed. I don't expect that to happen. But don't make the mistake of thinking that something can't be done by a city council or by a legislature because it's "illegal." Laws get changed all the time.

The real point of the post, however, was that any tax issue or revenue question in Pittsburgh requires making choices. Tax these folks, not those folks; these folks suffer, in relative terms. Those folks prosper. Like any community, Pittsburgh hates the idea of closing libraries, or closing hospitals, or closing police stations; it hates any prospect of losing some of what the community believes defines its "essence," whether that means population or neighborhood or services or resources. But lose things Pittsburgh will have to do, as Yoda might have said. As I've written over and over, at its current size, and with its current economy, Pittsburgh simply doesn't have the money to support all of its people with all of its current services. It is seductive but wrong to think that taxing college students will enable the city to avoid making hard choices. At most, a tuition tax means that days of reckoning can be postponed for a little while. The same thing goes for taxing professional athletes. Taxing jocks is no more logical than taxing the young. It's just that professional athletes have a lot more money.

I haven't been posting much of late, because work and family have been keeping me busy. Plus, I've been on the road. Interestingly, in my travels since the G-20 summit (and since my return from Amsterdam at the beginning of October), for the first time in years I haven't heard any of the positive "buzz" about Pittsburgh that has sustained the image of the city and region recently -- and that was the chief benefit of hosting the summit. The Steelers' up-and-down season seems to have little do with this. Instead, it is simply that many people and audiences greeted my mention of Pittsburgh in years past with comments echoing a "that's a cool place now" theme. Over the last several weeks, outside of Western PA I have gotten no comments about Pittsburgh at all - or worse, I have gotten references to kooky tax schemes and the fact that the city (and UPMC) waited until after the summit to unload the bad news about libraries and hospitals.

Is Pittsburgh sliding slowly backward? Or (more likely) are reality and image slowly coming into closer alignment?

Who can say? Time will tell. Onward.

The Tuition Tax: Robbing Peter to Pay Paul

[Updated: After posting the note below, I was advised that the city already has a tax on local income received by non-resident professional athletes. Here's a link. What I'm talking about below is related, but perhaps a little different. The existing rule is a form of income tax. (Of course, it should be possible to raise the rate and increase the $2-$3 million already generated annually.) What I'm talking about is the same kind of "usage fee" or "service fee" that is the conceptual driver behind the "tuition tax."]

This morning's PG editorializes that the proposed "tuition tax" on Pittsburgh college students isn't a great idea -- but the PG, like the mayor, can't think of any other solution to Pittsburgh's pension deficit. The underlying problem, according to the PG, is that "Harrisburg" won't solve Pittsburgh's pension problems, and Pittsburgh doesn't want to let Harrisburg take over the pension system. (Why the paradox in that statement is ignored still puzzles me.)

But there are other solutions.

Here is one:

Who is better able to afford paying an extra sum per year for the privilege of enjoying all the amenities, services, and privileges afforded by the City of Pittsburgh? College students, or professional athletes?

Don't enact a "tuition tax." Instead, enact an "amusement tax": Every pro athlete who competes in Pittsburgh, including both Steelers, Pirates, and Penguins and players visiting teams -- full active rosters, whether or not they play a particular game -- could pay a very modest percentage of his annual income (salary plus prorated bonus plus endorsements) to the City of Pittsburgh. Athletes already pay a pro-rated income tax to states where they compete as visitors, so the concept of local taxes isn't foreign. Given the number of athletes, the number of games in Pittsburgh in each sport, and the amount of money needed ($15 million per year for the pensions, plus a $1 million in pocket change for the Carnegie Library system), it shouldn't be too difficult to come up with an appropriate tax rate.

Would this embolden other cities with pro sports teams to do the same? Sure. I think that pro teams generally take more than they give from their host cities as it is.

Would this serve as a disincentive to pursue a career as an athlete rather than a career in some other field? Maybe. I think that a little disincentive to be a pro athlete, and some incentive to do something else, would be great.

In case it seems to overreach to cover the whole $16 million gap by taxing athletes, we might collect, say, half the money from pro athletes and half the money elsewhere.

Just the other day, according to the paper, "The Rivers Casino will pay its $7.5 million a year toward construction of the new arena in two installments under an agreement approved by the city-Allegheny County Sports & Exhibition Authority board." What if the Sports & Exhibition Authority board sucked it up for the good of the city, its libraries, and its college students, and agreed to turn that money over to the mayor? Obviously, that would leave the arena looking for cash, and Pens fans and other prospective attendees of arena events would scream foul. But who is better able to bear the cost (and should bear the cost) of arena construction? Those who will use the arena, or ...

It's a borrow-from-Peter-to-pay-Paul situation regardless of how you add it up. The only question is who is going to be Peter, and who is going to be Paul.

Space and Place in Pittsburgh

New to this blog: The Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy Blog has been added to the "Green Pittsburgh" links on the left side.

And I quite liked: David Owen's piece in Sunday's Post-Gazette on the sustainability of dense urban centers. Worldwide, city populations are growing, which means that it is high time that we looked at the environmental advantages as well as the environmental challenges of urbanism. There is some good news in there for Pittsburgh: The city still has the bones of a dense urban center, which means that it could be well-positioned in environmental terms. There is some bad news, too: Pittsburgh may have its urban bones, but it doesn't have a comparably dense urban population. At least, some neighborhoods are far denser than others.

It might seem to be a paradox, but it's not, that sustainable urbanism includes conscious attention to public space. This was an important takeaway from my trek to Amsterdam last month. I suspect that the real reason that Pittsburghers feel that the city/region is undergoing a "renaissance" has more to do with rehabilitating some salient public spaces than with building construction, football and ice hockey championships, and misleading "livability" awards. Well-designed public space has functional payoffs and psychic ones. I'm thinking of changes over the last decade to the Allegheny River riverfront, Point State Park, Market Square (still in progress), parts of the Mon River riverfront, Schenley Plaza, Frick Park, and Highland Park -- to name just a few. Is there another American city of Pittsburgh's size that has a better collection of public spaces?

Vote Today!

Vote! Vote! Vote!

If you live in Pittsburgh, don't skip the polls because you think that the Mayor's race is a foregone conclusion. Some people think otherwise. And there is a Supreme Court of PA election that is very, very important!

More Bullying From Mylan

Getting sued, even getting threatened with a lawsuit, is a chilling experience. And it sure takes the edge off the belief that you're just doing your job.

Over at the Post-Gazette, I can't even imagine what writers Len Boselovic and Patricia Sabatini are going through in the wake of yet another lawsuit by Mylan, the target of their excellent investigative reporting, against them and the Post-Gazette. This new suit expresses anger over the same underlying circumstances that framed Mylan's first lawsuit, filed back in August and now pending in federal court, where the PG has moved to dismiss it.

The first suit accused the PG of appropriating confidential information and using it to impugn the company. The new suit accuses the PG of reporting false information.

Even non-lawyers will note some incongruities here. The first lawsuit gave the impression that Mylan acknowledged that the reporting was accurate; Mylan was upset about how the PG went about its work. The second lawsuit clearly accuses the PG of defamation -- reporting false information. So, Mylan: Is it true, or is it false? The company can't have it both ways. It's always possible that some information was true and some was false. But the news reports (not only in the PG, but elsewhere) suggest strongly that it's all the same stuff. And what about suing twice? I haven't seen the lawsuits themselves, so there may be a way to characterize them as legitimately distinct from a procedural standpoint. Usually, a single set of events gives an alleged victim the right to sue once, characterizing events in various ways under different legal theories. But the new suit gives the impression that Mylan's first suit was a false start; these aren't just different legal theories, but a whole different version of events. Now, it wants a do-over.