Cupcake News

Now that CoCo's in Shadyside and Dozen in Squirrel Hill are both open, how do their cupcakes compare? I made a cupcake run just before Christmas, but neither store had ramped up for retail, so I missed out. One correspondent, however, recently visited both stores and sent me this review:

"Coco's chocolate cupcake won hands down. Both cupcakes had exceptionally good frosting, but the cake of the Dozen's cupcake was quite dry and simply unacceptable for a $2.50 cupcake. By contrast, the cake portion of the Coco's cupcake was moist and flavorful. Coco's also has a larger number of tables and chairs in a more spacious and inviting eat-in area."

Is CoCo's the best in (cup)cake? Are there other local upstarts vying for the crown? Traditional or long-time cupcake suppliers whose taste can't be beat?

Fear not; commenting will not brand you as a member of the Cupcake Class.

Loss, Elegantly Expressed

A city is built on a web of meaning built one relationship at a time. Pittsburgh and its web suffered a loss recently, as I learned reading this post over at Tea Leaves.

More Sporting Notes

A bit of perspective, building on Chris Briem's post the other day:

If David Beckham cashes in on all of the endorsement deals that are swirling about his transfer to Major League Soccer, then a back-of-the-napkin present value calculation ($250m/5 years/5 or 6% discounting) shows that then he alone is worth about as much as a sporting enterprise as the entire Pittsburgh Penguins franchise was worth to Jim Balsillie.

Study in Contrasts

The Pittsburgh Pirates have a new face: Bob Nutting, a West Virginian who is stepping out of the shadows of the team's investment group to assume the role of "principal owner."

The contrasts among the public faces of the three main Pittsburgh professional sports teams remain intriguing:

The Steelers are represented by the Rooneys, and particularly by Dan Rooney. They are old Pittsburgh through and through: quiet, steady, forthright, loyal, true to tradition. Most of the time -- having a casino as a possible neighbor rocks the boat a bit.

The Penguins are represented by Mario Lemieux. He is nouveau Pittsburgh: sporting superhero, charitable celebrity, glamorous, bearing an enthralling sense of entitlement when it comes to what public officials should offer the team.

The Pirates were represented by Kevin McClatchy. McClatchy was progressive Pittsburgh: young, business-minded, not from Western PA and not beholden to Pittsburgh's parochial business or political cultures. But McClatchy crashed and burned, and now we have Bob Nutting, who is the new and improved progressive Pittsburgh: young, business-minded, not from Western PA -- but from close by -- and not beholden to Pittsburgh's parochial business or political cultures.

Nutting seems to be kind of person who doesn't make big changes in a hurry, he seems to be the kind of person who isn't going to sacrifice long term fundamentals for short term payoffs, and he seems to be the kind of person who knows his own mind and follows it, without catering to the whims and demands of the sporting public. Does that make him McClatchy redux? Or does that make him a new kind of Rooney?

It's all speculation today, but my money is on the latter.

If It's All the Same to You

I'm not a fan of the Post-Gazette's current style manual, which requires that "Mr." and "Mrs." be used for second references to most individuals. It's so . . . 1960s. But I assume that the point is to be respectful, and I can live with it, even if I wish that "Ms." would show up more often.

Today, however, the manual gets the paper in trouble. The last line of the P-G story anticipating Governor Rendell's inauguration festivities reads:

Mrs. Rendell said she loved the "elegant, contemporary work" of designer Hian, adding, "As a fellow Pennsylvanian, it's a great source of pride to showcase one of her creations."

The quotation refers to her ball gown. The problem, though, is that Marjorie Rendell, wife of the Governor, isn't a "Mrs." She sits on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. Being respectful means that she is "Judge Rendell" not just in her judicial context, but always.

Bruce Katz on Cities and Pittsburgh

Brookings Institute urbanism scholar Bruce Katz is interviewed by Pop City's Tracy Certo:

One highly positive sign is the shift in thinking about cities among senior policy makers and youth. “Most importantly there’s a shift among young people because the attitudes of cities have changed among youth,” says Katz. And while cities have become cool again, some, such as Portland, are cooler than others. “In terms of smart growth, where there’s more reinvestment to the city and less sprawl, Portland is the poster child of smart growth in the U.S,” says Katz.

The key to its success? Continued growth in the periphery and a whole set of policies for reinvesting in cities. “Very few places have gone that route. Maryland and Michigan and Pennsylvania have begun to focus on transportation policies that ‘fix it first’,” he says, which include measures such as stopping expansion at the periphery of cities that fuels excess sprawl.

And cities have done a good job of getting their own act together, notably in the reduction in crime which has had a dramatic effect, and the delivery of basic services.

Seize the Dayton

As an example of his advocacy, in a report Katz authored called “Seizing City Assets: Ten Steps to Urban Land Reform,” he argues for a citywide, collective action approach to reclaiming vacant lots. Katz cites two model examples in Pittsburgh: the Pittsburgh Technology Center built on the former site of the J& L Steel mill; and Cool Space Locator, an innovative group “committed to the mission of no more empty buildings in the city core.”

Both represent examples that breathe new life into cities instead of fueling growth in the exurbs. “Sprawl,” Katz says solemnly, “is unconscionable for environmental and other reasons.” Pointing to the “classic lag between change on the ground and policy change”, he argues for greater acceleration of reform particularly at the federal and state levels to combat it.

Happy Feet?

Chris Briem writes that he doesn't know of any studies of the economic impact of the Penguins.

Here's a start: Bruce K. Johnson (Centre College), Peter A. Groothuis (Westminster College), John C. Whitehead (East Carolina University), The Value of Public Goods Generated by a Major League Sports Team: The CVM Approach, Journal of Sports Economics, Vol. 2, No. 1, 6-21 (2001).

The abstract:

This article reports an application of the contingent valuation method to measure the value of public goods generated by a professional sports team, the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League. The data and analysis indicate that a major league sports team can produce widely consumed public goods such as civic pride and community spirit and that the value of those public goods may be substantial. However, in the case of the Penguins, the value of the public goods is far less than the cost of building a new arena. Although the analysis of public goods generated by other teams in other cities might lead to different results, the results of this article call into question the widespread practice of government funding of sports stadiums and arenas because it appears that the costs borne by taxpayers exceed the benefits received.

That piece, among others, is cited and discussed in Jordan Rappaport and Chad Wilkerson, What Are the Benefits of Hosting a Major League Sports Franchise?, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Economic Review 2001:1, available at http://kansascityfed.org/publicat/econrev/PDF/1Q01Rapp.pdf

Michael Leeds (Temple University economist) was interviewed yesterday on WDUQ to the effect that the economic impact of the Penguins (like most major sports franchises) is ZERO, but this (I assume) was based on general premises rather than on a study of the Pens per se. He did offer a delightful quote to the effect that professional sports teams represent a "gift" by cities to themselves, valuable (perhaps) for psychic reasons but not justifiable in economic terms.

Unfortunately, I can't find a clip of the interview online.