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by happytoexplain 16 days ago
Continued growth to what end...?
3 comments

Jobs and new families?

I’ve become intimately familiar with Youngstown, OH - about 70 miles away from the Pittsburgh - and it’s a great case study of how far a once-powerhouse city can fall if it doesn’t a actively reinvent itself.

That's causally backwards. What we want is for families to have jobs and an American quality of life. Not to just create "jobs and families" as if they are the product at the end of the manufacturing line. That goal only makes sense for politicians (and short-term thinking politicians, at that).
Perhaps “Jobs for new families” would be better phrasing?

This isn’t a hypothetical scenario though - the lack of economic opportunity across the border is a key reason of why I’m married.

Sorry, I don't follow what your second sentence is referring to. But I should be more clear: I'm not commenting on a specific situation, only on the "growth mindset". I.e. it should be an "improvement mindset", which specific types of growth either help or harm in each situation.
Ultimately to the end of allowing Pittsburgh and the surrounding area to be a place with agglomeration effects, growth, and opportunities enough to allow smart and ambitious young people to remain in the area as opposed to brain draining into the Acela corridor.

It’s sad when a city that could go either way chooses to rust and its most talented young people no longer have the option of staying in their home if they want dynamic careers.

The city not dying.