In Defense of the City of Pittsburgh
What is the state of the City of Pittsburgh?
The question is debated even more than usual these days, probably because 2025 will see multiple municipal elections across Pennsylvania. And what people believe about Pittsburgh is subject to the same information distortions that color our national politics.
It’s not uncommon, for example, to hear laments about the city’s persistent population and employment losses. I would not be surprised if most regional residents believe that Pittsburgh is the root cause of job and population losses affecting southwestern Pennsylvania.
Are they right to think so? Recent demographic and economic trends might surprise them.
Start with employment and job creation. Jobs in Pittsburgh are not declining at all – far from it. Paused only briefly by Covid, employment has seen a consistent and remarkable growth trend for nearly 15 years. As of 2024, over 317,000 wage and salary jobs were located at worksites within Pittsburgh proper. The number of jobs in the city is now well above the figure of the late 1950s, when jobs in the city likely reached their all-time high.
The city’s ability not only to retain but also to grow the number of local jobs in the face of suburbanization and deindustrialization is a remarkable achievement. Pittsburgh remains the regional economy’s job base. The city’s job gains constitute the vast bulk of all employment growth across southwestern Pennsylvania over the last 15 years. From 2010 through the middle of 2024, over 75% of the Pittsburgh region’s employment gains have been generated by jobs located within the city. Moreover, at the end of 2024, the city of Pittsburgh’s 2.7% unemployment rate was lower than that of any county in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Many believe that the city’s resident population is in free fall. It’s true that the city has lost about half of its population from eight decades ago, but Pittsburgh is far from the only Rust Belt city to endure such a fate. What many observers miss is this: Pittsburgh’s population losses abated entirely 15 to 20 years ago, and its population has been stable since. Whether the city will turn it around from here and begin growing again remains an open question, but it is no longer shrinking.
With an election season on the horizon, the city’s future will be debated by all candidates, in all races, as it should be. The city still faces major challenges, with deep and chronic problems that remain to be solved. But in any assessment of a city’s well-being, population and employment trends loom large. Both are pointing in positive directions for Pittsburgh.
