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How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#31

Post by saosebastiao »

Where is the actual evidence that strict historical preservation actually matters? The culturally important buildings tend to stay around whether they are "protected" or not...its really only at the margins where they do anything.

And those margins tend to be pretty ridiculous. Seattle, for example, has upheld historical preservation status on buildings that were completely vacant and had no discernible written history whatsoever. Things like old mechanics garages and derelict wooden apartment buildings that had already rotted through.

Strict historical preservation is nothing more than an anti-development attitude codified into law.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#32

Post by mtviewdave »

>Focus on historic preservation. Big real estate development projects are not what's bringing the twenty-somethings here. They're the opposite of the new restaurants and cafes; they subtract personality from the city.

>The empirical evidence suggests you cannot be too strict about historic preservation. The tougher cities are about it, the better they seem to do.

Interesting contrast to the common belief here on HN that historic preservation is just unimportant NIMBYism and should be opposed in the name of bringing down housing costs.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#33

Post by needz »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #29
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #12

Im convinced that the next valley will happen in the place that can attract the most unmarried people ages 18 through 30. What do these people care about? - night life - high density urban living - progressive local governments and freedom (drug and marriage decriminalization). - good public transportation - access to high speed internet - good universities As they grow older and get married, affordable and high spee…

What if you didn't have to attract the "most" 18 to 30 year olds? What if what you really needed was to attract an underserved niche of 18 to 30 year olds? I think Atlanta or Nashville is ripe. Northeasterners can and do move to California already. Southerners are much less likely to do so imo. The rural market is grossly underserved right now. Almost none of the efforts to get people into computer science are hittin…

I think Birmingham fits well in that list. We have a very low cost of living and our downtown is undergoing a huge revival these past few years. Great access to nature too.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#34

Post by state »

saosebastiao wrote: post #31

Where is the actual evidence that strict historical preservation actually matters? The culturally important buildings tend to stay around whether they are "protected" or not...its really only at the margins where they do anything. And those margins tend to be pretty ridiculous. Seattle, for example, has upheld historical preservation status on buildings that were completely vacant and had no discernible written histo…

In spirit I agree, but can you provide any references? I'd love to be able to make this argument with a source to back me up.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#35

Post by mafuyu »

minimaxir wrote: post #15

I'm a CMU undergraduate who moved to San Francisco. Every year, the School of Computer Science publishes a survey of where undergrads go after college: https://www.cmu.edu/career/salaries-and-destinations/2015-su... [pdf] About half of the 2015 graduates go to employment in the West/CA. I'll add that I am not even a graduate in CS (I majored in Business), yet I know a lot of non-CS majors my year who have also moved…

I'm a current ECE student and I could see it.

AlphaLab accelerator and TechShop are in the area, and there are the Google and Uber campuses by CMU.

A lot of the talent right now is getting pulled by the big name west coast companies, but I could see something growing over the next ten years.

(The weather is awfully dreary, though.)

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#36

Post by joelrunyon »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #29
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #12

Im convinced that the next valley will happen in the place that can attract the most unmarried people ages 18 through 30. What do these people care about? - night life - high density urban living - progressive local governments and freedom (drug and marriage decriminalization). - good public transportation - access to high speed internet - good universities As they grow older and get married, affordable and high spee…

What if you didn't have to attract the "most" 18 to 30 year olds? What if what you really needed was to attract an underserved niche of 18 to 30 year olds? I think Atlanta or Nashville is ripe. Northeasterners can and do move to California already. Southerners are much less likely to do so imo. The rural market is grossly underserved right now. Almost none of the efforts to get people into computer science are hittin…

Commenting to call out Nashville as the next Austin. Lots of similar characteristics, business friendly environment, and fast internet.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#37

Post by cfallin »

rdl wrote: post #3

I would love to see this happen. (I'd also love to see Portland Oregon, mentioned as an alternative, get the world-class research university it lacks now.)

Yes please! I grew up in PDX, and live in Pgh now. There are a surprising number of similarities in the sort of grassroots neighborhood community, and the slower pace of life compared to CA. (And the weather, I guess.) Pittsburgh is way ahead in intellectual foundation -- CMU is world-class -- but Portland has a quality-of-life edge.

Portland already has a small but respectable startup scene, and a few bigger anchors (Intel, etc), but it has huge potential if it were to build more of a tech/CS critical mass.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#38

Post by maxerickson »

ASinclair wrote: post #30
taylorwc wrote: post #2

> If an investor community grows up here, it will happen the same way it did in Silicon Valley: slowly and organically. I love this. I'm in Kansas City and find myself constantly cringing at the number of projects that all try to be a silver bullet that will magically transform the startup ecosystem here or in any other midwest city. If you want to make some place a good place for startups, then you have to play the…

It also doesn't hurt to have a huge injection of DoD dollars. That played a big part in how Silicon Valley got its start.

I took note of a post Katrina suggestion to bring aid to New Orleans by opening a large federal office there (whoever was making the suggestion pointed out that DC had plenty of federal spending and the difference showed).

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#39

Post by davidw »

state wrote: post #34
saosebastiao wrote: post #31

Where is the actual evidence that strict historical preservation actually matters? The culturally important buildings tend to stay around whether they are "protected" or not...its really only at the margins where they do anything. And those margins tend to be pretty ridiculous. Seattle, for example, has upheld historical preservation status on buildings that were completely vacant and had no discernible written histo…

In spirit I agree, but can you provide any references? I'd love to be able to make this argument with a source to back me up.

Here's an example I posted on twitter, from Boulder, Colorado:

http://www.dailycamera.com/news/boulder/ci_27278888/boulder-...

That seems like a pretty absurd historical designation. It's just creating a burden for the people who bought it. It's a far cry from bulldozing a beautiful old brick building to put in a McDonalds.

Edit:

> The empirical evidence suggests you cannot be too strict about historic preservation. The tougher cities are about it, the better they seem to do.

If you go a bit beyond the US, you could look at Europe and... I'm not sure that's true. Rome has a ton of old stuff that's been reasonably well preserved. Berlin has been torn apart and reinvented. Berlin is doing way better than Rome in terms of startups.

Granted, there are a ton of other factors in play, but if it were just about having a lot of historical stuff, Italy would be the startup capital of the world.

I think I get what he's talking about... you want architecture and places that feel 'real', not some homogeneous office park. On the other hand... most of Silicon Valley is very new, and not very exciting, and it did "ok".

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#40

Post by Bluestrike2 »

tacos wrote: post #5

It's as if he's never spoken to a Carnegie Mellon grad as to why they get the hell out of Pittsburgh after graduation...

The obvious solution is to get more CMU grads to learn to ski. Then the weather becomes a positive. Problem solved.

Oh, shoot. SF is only about 4 hours from Tahoe. Damn. Pittsburgh's ski resorts (har har) are like bad zits owned by a prick named Robert Nutting in comparison. Now my idea will backfire and everyone will rush west even faster. This city planning stuff is harder than it looks.

All kidding aside, even with the weather, Pittsburgh has a lot of advantages going for it. CMU might be the major research institution in the region, but the other schools will benefit the startup scene as well. Not just in terms of direct research, but in feeding other students towards CMU for grad work, having a more educated local populace in general amongst the younger demographics, etc. Time will tell how those factors play out.

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