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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

#71

Post by dionidium »

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…

Let me give you two examples that show different things about preservation review. First, the idea that significant buildings usually survive, anyway, is emphatically not the experience here:

1. http://www.stlmag.com/arts/history/why-is-st-louis-destroyin...

Secondly, preservation review is about more than saving beautiful or historically important buildings. It's also about maintaining an urban form -- about preferencing the existing built environment over modern, car-centric, suburban-style developments. See this example:

2. https://nextstl.com/2015/01/do-the-math-qt/

This second point is tricky, because lots of people prefer the gas station to some old, simple, under-utilized structures.

But not the type of young people who want to work at a startup. Cities need to decide which kind of constituent they want to support.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#72

Post by cfallin »

minimaxir wrote: post #49
ghaff wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not as long as the weather remains the way it is, anyways. Really? I like a lot about the California climate (and terrain) but this seems a level of geographical determinism that wasn't true until pretty recently. And arguably, even today, is influenced mostly by a fairly specific class of mobile/social/web companies. For example, there's a huge amount of pharma/genomics and other forms of tech in the Boston area (a…

I was referring to Pittsburgh's coin-flip weather. Edited OP for clarity. Yes, it really is that bad .

I'm a PhD student at CMU right now. We just went from 75-degree "wow, we skipped spring" weather a few weekends ago to snow last weekend. Who knows what next week will bring.

Keeps things interesting as long as you remain indoors!

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#73

Post by TillE »

ausjke wrote: post #52

I went to Pittsburgh a couple years ago, the downtown is just slightly better than Buffalo, not fully a ghost town but pretty close. Buffalo is worse because someone made the wise decision to move UB out to the suburb, which essentially rendered the already lost town to a ghost city. Put young people into the center of town helped to sustain it, however a city's future is more decided by the overall economy developme…

Buffalo is crippled by truly awful winter weather, especially downtown where the wind from the lake is incredibly strong. You could spend billions renovating the area, turning all the parking lots into something useful, and it would still be a fairly miserable place to live.

I've only spent a little time in western PA, but it's definitely better than that.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#74

Post by vonmoltke »

gshulegaard wrote: post #58
ausjke wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While not a perfect fit, Austin seems like a good enough match for this.

And there is a burgeoning tech industry in Austin...if the choices of my fellow tech industry recent college graduates relocation choices is a reliable anecdotal indicator. I found out a fair number of my acquaintances from college (University of California) took jobs and relocated to Austin.

"[B]urgeoning tech industry"? For what definition of "tech"? Dell and various semiconductor companies have been down there for decades. The games industry has had a strong presence since the mid-90s at least.

The startup scene might be considered burgeoning, but the tech sector in Austin as a whole is pretty well-established.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#75

Post by ryanSrich »

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…

Statistically Portland, OR seems like an ideal place (with the exception of Universities). The issue is it's already somewhat expensive.

I would say the research triangle seems poised for something interesting, but again, kind of already expensive.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#76

Post by davidw »

spelunker wrote: post #50
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…

Denver/Boulder fits most of that bill and already has a startup culture, sorta. Kansas City is nice too, and Google fiber being available is a huge plus. Obviously I'm biased since I've lived in both places.

Boulder is a great place that has a lot going for it. It's also infested with NIMBY's that are possibly worse than those in the Bay Area.

https://journal.dedasys.com/2015/06/18/boulder-colorado-vs-b...

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#77

Post by wklauss »

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…

I'm not sure where do you get the idea that people aging 18-30 care about those specific things. I assume Pew will have some statistics about interests and priorities for these ages but I wouldn't be surprised if those are not the main worries of the generation. Yes, urban living is on the rise and with it some of these list item will rise too (density, night life, high speed internet, public transportation...) but this is a trend that will affect most mayor cities in the US.

My guess? The "next valley" will be highly decentralized and a lot of big cities will act as innovation hubs.

Oh and remember that the valley happened well before the flock of young people to SF. Lot of factors played in, including the presence of well established semiconductor companies whose employees were far from the stereotype you are describing.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#78

Post by vonmoltke »

cfallin wrote: post #72
minimaxir wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was referring to Pittsburgh's coin-flip weather. Edited OP for clarity. Yes, it really is that bad .

I'm a PhD student at CMU right now. We just went from 75-degree "wow, we skipped spring" weather a few weekends ago to snow last weekend. Who knows what next week will bring. Keeps things interesting as long as you remain indoors!

Oh, so it's Dallas. 75 is spring here, though.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#79

Post by shriphani »

I remember my time in Pittsburgh. Mostly fond memories. However 8 to 9 months of the year the atmosphere is really gloomy (not just the weather - take a walk in the downtown - feels like everything is falling apart) - when things are not going right in life that is just the worst thing to put up with.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#80

Post by Cshelton »

Dallas:

- Highest growth rate in the nation (especially for 18 - 30 years old), after Houston, which is down now due to the oil industry, placing Dallas at #1

- Highest spending on food and alcohol at restaurants - http://bizbeatblog.dallasnews.com/2015/09/dallas-fort-worth-...

- One of the most affordable places to live in the U.S.

- Large number of top tier universities within 3 hours (Univ of Texas, Baylor, TCU, SMU, UNT, Texas A&M, UTD, UTA)

- Massive amount of wealth/wealthy investors, who, are starting to put their wealth into more and more seed start-ups

My point is, many cities all fit the same criteria as he listed. But until the people IN those communities move to make it happen, it won't. In the last 3 years, I've seen a magnitude increase in Start-up/entrepreneur activity happening in Dallas. And I believe much of the criteria PG said is right and a good part of the reason, but those things won't just "make" it happen.

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