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How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub
111–120 of 367 posts
Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub
#112Hmmm. Does he even reference the fact that the SF Bay Area was the recipient of massive amounts of government and government contractor money? And what about the free-wheeling, non-traditional culture (embodied in the Homebrew Computing Club)? These two factors created Silicon Valley. Federal money subsidized the semiconductor boom, which brought a lot of technical expertise to the area. Then the open-minded culture…
Not to mention a couple of top-ten universities located within 50 miles, and other great schools elsewhere in California.
Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but Dallas fails abysmally on the urban livability and density test. It's one giant exurb. Much of it should be reclassified as a rural area. (Speaking as an Atlantan -- we have the exact same problem.)
I've only been to Dallas a couple times, but it seems like the soul of the city is in the suburbs. Downtown seems dreary and dismal; it has the potential to be exciting, it's quite a beautiful area — but so few people! Scattered coffee shops and restaurants, but I felt like I could've been literally anywhere else.
I felt like I could've been literally anywhere else.
Bingo! That applies to 90% of Atlanta, as well, despite some notable exceptions.
Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub
#114Im 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.
I don't think being expensive necessarily inhibits innovation and a vibrant culture.
Talking in broad generalizations here but:
I feel like Portland has the creativity and culture, but not the talent and intelligence. The Research Triangle has the talent and intelligence, but not the creativity and culture.
Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub
#115Where 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 prefere…
Wow, gas stations like that in an urban setting really are awful. But then again St. Louis has long sacrificed its neighborhoods for the ill-conceived benefit of automobiles.
Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub
#116Isn't Silicon Valley a black hole with unrelenting monetary gravity that would pull all skilled software engineers down towards it? Any young developer who is any good will go from the minor leagues to the big league attracted by the cash, leaving Pittsburgh or whereever behind.
Budding "Silicon Valleys" would simply be the target of aggressive and unrelenting talent raids.
Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Either of these cities socially liberal? Hard to tell based on my visits there.
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Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.…
>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. So what city should we bomb to create the next startup hub? That was obviously very facetious but there was a quote from the eighties or so when the Japanese were doing so well in manufacturing relative to the rust belt. One of the reasons proffered…
You could throw Munich into the comparison too: it certainly was not spared during WWII, although it didn't have the subsequent cold war problems that Berlin did. It's wealthier than Berlin, but more conservative, and more expensive. Berlin seems to be emerging as one of the startup hubs of Europe.
I think if PG reformulated his point to something involving interesting architecture and places, it might be better. Although... even there, Silicon Valley doesn't/didn't have that at all, and it has prospered.
Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub
#119Dallas: - 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, S…
Yes, but Dallas fails abysmally on the urban livability and density test. It's one giant exurb. Much of it should be reclassified as a rural area. (Speaking as an Atlantan -- we have the exact same problem.)
Back in the 80's they pretty much highway-locked downtown (surrounded it with highways) and killed off a lot of the urban/livability. However much of that is changing/has changed. Downtown actually has people out at night. When you include Deep Ellum and Uptown (right next to downtown), though places are really active. I go out a lot at night...(too much)
I'm not sure what your definition of "rural" is... but the suburbs of Dallas (Plano, Irving, Mckinney, Richardson) are most definitely not rural by any definition. Suburbs...yes...I'd even say dense suburbs at that.
Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub
#120Dallas: - 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, S…
Dallas misses on a few of pg's key points: it's a sprawling driving city, lack of a top university, and a red state culture.
> Pittsburgh is fortunate in being a pre-car city. It's not too spread out. Because those 25 to 29 year olds do not like driving. They prefer walking, or bicycling, or taking public transport... Cities where you can get around without driving are just better period.
> Pittsburgh has something Portland lacks: a first-rate research university. CMU plus little cafes means you have more than hipsters drinking lattes. It means you have hipsters drinking lattes while talking about distributed systems. Now you're getting really close to San Francisco.
> The culture of Pittsburgh is another of its strengths. It seems like a city has to be very socially liberal to be a startup hub, and it's pretty clear why. A city has to tolerate strangeness to be a home for startups, because startups are so strange.
EDIT: map of red/blue counties in Texas: http://frontburner.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/upload...
