{"id":110,"date":"2024-10-13T18:26:34","date_gmt":"2024-10-13T22:26:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/?p=110"},"modified":"2024-10-13T18:26:34","modified_gmt":"2024-10-13T22:26:34","slug":"decline-of-steel-or-something-else-why-population-declined-in-pittsburgh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/?p=110","title":{"rendered":"Decline of steel, or something else? Why population declined in Pittsburgh."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div style=\"min-height:485px\" id=\"datawrapper-vis-ZhuTY\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\" defer src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/ZhuTY\/embed.js\" charset=\"utf-8\" data-target=\"#datawrapper-vis-ZhuTY\"><\/script><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/ZhuTY\/full.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/noscript><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As I discussed in my earlier post on the effect of deindustrialization in Pittsburgh, the city experienced dramatic population decline from the 1970s-1980s. This is clearly attributable to steel companies closing operations and offshoring jobs, with U.S Steel becoming more of an energy company by the mid 80s.<sup><a href=\"#footnote_1_110\" id=\"identifier_1_110\" class=\"footnote-link footnote-identifier-link\" title=\"Beazley, J. Ernest. &ldquo;U.S. Steel Corp. Makes its Steel Business A Separate Unit, Changes Name to USX.&rdquo; Wall Street Journal, Jul 09, 1986. 1, https:\/\/www.proquest.com\/newspapers\/u-s-steel-corp-makes-business-separate-unit\/docview\/398086561\/se-2.\">1<\/a><\/sup> But the wave of job loss only began in the late 1970&#8217;s, and from a graph of city population change above we can see that a decline began throughout the 70&#8217;s, before most of the jobs were lost. More troubling for my earlier contention that the reason for population decrease was solely due to steelworker job loss, the population had all but plateaued by the 1930&#8217;s, long before the decline of steel-working. Why is this and what alternative factors led to the decline that really began in the 1960s and was only made worse, not caused by the deindustrialized 80s?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The reason for this seems to be that the focus on steel production itself, to the exclusion of even making finished goods from steel, meant that the growth of Pittsburgh couldn&#8217;t sustain itself. It is likely the decline was forestalled in the 1930-40s only by the outbreak of WW2 and the need for every bit of steel for the war effort, and a brief increase from 1940-50 was most likely from the post war baby boom. As suburbs grew in the 1950s, many workers were able to buy houses outside the city, and commute to work, lowering the city population. The complete picture comes into focus when we look at the excellent chart prepared by Sabina Deitrick in her analysis of population and cultural change in Pittsburgh.<sup><a href=\"#footnote_2_110\" id=\"identifier_2_110\" class=\"footnote-link footnote-identifier-link\" title=\"Deitrick, Sabina. 2015. &ldquo;Cultural Change in Pittsburgh: A Demographic Analysis at City and County Scales.&rdquo; Table 1, pg.77 Pennsylvania Geographer 53 (2): 71&ndash;92. https:\/\/research.ebsco.com\/linkprocessor\/plink?id=0c19c5f5-91b9-3300-b35c-60a62aff4a78.\">2<\/a><\/sup> She gives us a look at the population of Allegheny County, both including and excluding Pittsburgh. Allegheny County outside of Pittsburgh proper continued to grow slightly through suburbanization, and then the 1980s caused a decline in the suburban areas as well. Overall, the decline of Pittsburgh was less sudden than it may seem, and was driven by years of stasis due to overspecialization and began to decline due to suburban migration and the ability for workers to commute into the city. The deindustrialization only exposed the decay for all to see, it was not the sole cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n<ol class=\"footnotes\"><li id=\"footnote_1_110\" class=\"footnote\">Beazley, J. Ernest. &#8220;U.S. Steel Corp. Makes its Steel Business A Separate Unit, Changes Name to USX.&#8221; Wall Street Journal, Jul 09, 1986. 1, https:\/\/www.proquest.com\/newspapers\/u-s-steel-corp-makes-business-separate-unit\/docview\/398086561\/se-2.<span class=\"footnote-back-link-wrapper\"> [<a href=\"#identifier_1_110\" class=\"footnote-link footnote-back-link\">&#8617;<\/a>]<\/span><\/li><li id=\"footnote_2_110\" class=\"footnote\">Deitrick, Sabina. 2015. \u201cCultural Change in Pittsburgh: A Demographic Analysis at City and County Scales.\u201d Table 1, pg.77 <em>Pennsylvania Geographer<\/em> 53 (2): 71\u201392. https:\/\/research.ebsco.com\/linkprocessor\/plink?id=0c19c5f5-91b9-3300-b35c-60a62aff4a78.<span class=\"footnote-back-link-wrapper\"> [<a href=\"#identifier_2_110\" class=\"footnote-link footnote-back-link\">&#8617;<\/a>]<\/span><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I discussed in my earlier post on the effect of deindustrialization in Pittsburgh, the city experienced dramatic population decline from the 1970s-1980s. This is clearly attributable to steel companies closing operations and offshoring jobs, with U.S Steel becoming more of an energy company by the mid 80s.1 But the wave of job loss only&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-workshops"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=110"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115,"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110\/revisions\/115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}