{"id":92,"date":"2024-09-12T14:54:36","date_gmt":"2024-09-12T18:54:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/?p=92"},"modified":"2024-09-12T14:54:36","modified_gmt":"2024-09-12T18:54:36","slug":"still-the-city-of-steel-pittsburgs-population-decline-in-the-80s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/?p=92","title":{"rendered":"Still the City of Steel?: Pittsburg’s population decline in the 80s."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Why did Pittsburgh’s population decline sharply in the 1970s and 80s?
Pittsburgh has a reputation as the city of steel, and steel-workers. This industry reached unprecedented heights in the city, and to fuel these mills and smelters, many workers were required.
From 1810, until 1960, the population of Pittsburgh constantly increased from census to census.1<\/a><\/sup> But a small decline began between the 1960 and 1970 census, and in the next two decades the population declined by 200,000, with the most severe decrease in the 1980s.2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n


The decline in population was, dramatic and seemingly sudden, but upon closer inspection the reason for the decline was a decline of the steel industry in the 1970s and 80s. The general slowdown in the U.S economy caused by the Arab Oil crisis and Stagflation in the 1970s hit the steel industry hard. By the mid 1980’s over 100,000 steel-workers had lost their jobs, and foreign competition was undercutting prices.3<\/a><\/sup> The unions at the steel plants were unwilling to continue accepting cut after cut to their members wages, but the company management found it easier to shutter factories rather than continue paying the workers. And by the mid 80s, US Steel Co., which had been the largest steel concern in the area, had diversified and drawn down steel so much that its steel plants were made into only one of four branches at the company, with steel only accounting for 30% of the company’s earnings in 1986.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4<\/a><\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The very industry that attracted large groups of people to Pittsburgh, sent them away in the 80s when it was no longer profitable to operate the steel plants that had given Pittsburgh it’s identity. By the end of the 1980s, Pittsburgh was no longer a steel town, but a declining city of decaying factories lending to the new name of it’s region, the Rust Belt.<\/p>\n

  1. U.S. Census Bureau and Erik Steiner, Spatial History Project, Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis, Stanford University. This data set only counts the population of Pittsburgh beginning in 1810. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  2. U.S. Census Bureau and Erik Steiner, Spatial History Project [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  3. Beazley,J.Ernest and Mark Russel. “Hanging Tough: Steel Union is Balking at further Givebacks, Terming them Futile — Workers Say Concessions Fail to Stem Big Job Losses Or Diversification Moves — an Era of Strife may Loom.” Wall Street Journal, Jul 29, 1986. 1, https:\/\/www.proquest.com\/newspapers\/hanging-tough-steel-union-is-balking-at-further\/docview\/398004780\/se-2. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  4. Beazley, J. Ernest. “U.S. Steel Corp. Makes its Steel Business A Separate Unit, Changes Name to USX.” Wall Street Journal, Jul 09, 1986. 1, https:\/\/www.proquest.com\/newspapers\/u-s-steel-corp-makes-business-separate-unit\/docview\/398086561\/se-2. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Why did Pittsburgh’s population decline sharply in the 1970s and 80s?Pittsburgh has a reputation as the city of steel, and steel-workers. This industry reached unprecedented heights in the city, and to fuel these mills and smelters, many workers were required.From 1810, until 1960, the population of Pittsburgh constantly increased from census to census.1 But a…<\/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-92","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-workshops"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92","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=92"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99,"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions\/99"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=92"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=92"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=92"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}