The State of Downtown Pittsburgh

By John Valentine

I am so proud to live in Downtown Pittsburgh! This is my home!

Leaving Downtown is your choice. Going public about wanting to move your business out of downtown is also your choice, but doing that just makes the problems harder to resolve for the rest of us.

The pandemic has created more than a few challenges for cities all over the world. I wish there was a magic wand we could wave and solve all of our issues overnight but that is not realistic. Further, it takes a village and not just the government to solve these challenges.

Let me be clear. I am not leaving Downtown. Not now. Not later.

One of the many reasons I live in Pittsburgh is the people. I believe what makes our city so great is that the people are great. We have a never give up attitude. After reading an article in last week's P-G it's clear that not all of us have this non-quit gene. Some believe it's better to whine and present their opinion as if it were factual. It's not.

I believe anyone who loves our city, especially those who have made their fortune here, have a responsibility to work to better our city. You can quit, throw up your hands and say, “I'm leaving” or now that times are tough you can roll up your sleeves and give back to the city that has given you so much.

Pittsburghers are a very resilient people. Going back to the last century we have seen the closing of our steel mills and we survived by having that never quit attitude. We reinvented and revived Pittsburgh by being innovative and creating new economic engines. Medical, Education, Technology, Finance and the Arts have positioned us to be a leading city in this century. Most cities would have been left for dead, but there is no quit in Pittsburghers.

All five department stores left downtown yet we became a great residential community. When I moved here in 2004 downtown had just a handful of restaurants. Since then we have created some of the best independent restaurants and also recruited some of the best fine dining establishments in the country. Zagat rated Pittsburgh the number one restaurant city in the world. Walk around Sixth Street or the 900 block of Penn Ave on a weekday evening or any weekend, day or night and you will see almost every restaurant at capacity. 2022 was a year where many downtown restaurants broke all kinds of records and had their very best year ever! More restaurants will be opening soon as we are still one of the most desirable and safest downtowns in the country.

As we start to create a shopping destination almost all of our boutiques had their best year ever in 2022.

We are very high on most lists for tourism and Visit Pittsburgh has more conventions booked for 2023 and 2024 than we ever had.

These are the facts.

Now don't get me wrong, there's a lot more work to be done and although the issues we face are not unique to us we will address them.

We are making progress. You can see improvement already. More police presence on the street. Plans for additional housing and assistance in regard to mental health issues for the homeless. Also a much cleaner downtown to name a few. It's impossible to have all of the plans implemented so quickly but there is a plan and the early results are positive.

City and County government, the corporate, education, foundation, business communities and the downtown community organizations are all working together to be part of the solution. Please join us.

Let me say it again, I am so proud to live in Downtown Pittsburgh! This is my home!