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PLENTY OF THEORIES, FIXES PROPOSED FOR PITTSBURGH'S SINGLE SCENE
Associated Press Allison Schlesinger June 19, 2003 PITTSBURGH – If Pittsburgh is going to be known as a rotten place for a young adult to find a date, residents might as well have a sense of humor about it. Or at least that's how Joe Giacobello sees it. Stung by news that Forbes magazine for the second year in a row called Pittsburgh the worst U.S. city in which to be single, Giacobello—who has spent seven years trying to find Ms. Right in the city—decided to lampoon it by planning "The Loneliest Single Guy and Gal in America Contest." Giacobello is still working out the details, but he said he'll probably solicit short essays about the 'Burgh's void of personal ads and sad bar scene. "The joke is, if there is such a thing as the loneliest guy in America, he's got to live in Pittsburgh," said the 39-year-old from Moon Township, just outside of the city. The magazine considered elements such as nightlife and job growth in ranking single living in the country's 40 largest cities. It even consulted one of Pittsburgh's own—Carnegie Mellon University professor Richard Florida—when it set out to measure the amount of "culture" and number of "bohemians," which Florida sees as a creative class, in each city. Austin, Texas topped the list and Philadelphia was ranked 14th. Pittsburgh's young and availables probably wouldn't be surprised to learn that the age of the area's population is one of the reasons the city was No. 40 on Forbes' list. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 174,167 people from 25 to 34 in Allegheny County, down from 199,400 in 1990. For years, politicians, leaders of economic development groups and others have publicly discussed ways to attract and keep young people in the city. There have been pro-Pittsburgh television commercials as well as image studies and marketing campaigns. This week, Dan Onorato, the current Allegheny County controller and the Democratic candidate for county chief executive, unveiled how he'd woo young adults if elected. Onorato promised to hire a full-time youth liaison as his link to young adults and appoint more young people to boards such as the city-county Sports & Exhibition Authority and the Allegheny County Port Authority. The way Onorato sees it, the more involved young people are in county government, the more likely they are to stay—and if they stay, the single's scene will see a boost. "I'm 42 and I have an interest. It's my generation that's leaving this community," Onorato said. Current county Chief Executive Jim Roddey has taken on similar initiatives, creating an intern position in his office and filling more county positions with young adults, said Kent Gates, Roddey's campaign manager. But lower taxes, more jobs and an efficient government are more powerful ways to attract young people, Gates said. "You can't just have a plan, you have to have a tax structure and the finances to support it," he said. But after all the studies, magazine articles and marketing campaigns, some might be surprised to hear that a few academics believe young adults aren't leaving Pittsburgh in droves. The overall population of young adults in the nation declined from 1990 to 2000, and other cities such as Philadelphia saw a more dramatic decrease than Pittsburgh, said Jerry Paytas, the acting director of the Carnegie Mellon University Center for Economic Development. Pittsburgh's problem is it doesn't attract more young people to replace those who grow older or would have moved to new cities after college no matter where they went to school, Paytas said. But hearing those statistics doesn't help Tom Interval, a 36-year-old single man living in suburban Pittsburgh. "Dating is a numbers game and in Pittsburgh, those numbers aren't there," he said. |