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 Innovation March 7, 1999By Douglas Heuck, Post-Gazette Benchmarks Editor
Aside from beginning our fourth year of documenting Pittsburgh’s strengths, weaknesses and opportunities, today’s PG Benchmarks introduces a new section altogether: Innovation. Some of the measures are new — patents, venture capital, university-based research and development; some are familiar — high-tech gazelles and gorillas; and some are both familiar and new due to improvements in measuring — startups and initial public offerings. The point, however, is the same: How is metropolitan Pittsburgh — Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland counties — faring compared to 14 other regions of similar size? Once the capital of innovation in the United States and perhaps the world, Pittsburgh saw industrial growth and success over the past century that may have led, ironically, to a diminution of that entrepreneurial vitality that originally gave this area a place on the world map. And it is a thriving innovative spirit that is expected to be the key to a region’s ability to flourish in what is often called "The new economy." This emerging economy is one in which information and intellectual properties stand to play key roles. However, despite the assets of internationally known research universities such as Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh, western Pennsylvania lags its peers in most of the benchmark measures assembled for today’s edition. The participants in today’s Round Table Discussion, though, see those statistics as reflective of a local economic picture that is straining to change. This group, uniformly young, aggressive, and outspoken, sees and is part of a different Pittsburgh. Their Pittsburgh is a great place to start companies and a great place to live. And unlike the ubiquitous chorus who worry that the local sky is falling, these mainly new Pittsburghers chose to come here because they see a bright future. Innovations (March 7, 1999)
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