Item — HN Reader

Unexpected to see this talked about on HN.

I actually went through the Allegheny county “newcomer tax” just some months ago.

It was a bit of a strange process to appeal (I lost; my house is very weird for the area).

While I do see the benefit for not raising taxes so consistently for long-term owners (and could definitely see gentrification-esque effects) it does seem like a pretty obvious - if bitter - pill to swallow if the area is going to have any chance of continued growth.

2 comments

Continued growth to what end...?

Jobs and new families?

I’ve become intimately familiar with Youngstown, OH - about 70 miles away from the Pittsburgh - and it’s a great case study of how far a once-powerhouse city can fall if it doesn’t a actively reinvent itself.

That's causally backwards. What we want is for families to have jobs and an American quality of life. Not to just create "jobs and families" as if they are the product at the end of the manufacturing line. That goal only makes sense for politicians (and short-term thinking politicians, at that).

Perhaps “Jobs for new families” would be better phrasing?

This isn’t a hypothetical scenario though - the lack of economic opportunity across the border is a key reason of why I’m married.

Sorry, I don't follow what your second sentence is referring to. But I should be more clear: I'm not commenting on a specific situation, only on the "growth mindset". I.e. it should be an "improvement mindset", which specific types of growth either help or harm in each situation.

Ultimately to the end of allowing Pittsburgh and the surrounding area to be a place with agglomeration effects, growth, and opportunities enough to allow smart and ambitious young people to remain in the area as opposed to brain draining into the Acela corridor.

It’s sad when a city that could go either way chooses to rust and its most talented young people no longer have the option of staying in their home if they want dynamic careers.

The city not dying.

If the only way to have growth is to kick out the existing inhabitants, one wonders what the purpose of “growth” is.

How can you sustain a city if the existing inhabitants children would rather leave?

That seems like a problem for the inhabitants to work out through a democratic process.

Tech bros and crypto bros moving into a city and then griping “housing is too expensive here” doesn’t count, particularly when they’re the cause of the problem in the first place.

I think you’re tilting at windmills here.

The industries sustaining the city are healthcare, finance and higher edu. There’s no invasion of m fedora-toting tech bros building B2B SaaS AI Agents.

This is a group of current inhabitants who do want the city to improve who are submitting -honestly minor - proposals to keep Pittsburgh from going the way of many of the other Rust-Belt cities.