Speaking of real estate

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Just if you didn't catch it.. there has been a curious news cycle over the observation that there is a lot of real estate investment in Toledo coming from China.  See Fortune: Why are the Chinese investing in Toledo,   followed up by WSJ: Courting the Chinese Buyer.  It's all really building on some longstanding investigative work by the Toledo Blade: Inquiry Sheds light on Chinese investors.

US. Chinese real estate investment sure is something we have sure tried to encourage. A few years ago I noted the Pittsburgh connection to some Chinese real estate investing in the US.  We really are the center of everything these days. Various press on that elsewhere, but nothing really here. 

But it is curious.  Note there is the obligatory paranoia over all of this.  Some may recall similar sentiment when there was a lot of Japanese investment in US real estate 20 years ago.  I am not sure any of that turned out badly for the US, though it didn't work out well for a lot of the investors as I recall my history. Since real estate isn't going to be moved overseas you have to wonder what the risk is.   What I don't get is that the same folks paranoid over this are likely also paranoid over the state of the US economy and predicting collapse in some near term.  So why would these Chinese investors be voting with their wallets and investing here if soon there was going to be this big collapse? In one way or another these investments imply they think the future return is better than anything they can invest in at home.  Well.. too big a topic for here, but weekend thoughts to ponder.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/contiguousness

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So we have a peek at what the Fifth floor gnomes and friends have come up with for City of Pittsburgh council districts.   Taking the table in the paper, which is limited to just the changes, here is what I get quickly for the proposed new city council districts.  New additions to each district marked with crosshatch.   Also I put this into Google maps as well. 

Hey... can anyone give a cogent explanation for why city council districts are not coterminus with the Pittsburgh School Distict's elected representatives.  And no.. Mt. Oliver is not big enough to explain any of that at all.  It is just a bit curious that the city is pretty much carved up into two completely separate geographies despite it starting with virtually the same city.   What is up with school district redistricting anyway?

But.. the new map.   If correct, and if the list of changes in the PG is correct... and I am wondering a bit.. then contiguousness is overrated.

Daily Ranking - Prime Workforce Growth

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So it really has been more than just decades since we would have even been considered for a ranking in something like this. Count in score at least.  Area Development magazine (always a link there on the right btw) has us ranked near the top for Prime Workforce Growth.  Seriously, I am not making it up. 

Why you may ask. You may read the news today of the latest labor force news for the region and conclude the situation is quite dour.  Yet it is now 66 months that the local unemployment rate has been below the nation's, 68 months since Pittsburgh's unemployment rate was actually above the nation's.

Easy to confuse me

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Sometimes more than others media coverage really befuddles me.  I mentioned this a couple weeks ago, and now the Philly Inquirer has now looked into it a little.  But the changes in public pension accounting just enacted are at least metaphysically a big deal...  and if local actuaries don't follow them, then that is a story as well. 

Just look at the table in the Inky's article there.  You would think that just out of sheer curiosity someone would want to know what local pension funds' status would be if similarly recalculated.  And note the discussion of 'smoothing' which happened in Pittsburgh the last actuarial reporting cycle for the first time and which was pretty much unmentioned anywhere.

Anyway...  anyone want to guess what the best funded large public pension fund is in the region if not the state? 

To the data

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For those who have asked about the redistricting maps I put up the other day. 

I will add more fields to this file in the future, but here is where I will put a CSV file of voting district data for the City of Pittsburgh into the following link/location with the first record the field names:

http://www.briem.com/data/PittsburghCityElectionData.csv

and it's not there yet, but when I get time I will put up a data dictionary at this link:

http://www.briem.com/data/PittsburghCityElectionData.txt

For the moment though, I suspect the field names are self explanatory enough for now.  This has the old and new city council districts with the 2010 demographics.

So I guess we should have a contest for the best map or illustration anyone can make of it.

Update:  So I had no idea this was out there, but there is a city council redistricting page out there with some maps and data.  I will tell you their maps and data is not consistent with mine.  I think the new redistricting plan has left Ward 4 District 16 (which has clearly been voting in all recent election cycles as part of city council district 6) as an island unto itself separated from the rest of District 6. City Council's data sure says that 4-16 is part of Council District 3.    I am told there is some fundamental confusion over whether this particular voting district is in D3 or D6.. but go look at the county elections page yourself and it is clear where those folks have have been voting in the past and it sure isnt D3.   Says a lot about how much anyone at the city pays attention if you can't even agree on what precincts are in what council districts.  Not something that would have gone unnoticed in Davey Lawrence's days for sure.