A Tale of Two Headlines

http://triblive.com/home/2618872-74/jobs-energy-report-industry-sector-fill-pennsylvania-percent-pittsburgh-region

and

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2012/09/18/1200-jobs-cut-as-coal-mines-idled.html


I was going to leave it at that, but what is one of the better written stories on the region's economy  is remarkably written by a student.  In the Pitt News: Pittsburgh’s economic history forged in the steel mill

More on the travails of coal.  From West Virginia, but note the map by state they have there; it is all Pennsylvania's story as well in lots of ways: West Virginia miners: ‘We want to not be forgotten’

and to complete the circle.  h/t on that WV story to Rod Adams whose atomicinsights blog is at the center of the Natural Gas vs. Nuclear debate that is going to be ever more defining for Pittsburgh.  Why Pittsburgh? Because as goes nuclear so goes Pittsburgh which has the highest employment of nuclear engineers in the nation. The actual location quotient is even further off the chart for the region.

So for Pittsburgh the real news story is not what is happening in any one of those industries, but how the competition between them will impact us in the future.