Talk:Economy of Pittsburgh

Educational assignment plan

Founding History

• Mid 1700’s
• Trading outposts with Indians
• Agriculture/ Rivers
• Whiskey Rebellion
• American Civil War
• One of its earliest industries was building boats for settlers to enter the Ohio Country.

Raw Material Based

• Coal ( a lot) 1875 Andrew Carnegie
  • Produced 1/3 of nations steel
  • Pittsburgh produced 95 million tons of steel for our efforts in WWII
• Coke (not the drug)
• Glass

Present

• Pittsburgh Urban core, the Golden Triangle, is ranked 25th for jobs in metropolitan areas
• The growth of Pittsburgh began with steel and almost ended with steel
  • Technology/robots
  • Health care
  • Nuclear engineering
  • Biomedical technology
• Despite recent recession, Pittsburgh has maintained jobs, which is one of the reasons President Barack Obama chose the city for the G-20 summit
• Global Relations

Good starting plan. What references are will you be using? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:56, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Good start with first edits; but you should not add empty headings. All headings should be followed by referenced content. I also waiting to see your discussion(s) here. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:52, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry Piotr I have not been looking at the talk page, but we are going to use resources from the library as well as two books we already have. Some internet sights will be used mostly for the statistics. Tuna12 (talk) 05:15, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Make sure that the sites (I presume you meant them) will fulfill Wikiedia's reliability policy. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:08, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Early draft review

As your article has now reached a state that it can be reviewed, here are some comments:

• The lead is for summarizing the rest of the article, and should not introduce new topics not discussed in the rest of the article, as per WP:LEAD. Please ensure that the lead adequately summarizes the article.^[?]
• Consider adding more links to the article; per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) and Wikipedia:Build the web, create links to relevant articles.^[?]
• This article has no or few images. Please see if there are any free use images that fall under the Wikipedia:Image use policy and fit under one of the Wikipedia:Image copyright tags that can be uploaded. To upload images on Wikipedia, go to Special:Upload; to upload non-fair use images on the Wikimedia Commons, go to commons:special:upload. See also the Wikipedia:Finding images tutorial|finding images tutorial. ^[?]
• If there is not a free use image in the top right corner of the article, please try to find and include one.^[?]
• Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings), headings generally do not start with articles ('the', 'a(n)'). For example, if there was a section called ==The Biography==, it should be changed to ==Biography==.^[?]
• As done in WP:FOOTNOTE, footnotes usually are located right after a punctuation mark (as recommended by the CMS, but not mandatory), such that there is no space in between. For example, the sun is larger than the moon [2]. is usually written as the sun is larger than the moon.[2]^[?]
• References need to be properly formatted. Raw html links are not acceptable. See WP:CITE for more info.
• References should be reliable. Blogs and may "random websites" are not considered reliable. See WP:RS and WP:SPS for more info.
• Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.^[?]

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:55, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Economy of Pittsburgh/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Pyrotec (talk) 20:35, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Starting review. Pyrotec (talk) 20:35, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Initial comments

This article looks unfinished to me: there are a number of empty sections and/or subsections, they either need to be populated with text or removed. They are:

• • Industrial Employers
  • Industries
  • Statistics

However, I will continue with this review and will review each section in turn against WP:WIAGA, but leaving the WP:Lead until last. Pyrotec (talk) 11:47, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

* Present Employers -

This is a common problem with nearly all the employers discussed here, so I'm only stating this once.

• Much of this information is taken from company's corporate websites, in at least two cases it is a straight copy and paste - well I changed one slightly, this is an international encylcopedia so "Commonwealth" needed to be changed to "Commonwealth of Pennsylvania" for their benefit. Useful information is provided such as turnover, number of employees, etc; but, and this is a big BUT, the article already states that they are regional and/or US companies.
• There is no discussion of how many of these employees work and live in Pittsburgh and how much of these companies turnover is generated in Pittsburgh. This article is specifically about the Economy of Pittsburgh, quoting regional and/or US figues merely shows that the companies are big: it gives nothing about the impact on the Economy of Pittsburgh - what relevence is the rest?

• Take University of Pittsburgh Medical Center - it "made a $100 million commitment to The Pittsburgh Promise to fund postsecondary education for Pittsburgh’s high school graduates.” [3]". That is presumably important, but it only gets mentioned once, under Present Employers.

• History -
  • Early Foundation -

• This starts off with some promise, but is rather "thin" - one paragraph on 18th Century and one on the 19th Century. Y Pyrotec (talk) 14:46, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

::* Ref 5 appears to be a book. It needs to be properly referenced. Pyrotec (talk) 17:19, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

• Ref 6 5 needs to be properly cited, you can use the {cite web} template if you prefer.
• That comment also applies to most of the other web-based citations in this section. Ref 31 is an example of what you should be providing. Pyrotec (talk) 17:19, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

* Industrial Revolution -

• This has a {Main} link to Industrial Revolution, however there is not much US-specific information in that article, Technological and industrial history of the United States would be a better article to use in the {Main} link.
• There is a single paragraph about steel in the 20th century, starting in the 1920s (and a separate section on Twentieth century follows it, starting in 1901!). This does give the unfortunate impression that the editors didn't really know when the Industrial Revolution took place.

....to be continued. Pyrotec (talk) 12:30, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

• Nineteenth century -

• This is looking much better.
• You have highlighted the Carnegie Library, which is great, but we have one in my nearest town (5 miles away) in the UK. I think that you aught to expand the "meager" comments on Andrew Carnegie, he appears to have made his money in Pittsburgh and he built over 2,000 libraries worldwide. So what special claim does yours have? Perhaps you aught to cover these points.Pyrotec (talk) 17:27, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

• Twentieth Century - Y} Pyrotec (talk) 17:30, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

• Both this subsection and the previous one (Industrial Revolution) are very "thin" considering the previous importance of the steel industry to the Economy of Pittsburgh throughout the whole of the 19th century and nearly 75% of the 20th century (the 21st century is less than 10 years old after all). There is a lot of good stuff in History of Pittsburgh, including some good pictures. I suggest that you make some use of it in this article, but make sure that anything that is added is properly referenced.

• This section is much improved. Pyrotec (talk) 17:30, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

• Transition into the Present Economy -

• Who wrote this paragraph, a used car salesman, and real estate salesman. Its not encycolopedic, its just a series of rheotorical questions and answers. I've marked it for clean up. Y Pyrotec (talk) 15:46, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

....to be continued. Pyrotec (talk) 13:00, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

• The current version is a big improvement.
• You use "Pittsburgh SMSA" without first defining the initals/abbreviations "SMSA".

• Present Economy - Y Pyrotec (talk) 15:47, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

• Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and needs to be written from a neutral point of view (see WP:NPOV). In the first paragraph:

• "rest of the nation", I assume means the USA.
• "absolute", as "absolute worst of the recession", is unncessary.
• "Our nation's economy has taking the hardest hits in the ....", fails the test of neutrality. As does "fortunately for Pittsburgh".
• Much of these words appear to be a straight copy and paste from Ref 20, you don't indicate that you are quoting directly, so you should be summarising it.

• Ref 22 needs to be properly formatted, I suggest that you use the template template:cite .

....to be continued. Pyrotec (talk) 17:43, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

• Twenty first century progression -

• This section seems to be quite reasonable. Pyrotec (talk) 17:55, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Source

Consider the following link for a source of information regarding the emergence of Pittsburgh's "Eds & Meds" economy: EdsMedsPittsburgh.org CrazyPaco (talk) 22:27, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Using templates and <ref name= > makes it much easier

Hello all, impeccable work on the article so far, Kudos all round.

I would however give a few pointers on how to correctly CITE and how to use <ref name= > and the use of citation templates.

The most common ref you are going to use for this article is {{cite book}} reading through the template pages should give you a very good idea of how to use them. You don't have to fill out all the information on every cite. however the more information the merrier. title= is the only field that is compulsory for {{cite book}}.

So using Globalization in World History as an example you would fill it out like this: <ref>{{cite book |last1=Hopkins |first1= A.G.|authorlink1= A.G._Hopkins |last2= |first2= |editor1-first= |editor1-last= |editor1-link= |others= |title=Globilization in World History|trans_title= |url= |format= |accessdate= |edition= |series= |volume= |date= |year=2003|month= |origyear= |publisher=Norton|location=[[New York City]] |language= |isbn=0393979423|oclc= |doi= |id= |page= |pages= |trans_chapter= |chapter= |chapterurl= |quote= |ref= |bibcode= |laysummary= |laydate= |separator= |postscript= |lastauthoramp=}}</ref>

As you can see this has left rather a large amount of fields unfilled, that's okay, in fact we can get rid of them, leaving us with this: <ref>{{cite book |last1=Hopkins |first1= A.G.|authorlink1= A.G._Hopkins|title=Globilization in World History|year=2003|publisher=Norton|location=[[New York City]]|isbn=0393979423}}</ref>

Now, obviously, you are using the book multiple times through the article so rather than cutting an pasting each and every time I'm going to show you how to use <ref name= > so what we are going to do is give the reference a name, we'll call it "hopkins", but you can all it anything "Globalization", "global" or even "asghd" or "iu43gh", ANYTHING, but to make it easy to remember we'll just stick with "hopkins" (it is cAsE SenSItiVE) so make sure you stick with either upper- or lower-case. So you simply put in <ref name= > the first time that you use the ref instead of <ref> and then every time you want to use that ref you simply put in <ref name=hopkins/> So now every time that you want to reference Globalization in World History all you need to do is put in <ref name=hopkins/>.

Now you want to quote an individual page, but you don't want to have to cut and paste and modify the cite each time you ref a page, so (as odd as this may sound) ignore what I just told you. Well, not entirely. we'll still use <ref name= > so when we want to quote page three multiple times we'll call our new ref "hop3" and when we quote page 21 we'll call that "hop21", but again it can be anything so now we'll fill the article full of this; <ref name=hop3>Hopkins 2003, page 3</ref> and this; <ref name=hop21>Hopkins 2003, page 21</ref>, then whenever you want to ref page three you simply put in <ref name=hop3/> and to ref page 21 use <ref name=hop21/>

Then we need to split the references section at the bottom in two: ==Notes== and ==References== in ==Notes== we'll stick the {{reflist}} template, and since it is a particularly large amount of references will split it into 4 columns by writing it like this: {{reflist|4}} this will automatically list all the <ref>'s throughout the article and sort them into 4 even columns for us.

Under the ==References== We'll list each of the books like this: {{cite book |last1=Hopkins |first1= A.G.|authorlink1= A.G._Hopkins|title=Globilization in World History|year=2003|publisher=Norton|location=[[New York City]]|isbn=0393979423}}. That way when people see "Hopkins 2003, Page 3" listed under ==Notes== they'll know to look for it under ==References== for Hopkins name.

If you've done it all properly it should look like below.

References

Hopkins, A.G. (2003). Globilization in World History. New York City: Norton. ISBN 0393979423.

You may also want to check out the various other citation templates and use those in the article.Sanguis Sanies (talk) 17:19, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Images

I am also having difficulty getting images on the page. I am trying to get an image from wikipedia commons but I am not sure how to do that. I am also having difficulty on what images to put up. The one I found on wikicommons was of Pittsburgh's skyline. I have a few charts and graphs from government websites but I don't want to go outside of wiki guidelines. Any suggestions/instructions?Tuna12 (talk) 05:47, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Have you looked at Wikipedia:Wikimedia Commons, it provides some advice ? Pyrotec (talk) 08:38, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Its fixed now. Pyrotec (talk) 08:50, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I have found a graph from a government web site [1] that I should be able to use I just have no idea how to put it on as well as the chart I found[2] any help for getting them on the article page at a bigger size that the current thumbnail.Tuna12 (talk) 05:49, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Chart

I have found a good chart of the top private employers on http://www.alleghenyconference.org/PRA/RegionalData/CountyAllegheny.asp. I am not sure if I can use it in the article or if I have to create my own. Any instruction on how to incorporate this into the article would be great. Tuna12 (talk) 00:50, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

This is fine to use per this. I see no chart here; only a table (if you are asking whether you can reproduce the table, ask Moonriddengirl, she'll love that question, trust me). Regarding images, see guides here. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:09, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I got the image as a thumbnail on the side I looked in my preferences to make it bigger but I found nothing on images in my preferences. I also cited where I got the image, but I am not sure if it was done correctly.Tuna12 (talk) 06:51, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Please read through the WP:IMAGE guides for how to attribute the source and add licenses to an image, and how to make it bigger. The image doesn't have a source or a license, and as such may be deleted shortly by an admin. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:14, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

PS. I've increased the size of your picture; you can adjust it in the edit mode by changing the number of pixels. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:16, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Copyright problems

The major employers sections are almost entirely copied from external sites. I began trying to temporarily address this with quotation marks, but each section then becomes a separate violation of WP:NFC, which forbids extensive quotation. The "Transition into the Present Economy" section copies from [3]. (See under "Which Parts of the Region Are Creating Jobs?" at that source.) Under "Twenty First Century Progression", there is duplication of [4]: "Financial analysts are cautiously optimistic..." "Film making is another emerging industry...." The article has had to be blanked as other sections are evaluation for content issues. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:38, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the analysis. I expect that the problematic texts will be fixed in the next few days. Would you like the rewritten sections to be added to the main article or a temporary subpage so we can review them before they are added back to the main article? PS. Note to students: you are welcome to edit the main article, improving existing content in the unaffected sections and adding new sections in the meantime, but I'd strongly advise you to focus on fixing the copyvio issues first, so we can remove the ugly copyvio templates. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:35, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

It is best to replace the copyright problem sections in the temporary page for administrative review. I have restored the sections in which I find no infringement. The last section is a problem under non-free content policy and guideline, as it quotes extensively from other sources without citing them. Sources seem to include [5], [6], and [7]. Ideally, the authors of this article should incorporate the information from those sources in their own words, with only limited quotations in accordance with WP:NFC. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 02:45, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I edited a little section on the twenty first century progression by paraphrasing from the source yins said I used to long of quotations. I am hoping that this is a good source since I found it on a .gov website[8] and I think moonriddengirl provided the link to the pdf[9]. I want to make sure that this is a good source and if I cited it correctly. I used the pdf from the Pittsburgh regional alliance website. I am wondering if this is a good source as well because it has a lot of information. Another thing I was confused about was in the references it says the article incorporates public domain material, which I thought we could use, and then has a link to the page. I was wondering if I can use this information and its charts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tuna12 (talk • contribs) 03:19, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi. You are very welcome to use public domain material as long as it is properly attributed. Information from Occupational Employment and Wages in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, May 2007 (PDF) is properly attributed and can be used. The reason it is public domain is because it was produced by the United States federal government, and the US government does not claim copyright projection on its official works. Most websites, though, are copyrighted, including those of state and city governments. I'll leave the question of what constitutes a "good" source to somebody else. :) I'm evaluating to see the degree to which copyright concerns have been addressed here. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:49, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I've incorporated the cleanups that I could, but unfortunately some of the text proposed was not completely rewritten. We can't use material that is closely paraphrased from copyrighted sources, as this constitutes a derivative work. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:00, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

←Since this has now been listed for over two weeks, I have removed the contents that remained infringements that were not addressed. I have added proposed alterations from the temporary page, which has been deleted. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:43, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Economic Development/Allegheny Places

A list of sources that I would use to further the economic development section. Are these sufficient?

Enterprise Zones

• Barry Rubin, "Enterprise Zones: Cure for Urban Ills?" Forum for Applied Research and Public Policy, vol.10, no.4, Winter 1995, pp.101-106.
• Margaret Wilder and Barry Rubin, "Rhetoric Versus Reality: A Review of Studies on State Enterprise Zone Programs," Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol. 62, 1996, pp.473-485.

Research and Technology Development, Public-Private Partnerships, and Venture Capital

• Harvey Goldstein and Michael Luger, "Theory and Practice in High-Tech Economic Development," in Richard Bingham and Robert Meir, ed., Theories of Local Economic Development, (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1993), Ch. 7, pp. 147-171.
• Edward Blakely and Nancy Green Leigh, Planning Local Economic Development: Theory and Practice, 4th ed., (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 2010).Evansza1 (talk) 00:10, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

It depends on how they are used. None of these titles mention Pittsburgh, so the main concern I would have would be if these are general sources that don't discuss the economy of Pittsburgh specifically. If that is the case, it would probably constitute original research to apply them to the case of Pittsburgh for this article. But if they do discuss Pittsburgh explicitly, and you're citing them for what they say about Pittsburgh without drawing broader conclusions about Pittsburgh in particular than the sources do, then these sources sound great.

Regarding the current state of the "Economic development" section, based as it is on primary sources, I don't see a significant original research issue. But it lacks enough context as to why it is important (i.e., why it would have a section of Economy of Pittsburgh devoted to it, and supply that context would probably constitute original research if based on primary sources. But if those sources you've listed discuss Pittsburgh to a significant degree, that probably won't be an issue.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 15:21, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

As Sage said, I think this section shouldn't be moved to Allegheny County article. I also don't see a WP:NOR problem, but if there are concerns over OR issue, I'd suggest raising them on the Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:14, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much and I have one more concern. I plan on listing the some of the enterprise zones listed in Allegheny Places and some of the other economic development strategies listed. The aforementioned sources do not discuss Pittsburgh or Allegheny County, but they would add value to objectives of Allegheny Places (although I assume that would constitute original research). So, I will start adding information from the plan, without connecting it to the aforementioned sources. I believe that it should be included in the Economy of Pittsburgh article as it the County's land-use/economic development plan, and Pittsburgh is the largest city in the county.Thanks again.Evansza1 (talk) 02:52, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Your plan sounds good. Although those sources probably won't be useful for this article without original research, they would probably be very applicable to land use planning and/or Urban Enterprise Zone.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 14:21, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

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