[PRCo] Pittsburgh Census Data

[Fred Schneider]

Regarding the city of Pittsburgh,  Yins might be interested in how  
the census data compares to the national averages in 2000.

Age 60 and over .. Pittsburgh 20% of the population is over age 60.    
The national average is 16.5%.

Age 55-59   Pittsburgh is actually under the national average ...  
4.2% versus 5.9%.

Ages 45 through 54  Pittsburgh 12.2%, U. S. as a whole 14.6%

Ages 35 to 44  Pittsburgh  14%, the nation is 14.9%

Ages 25 - 44  Pittsburgh is higher than the nation at 14.5%; the  
nation is 13.5%

Age 20-24 Pittsburgh is 10.3% and the nation is 6.7%.

Pittsburgh City had almost 23,000 people in the 2000 census living in  
"group quarters" which can be institutional (such as jails or  
hospitals) or non-institutional such as universities.  The city has a  
very high number of hospital rooms and actually exports hospital  
services to the rest of the world.   There may be an above average  
number of old folks homes.   We also know there are a large number of  
university students (Carnegie-Mellon, Duquesne, University of  
Pittsburgh).

What you see in the census data is a distortion or inflation if which  
of the younger age group (18-22 or even older) because of college and  
university students including those going on for advanced degrees)  
and a very elderly population, and a diminished working population.    
The people who used to ride the trolleys or buses (when the city had  
a population of 650,000 instead of 330,000) are old, or dead, or have  
moved out of town hunting jobs elsewhere.

That spine line to Oakland might be nice but I wonder if I really  
want my tax dollars invested in it?????   Albuquerque is just as big  
and we never talk about it.