"In January 1983, unemployment in metropolitan Pittsburgh reached 17.1 percent as deep recession and structural change rocked the region. Steel strikes raged, and famous mills went cold.  In time, an unwelcome realization settled in: Pittsburgh would never be the city it had been. As the Bruce Springsteen lyrics went, "Foreman says these jobs are going boys, and they ain't coming back -- to your hometown."
 
The economic cataclysm sent untold thousand of young people from Pittsburgh to seek work elsewhere. It created the Pittsburgh diaspora and left a demographic hole that made Pittsburgh one of the nation's oldest regions.  It also set in motion years of soul-searching, major reports commissioned on Pittsburgh's future, and, ultimately, a resolve in quarters across the city to remake a new Pittsburgh.
 
Part of that effort has included benchmarking the region's progress compared with other cities. And this week, the most prominent of those projects – the Regional Indicators at Pittsburghtoday.org – has released a major report on the region entitled "Pittsburgh Today & Tomorrow." To read the complete PopCity article, please click here.