A Note on Numbers

There are plenty of people who are far more qualified to talk about this then I am, but I just wanted to make an observation.

The preliminary numbers for 2009 population came out, and Allegheny County had 267 more residents than it had the previous year. Virtually every city over the last half-century has had to deal with population loss associated with the rush to the suburbs. But very few regions, Pittsburgh among them, have had to contend with population loss on a regional level. The fact that Allegheny county gained population, combined with the numbers about domestic in-migration a couple of weeks ago, and it paints a very different picture of the region than a decade ago.

I've been postulating a lot on the questions of population loss and brain drain recently, and it's interesting to see how they both get lumped into the same category. It is quite possible that a place can get smarter, even as it gets smaller. Just something to think about.