Back in October 2013, PGHretail sat down with County Executive, Rich Fitzgerald, and proposed a wide array of alternative transportation ideas.  We’ve been able to sit down with key players from the county, city, and Port Authority of Pittsburgh.

In addition to public transportation projects, which directly impact our local retail economy, we addressed the lack of information and support for the Creative Class and Creative Economy.  Entrepreneurs, innovators, grassroots organizations, artisans, and skilled craftsman have a huge impact on development in micro-economies within communities. The City of Philadelphia is a great example of how local government can gather information for that demographic, businesses that serve those folks, and non-profit organizations looking to cater funding initiatives.  Check out their site: http://creativephl.org/ and particularly, the CultureBlock site that maps resources: http://www.cultureblocks.com/wordpress/

Now, Pittsburgh organizations are trying.  Our professional critique is that passively crowd-sourcing, with little marketing efforts, to gather data is a very slow process to obtain information from very busy, focused individuals working hard to build their businesses and projects.  We hope that the URA is able to provide funding for a position that actively obtains and updates their latest project: http://launchpgh.com/

If you or someone you know, needs the resources from LAUNCHpgh, suggest their involvement to help establish the important information our growing economic developments need.