PITTSBURGH—After years of population loss, the former steel town has been reborn as one of America’s most livable cities. But while its white population has stabilized, it continues to lose Black residents at a faster clip than other major cities.
David Motley, a Black venture capitalist, is trying to change that, namely by bringing more Black professionals to Pittsburgh, now. In 2003, he moved back to Pittsburgh after getting an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and living in 10 other cities, including Atlanta. He is now hoping to build up a strong middle class in a city that has been hemorrhaging Black residents for years.
“How do you make this new economy available for more people?” said Mr. Motley. “There’s not going to be an overnight fix to this.” In the past decade, Pittsburgh has lost 9% of its Black population, and it is losing that population at a much faster annual rate than other cities such as Chicago. As the city began attracting more tech companies in the early 2000s and neighborhoods were gentrified, in some cases Black residents could no longer afford to stay. Many moved to outlying suburbs with lower housing costs. Meanwhile, the white population in Pittsburgh has stabilized after 70 years of decline.
In January, Mr. Motley co-founded a $50 million Pittsburgh-based venture capital fund to invest in technology startups with Black and diverse founding teams. He started a nonprofit in 2017 with his wife, Darlene Motley, called the African American Directors Forum aimed at getting more Black executives on corporate boards. He also recently acquired a former synagogue and school with a partner and plans to break ground in June on an $18.
invest in a Black Market, ....
A Call to Protect People and Nature! Thread to watch/read:
thanks
But we do have bike lanes like nobodies business
WSJ on a roll w the victim shit lately
This story could be from any Democratic city. Here in Boston, the white Democrats beholden to labor unions gentrified the poorer sections and cashed in big time, while force-feeding the black community with the “republican billionaires are the problem” to keep them in check.
Each black American is a tragedy.