Michael Machosky

2 weeks ago | pghcitypaper.com | Michael Machosky

The city of Pittsburgh added nearly 3,000 people in 2024. The city of Pittsburgh had “the greatest population increase by total number of people among all municipalities in Pennsylvania, according to an analysis of the data from the Pennsylvania State Data Center.” This is pretty remarkable. Aside from a few tiny blips here and there, Pittsburgh (the city and region) has been losing population for more than 50 years, as the steel industry’s postwar boom faded. Why are people moving here?

3 weeks ago | pghcitypaper.com | Michael Machosky

One of the big changes in baseball in the past few decades has been the addition of new advanced metrics to measure performance. There’s a certain Pittsburgh Pirate who looks terrible out there, and by all the traditional measurements — batting average, home runs, runs batted in — he is not good. (I won’t say who, but it could be anyone except Oneil Cruz or Paul Skenes, right?) However, if you’re looking at the latest suite of newer, more granular statistics — BABIP, barrel rate, xwOBA, etc.

4 weeks ago | pghcitypaper.com | Michael Machosky

Contrary to national trends, Pittsburgh apartments are shrinking. According to rental site RentCafe.com, “While apartment sizes are growing in many cities, Pittsburgh is moving in the other direction. The average size of newly built apartments has dropped by 116 square feet — which is roughly the space you'd need for a home office.” “That’s not a minor shift — it marks the 10th largest decrease in the country.

1 month ago | pghcitypaper.com | Michael Machosky

Once you quote a survey, you get sent all the surveys. The big one is Livability.com’s “Best places to live in the U.S. in 2025,” which didn’t rank them in descending order this year — recognizing, perhaps, that not everybody wants or needs the same thing from a city. Pittsburgh made this list, as usual. Most of the other “cities” are college towns or glorified suburbs like Flower Mound and Sugar Land (Texas), so, uh go us.

1 month ago | pghcitypaper.com | Michael Machosky

It was just Easter, and I just drank a can of Penn Brewery & Oakmont Bakery’s Packzi-flavored Pittsburgh Cream Ale, which might surpass all flavors of Turner’s Iced Tea to become the Most Pittsburgh Drink Ever Invented. That doesn’t mean it’s good. But, like Striking Distanceor Sudden Death, sometimes the pure Pittsburgh content (like fighting a terrorist dressed as Iceburgh) is reward enough. I’d drink it again. What does that have to do with housing in Pittsburgh?