Pittsburgh's Immigrant Future

Thanks to Richard Herman for this from Action News in Pittsburgh:

"With its shrinking local population, the Pittsburgh area's best hope for a bright future may rest on the shoulders of people who haven't even made it to the United States yet.

Barry Balmat, the Pittsburgh director of the Rand Corp. think tank, believes immigrants can bring Pittsburgh new life.  "Return to growth in the population, instead of a decline in population," Balmat said....

Today, just 3 percent of people in metro Pittsburgh -- a little more than 71,000 -- are foreign-born, compared to 12.5 percent nationally.

Martha Benson came to Pittsburgh from Bogota, Colombia, in 2002. She's a business consultant at the Duquesne University Small Business Development Center, assisting fellow immigrant entrepreneurs.

"They have a lot of skills, and they see Pittsburgh as an opportunity to start their company," Benson said.

"They're kind of the natural strivers," Balmat said. "They do make up a large percentage of entrepreneurs -- people who are kind of willing to take chances. They've packed up and left someplace to come here."

Entrepreneur and investment manager Ganesh Mani, a Pittsburgher who was born in India, is on the local board of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs).

"Pittsburgh has wonderful infrastructure -- the universities, the airport -- but it's also underutilized infrastructures. So, from an entrepreneurial standpoint, that's where the opportunities are," Mani said.

The top five birthplaces for today's foreign-born Pittsburgh-area residents are India, with 7,800 people relocated here, followed by Latin American countries (7,000), China (6,500), Italy (5,600) and African countries (4,400). Click here for the rest of the story.

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