Rank : 3
Percentage drop: 2
Number of closed businesses: 955
Loss rate: 40 per 100,000 people*
Pittsburgh has focused on moving beyond its Steel City roots in recent decades with mixed success. ''It's a pretty vibrant place,'' Stein said. ''It's not what it was 40 or 50 years ago, but it's really capitalized on the educational sector and the high-tech industry.''
The area's small businesses, which help contribute to that vibrancy, took a sizable hit from 2006 to 2008, with a loss of 955 small businesses or 40 per 100,000 people. ''It's tough to see any sort of recovery anytime soon,'' Stein said. ''Even in the best years of the past decade, Pittsburgh's growth overall didn't match what we were seeing nationally.''
But, Raymond L. Vargo, the director of the University of Pittsburgh's Small Business Development Center, is more positive. "I believe there is light at the end of the tunnel," he said noting "huge opportunities" for small businesses to develop products and services for the energy sector, in particular the natural gas extraction at Marcellus Shale.
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