Rustbelt renaissance: Pittsburgh becomes an FDI standout
锈带复兴:匹兹堡成为外商直接投资的佼佼者
Pittsburgh long symbolised America’s rustbelt, that stretch of the industrial midwest and north-east that once boomed with steel, cars and coal. In recent years, however, the city has been trading a rusty reputation for a robotic sheen.
匹兹堡长期以来一直是美国“锈带”的象征，这片中西部和东北部的工业区曾因钢铁、汽车和煤炭而蓬勃发展。然而，近年来，这座城市已经从锈迹斑斑的名声变成了机器人般的光彩。
Still known as the Steel City despite no working steel mills, Pittsburgh has the muscular look of an industrial-era American city, its downtown jutting proudly above the confluence of three rivers that once served as a primary thoroughfare of national commerce.
尽管没有钢铁厂，匹兹堡仍被称为“钢铁之城”，它拥有工业时代美国城市的肌肉发达外观，其市中心骄傲地突出在三条河流的交汇处，这条河流曾经是全国商业的主要通道。
Indeed, the city of 300,000 in western Pennsylvania is also known as the City of Bridges for the many examples spanning the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, which flow into the Ohio.
事实上，这座拥有30万人口的宾夕法尼亚州西部城市也被称为桥梁之城，因为许多桥梁横跨阿勒格尼河和莫农加希拉河，流入俄亥俄。
Despite its national reputation as a city that reached its prime more than a century ago, Pittsburgh finished 15th in the inaugural FT and Nikkei Investing in America ranking of the best US cities for overseas businesses, wedged on the list between the hip and techie Austin and Portland.
尽管匹兹堡在全国享有一个多世纪前就已进入鼎盛时期的美誉，但在英国《金融时报》和日经《投资美国》首次发布的最适合海外企业的美国城市排名中，匹兹堡仅排在第15位，位于时尚和科技的奥斯汀和波特兰之间。
The most-cited motive for investment there is the availability of a skilled workforce, according to data from fDi Markets, an information provider owned by the Financial Times. These skills often radiate from Carnegie Mellon University, a few miles from downtown. The product of two predecessor institutions founded in the early 20th century, CMU is today world-renowned for its computer science and robotics programmes.
英国《金融时报》旗下信息提供商fDi Markets的数据显示，投资者在中国投资的最主要动机是那里有熟练劳动力。这些技能通常来自距市中心几英里远的卡内基梅隆大学卡内基梅隆是成立于20世纪初的两个前身机构的产物，今天因其计算机科学和机器人课程而闻名于世。
Indeed, much of Pittsburgh’s renaissance is built on the foundation of its industrial-age prowess. “We were the Silicon Valley of the Industrial Revolution,” says Dave Mawhinney, executive director of CMU’s Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship.
事实上，匹兹堡的复兴在很大程度上是建立在其工业时代的实力基础上的。“我们是工业革命时期的硅谷，”卡内基梅隆大学斯沃茨创业中心执行董事戴夫•马嵬尼示。
Western Pennsylvania both extracted and produced the materials that powered that revolution: coal, oil, glass, Carnegie steel. Thanks to CMU, it went on to have the materials needed for the digital revolution: commercial computers, robotics institutes, artificial intelligence labs. Google, Facebook, Amazon and other big tech companies have set up shop to tap the associated human capital, Mawhinney says.
宾夕法尼亚州西部开采和生产的材料为那场革命提供了动力:煤炭、石油、玻璃、卡内基钢。多亏了卡内基梅隆大学，它继续拥有数字革命所需的材料:商用计算机、机器人研究所、人工智能实验室。马维尼说，谷歌、脸书、亚马逊和其他大型科技公司已经开设了办事处，以开发相关的人力资本。
“Pennsylvania’s rich history of innovation is one of the best things about the commonwealth, and our world-class research institutions and universities are some of its greatest assets,” Tom Wolf, governor of Pennsylvania, said earlier this year. In August, Wolf announced a tax cut for businesses in the state, where corporate income taxes are the second-highest in the country.
宾夕法尼亚州州长汤姆•沃尔夫今年早些时候表示:“宾夕法尼亚州丰富的创新历史是这个联邦最好的东西之一，我们世界一流的研究机构和大学是它最大的资产之一。”今年8月，沃尔夫宣布对该州的企业减税，该州的企业所得税是全国第二高的。
Last month, Pittsburgh hosted the first Global Clean Energy Action forum, convening global leaders to discuss the green energy transition, a significant source of foreign direct investment into the US.
上个月，匹兹堡主办了首届全球清洁能源行动论坛，召集全球领导人讨论绿色能源转型问题。绿色能源是美国外国直接投资的一个重要来源。
“Pittsburgh is the city that built America,” said US energy secretary Jennifer Granholm, adding that it exemplifies “how a legacy energy and industrial-dependent economy can be transformed into a technology and innovation powerhouse”.
美国能源部长詹妮弗•格兰霍姆表示:“匹兹堡是建设美国的城市。”她补充说，匹兹堡是“一个传统的能源和工业依赖经济体如何转变为技术和创新强国”的典范。
There are challenges. The airport is wanting for direct flights to key destinations, native capital is in short supply, and the city’s smokestack reputation can be a burden.
挑战是存在的。机场需要直飞主要目的地的航班，本地资本短缺，而这座城市的烟囱声誉可能是一个负担。
“People still have the image of the steel mills and the smoke-filled air,” says Mark Anthony Thomas, president of the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance, a non-profit economic development group. “Manufacturing is still very important, and crucial to our economy, but when you visit it’s a beautiful, green, charming place. When people see that they’re immediately transformed.”
非营利经济发展组织匹兹堡地区联盟主席马克•安东尼•托马斯表示:“人们对钢铁厂和烟雾弥漫的空气仍有印象。”“制造业仍然非常重要，对我们的经济至关重要，但当你参观它时，你会发现它是一个美丽、绿色、迷人的地方。当人们看到他们立即改变了。”
Thomas points to activity in robotics, AI, advanced manufacturing and climate technology, noting that the city is home to both overseas engineering giants — such as Germany’s Bosch, which has a research centre there — and successful homegrown start-ups, such as space robotics company Astrobotic and language app specialist Duolingo, Pittsburgh’s first “unicorn”, as billion-dollar start-ups are known.
托马斯提到了机器人、人工智能、先进制造和气候技术领域的活动。他指出，匹兹堡不仅有海外工程巨头(如德国博世(Bosch)在那里设有研究中心)，也有成功的本土初创企业，如太空机器人公司Astrobotic和语言应用专家Duolingo，后者是匹兹堡首家“独角兽”(十亿美元初创企业的名字)。
Other companies are being drawn in. Tata Consultancy Services, the Indian multinational, opened a research centre in April that will focus on AI and the internet of things. CMU now has a TCS Hall, following a $35mn gift from the consultancy.
其他公司也被吸引进来。印度跨国公司塔塔咨询服务(Tata Consultancy Services)今年4月开设了一个研究中心，将专注于人工智能和物联网。在这家咨询公司捐赠3500万美元后，卡内基梅隆大学现在有了一个TCS大厅。
“Our company has always been focused on hiring people from universities and they tend to grow with the company,” says Suresh Muthuswami, TCS’s North American chair. “So wherever we look to invest, we look for a strong university presence.”
TCS北美业务主席苏雷什•穆图斯瓦米表示:“我们公司一直专注于招聘大学毕业生，他们往往会与公司一起成长。”“因此，无论我们在哪里投资，我们都希望有强大的大学存在。”
Also catalysing the city’s tech sector are groups such as the Pittsburgh Robotics Network, whose executive director, Joel Reed, argues that the city benefits from an ingrained civic culture of engineering. “If you’re in robotics, you need to come to Pittsburgh,” he says.
匹兹堡机器人网络(Pittsburgh Robotics Network)等组织也推动了该市的科技行业。该组织的执行董事乔尔·里德(Joel Reed)认为，该市得益于根深蒂固的工程文化。“如果你从事机器人行业，你需要来匹兹堡，”他说。
A pivotal moment, he adds, was the arrival in 2015 of Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group, which specialises in autonomous vehicles and contributed significantly to the city’s tech ecosystem. Reed’s network estimates that Pittsburgh is home to 105 robotics companies.
他补充说，2015年优步先进技术集团(Advanced Technologies Group)的到来是一个关键时刻，该集团专门研发自动驾驶汽车，对该市的科技生态系统做出了重大贡献。瑞德网络预估匹兹堡有105家机器人公司。
The communications sector has benefited from heavy investment too, notably from video conferencing company Zoom, which opened research centres in Pittsburgh and Phoenix, Arizona, in May 2020.
通信行业也受益于大量投资，尤其是视频会议公司Zoom，该公司于2020年5月在亚利桑那州的匹兹堡和凤凰城开设了研究中心。
In announcing the move, chief executive Eric Yuan referred to the cities’ “incredibly well-educated, skilled and diverse talent pools” and said Zoom was planning to hire 500 software engineers “drawing largely on recent graduates of the many local universities”.
在宣布这一举措时，Zoom首席执行官袁征(Eric Yuan)提到了这些城市“令人难以置信的受过良好教育、有技能和多样化的人才库”，并表示Zoom计划招聘500名软件工程师，“主要从当地许多大学的应届毕业生中招聘”。
In the past, many of those graduates would not have hung around long enough to be hired: brain drain was a persistent problem. “Every year, 3,000 of the smartest people in the world come to Pittsburgh,” Mawhinney says. “Before 2006, we exported them all to the Bay Area, or to New York City, or where they came from, like India or China. But when AI and robotics started to come of age 15 years ago, we started to retain a lot of that talent.”
在过去，这些毕业生中的许多人不会呆太长时间，以至于被雇用:人才流失是一个长期存在的问题。马嵬尼说:“每年都有3000名世界上最聪明的人来到匹兹堡。“2006年之前，我们把它们全部出口到旧金山湾区，或者纽约市，或者它们的来源地，比如印度或中国。但当15年前人工智能和机器人技术开始成熟时，我们开始留住大量人才。”
Thomas, who moved to Pittsburgh from New York, thinks that companies may likewise see advantages in smaller cities as they respond to increasing costs and the prevalence of flexible work as result of the pandemic.
从纽约搬到匹兹堡的托马斯认为，企业可能也看到了小城市的优势，因为它们要应对疫情导致的成本上升和灵活工作的流行。
“In a post-Covid world the smaller markets have a greater opportunity now to really position themselves for FDI,” he says. “We want to make sure that we’re teed up to take advantage of that.”
他表示：“在后新型冠状病毒肺炎（COVID a 19，即2019冠状病毒病）时代，规模较小的市场现在有更大的机会真正为外国直接投资做好准备。”我们要确保我们做好了充分利用这一点的准备。
