Business View Civil and Municipal | April 2021

68 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL ARIL 2021 AT A GLANCE MCKEESPORT, PENNSYLVANIA WHAT: Business-friendly, former steel town; population 19,700 WHERE: Pittsburgh Metro Area, Pennsylvania WEBSITE: www.mckeesport-pa.gov T ry as you might, you can’t keep good people down. The City of McKeesport, Pennsylvania, is proof positive that a community with grit and heart at its core can not only rebound but set a shining example for others. McKeesport grew up as a thriving steel town, in its heyday home to 55,000 souls – many of them contributing sweat equity as foundry workers. In the late 1970s, that population started to decrease slightly but with the collapse of the steel industry in 1982, it plummeted and has remained steady at just below 20,000. Michael Cherepko, Mayor of McKeesport, recalls, “It’s a town that was hit hard by the loss of the steel industry, a town that was going down for a few decades. About eight to ten years ago we hit our bottom point, and we’re on the way uphill now. It took 30-plus years to get out of the slump, knowing we weren’t going to rebuild right away. You have to crawl before you walk ort, Pennsylvania Community in action