If bad news comes in threes, I wonder what the next downer for the Pittsburgh arts scene will be.

The first jab in the gut was the word that Pittsburgh and hurricane-ravaged New Orleans have something in common besides a river -- population loss.

The region finished second to the Crescent City in the exodus department among urban areas, said U.S. Census figures from 2001-06. New Orleans' catastrophic loss was understandable and perhaps reversible.

In the lonely Golden Triangle, soon to be taken over by wild turkeys and deer, the abandonment issues are more complex.

While it's scary enough to discover that in five years, deaths outnumbered births here by 20,000, the real horror is the fact that our young people can make more money elsewhere and that's the real reason why they don't stick around.

The region's employers, following the tradition established by Henry Clay Frick, like to keep the salary on the "reasonable side."

Before you accuse me of being a money-grubber, read the lament in the Post-Gazette Dec. 23 by expatriate Matthew Dillon, "The Myth of Affordable Pittsburgh."

The second shot to the solar plexus came from the Heinz Endowments, the sugar daddy of the arts community.

It announced last month that it's shifting 30 percent of its cash to support three areas: Downtown development, city schools and environmental technology.

In light of the population decline, the Heinz Foundation's concerns seem curiously misplaced. With a dying population, who's going to live Downtown -- only the very rich, apparently -- and who's going to have the children to fill the classrooms?

Since Heinz has been a major prop for the city's performing arts, that shift in priorities has to raise concern among organizations fighting for the shrinking entertainment dollar.

Of course, what's really shrunk is the audience. The next time you go to a play, lecture or concert, I'd wager you'll see the same people. In several cases, the theaters with their collection of wheelchairs, walkers and canes look like a Kathryn Kuhlman faith-healing service.

Still, more power to our seniors for getting out there. If they stayed home, the halls would be nearly deserted.

To carry this logic a step further, what's to inspire our theaters, musical groups and dance companies to invest in more new, edgy work when they might offend their, shall we say, "traditional audience"?

As for me, I'm eagerly anticipating the 50,000th performance of "The Chief."

Seriously, my real concern is the region's small but growing literary world. It's being nurtured by writers and poets a long way from Social Security, people like Sherrie Flick and Nancy Krygowski of Gist Street; Kris Collins, one of the New Yinzer literary journal editors; Suzanne Pace, who helped launch the American Shorts Reading Series; and the folks behind the Brillobox Cafe and Quiet Storm.

There is a feeling of freshness and vitality to the events. Below the surface of this real live scene is the virtual one -- the Pittsburgh literary blogosphere where much of the news is reported and the literary allusions are informed and sometimes dumb.

Ten years ago, I trudged into the dark, rainy nights of Pittsburgh in late winter to investigate the poetry milieu here for a National Poetry Month story.

Some places -- the Oakland Beehive, the Common Ground coffeehouse in Shadyside -- are gone, but many of the same poets I heard then are still here.

The energy now is flowing in the prose direction now -- short stories, narrative pieces, graphic novels, appreciation for work by international writers -- and it's an energy that could easily flow somewhere else if the Pittsburgh exodus isn't stemmed.

Our major writers took their inspiration from a city that encouraged their imagination with its crowded streets of people from different cultures, its classical educational system, its pride in the Carnegie Institute and Library and the industrial wealth that supported the arts.

What will inspire the next group of Pittsburgh writers -- a slot machine and new ice arena?

We're at a crossroads, and it seems to lead out of town. The third piece of bad news might be that our artists will be taking the next bus to somewhere else.