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I'm sure Pittsburgh gets a lot of the same heat, but I'd argue the difference is that Pittsburgh has suffered generations of explicitly negative public image, whereas Minneapolis has no public image at all. I don't know which is worse, I just know that it sucks to never see your skyline in movies or on TV, never hear about the iconic streets and major cultural institutions in your city, never come across a tourist who isn't from North or South Dakota.
Pretty much, but that's not always a bad thing. Keeps COL from getting out of control.
Pittsburgh really hadn't turned a corner until recently. Even as recent as the late 90s it wasn't a desirable place.
Much of that neighborhood was rebuilt in the post war era, prior to that it was (and still is) pretty much the roughest area of the city so there has never been much of a demand for more density.
Minneapolis also has neighborhoods that look like these:
You are embarrassing yourself. You seem more interested in talking trash than facts, but Minneapolis actually has way more of its housing in apartments than Pittsburgh does. Pittsburgh is more of a rowhouse city while much of Minneapolis is full of apartment buildings.
And you're cherry-picking, only showing streets from a small area around downtown. And every time I pick a random area of Minneapolis it happens to be the roughest part of town, and doesn't look like the rest of the city. Strange how that works out.
And you're cherry-picking, only showing streets from a small area around downtown. And every time I pick a random area of Minneapolis it happens to be the roughest part of town, and doesn't look like the rest of the city. Strange how that works out.
Meanwhile, here's what I find when dropping in on random spots in Pittsburgh, throughout the entire city:
And you're cherry-picking, only showing streets from a small area around downtown. And every time I pick a random area of Minneapolis it happens to be the roughest part of town, and doesn't look like the rest of the city. Strange how that works out.
None of the street views in the post you quoted are anywhere near each other and none of them are downtown.
I don't know which is worse, I just know that it sucks to never see your skyline in movies or on TV, never hear about the iconic streets and major cultural institutions in your city, never come across a tourist who isn't from North or South Dakota.
Well I guess we didn't cross paths (or maybe we did) but I just spent eight days vacationing in MSP.
And you're cherry-picking, only showing streets from a small area around downtown. And every time I pick a random area of Minneapolis it happens to be the roughest part of town, and doesn't look like the rest of the city. Strange how that works out.
Then why does Mpls' population density dwarf Pittsburgh's? Let the numbers speak for themselves, or, if you're like me, take both population AND infrastructural density into consideration, and then the two cities become very similar and comparable (despite your glaring bias).
Admittedly Cleveland does have a larger downtown than Pittsburgh - it's over 2 miles versus 2/3rds of a mile. But much of what Cleveland considers "Downtown" is in adjacent neighborhoods in Pittsburgh (e.g., North/South Shore, Strip District, Uptown, Lower Hill). Pittsburgh's downtown is certainly denser though - both in terms of job concentration per square mile, and because there are very few surface parking lots. Cleveland does edge out Pittsburgh when it comes to nightlife downtown, but part of that is because Pittsburgh's nightlife is concentrated elsewhere (South Side, Lawrenceville, Shadyside, etc).
Pittsburgh basically constructed apartments in three spurts. The first were some small apartment houses built right around 1900. They lookthe sameeverywhere. The second grouping were in the 20s mostly, which includes most of what I linked above. The last grouping was in the mid 20th century, and are really, really fugly. Because of the collapse of the steel industry, virtually no apartment buildings were constructed in Pittsburgh from 1980 till around ten years ago. There just wasn't the demand, and the few areas there was demand (e.g., around Oakland for student housing) it was easily absorbed by students renting in subdivided houses.
I expect Pittsburgh's true rowhouse count is closer to 25% than 15%. Pittsburgh only has a handful of purposefully designed two flats (and even less double two flats). Most 2-9 unit structures are subdivided houses, and this includes a fair number of rowhouses divided into 2-3 units. In addition, landlords sometimes consolidate rental rowhouses onto a single parcel, or a rowhouse with an alley house in the back is considered (by the city at least) to be a "two unit" structure. In addition, there's a fair amount of cases like this, where houses are not truly attached, but probably perceived as such, due to little to no setbacks and only a few foot gap between the houses.
Does the Census count semi-attached housing as being attached?
Yeah, I hate it when people talk about DT populations and don't include the relative size of the area people are calling "downtown". I recall an argument once about downtown Indianapolis' population and I remember hearing that "downtown" was like 4 or 5 square miles in size. Well yeah, when we include the core 4-5 square miles of any city, it becomes a pretty substantial population.
I bet none of those random neighborhoods scattered throughout are typical of Pittsburgh, either.
I see street views from Allentown, Fineview, Hazelwood, Lincoln-Lemington and Arlington, and two street views from the Hill District. With the exception of Fineview, you "randomly" picked five ghetto neighborhoods. Not only that, but the street views from Fineview, Hazelwood and Arlington were located on or adjacent to steep hills, which continue to depopulate because they're a complete pain in the ass to get to or from, and also because they present a landslide hazard. Development was never practical on them in the first place because they're actually escarpments, which are geologically unstable.
Whatever blight there is in the East End of Pittsburgh is quickly being erased. The lower Hill District is being redeveloped, and Garfield and Larimer are on the bleeding edge of gentrification. And there are huge plans to redevelop an old brownfield in Hazelwood. It's possible that the only blighted areas in the East End 10 years from now will be Lincoln-Lemington and Homewood, plus a small slice of the upper Hill District that's not easily accessible by car or transit. And gentrification has sped up on the North Side as well, spreading out from the Central North Side to Deutschtown, Manchester and Allegheny West.
Even a couple of the South Hills neighborhoods like Brookline, Beechview and Carrick seem to have some interesting things going on, though the change there is more gradual and doesn't involve developers throwing lots of money around. The only quadrant of the city that seems to be declining across the board with no end in sight is the West End.
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) but I just spent eight days vacationing in MSP. 
