The Pittsburgh Bubble (York, New Castle, Butler: apartment, rent, homes)

[JoshM25]

Originally Posted by bradjl2009

I've lived here my entire life and that still annoys me to this day. Also if they are marked, the street signs are too small to read if you are gong faster than 25 mph. To be perfectly honest there are some streets I take I didn't even know the streets name of for awhile because they're so poorly marked. I just know to go that way since I've seen my dad drive that way since I was little.

My wife's the exact same way. She knows her way around pretty well and hardly gets lost. But couldn't tell you the name of any streets or even try to give directions.

I'm not from the area originally, so it's entirely different for me. I go by spatial reasoning and logic, not memory or habit.

But honestly, since we're on the topic of directions. From the perspective of a non-native, it's pretty easy to get around. You just have to know what river you're near!

[Jrn14]

Originally Posted by Mugatu

What's stopping you from going if you'd like to see it? Just curious.

I probably will go soon, it just hasn't presented itself lately... I guess I could go alone, or influence some friends or family to go with. I look forward to doing so.

I think the reason so many people in Pittsburgh kinda fall into the "bubble" mentality, is kind of coincidental. People just kinda don't need to go to certain areas so they don't. Also I think people are unecessarily afraid of certain things (The parkway West/East, Parking in Downtown and Oakland, Crime in certain places etc) My mother had 11 siblings and the furthest any lived away were Ohio. One lives in Wexford and the other 10/12 live on this side of the Mon as well as my grandfather, and my father's two siblings, and now both of my brother's and their families live in the south suburbs. I went to carrick highschool and got a free bus pass. I pretty much confined myself inbetween Southside and Century III mall as far as dining, shopping, entertainment as did most of my highschool friends... With a few random trips to South Hills Villiage and Ross Park (because it's a quick drive, these days I pretty much stick at Ross Park). We would go to places like Kennywood, the zoo, the meuseums, science center ect... but we didnt' really do much in the neighborhoods.

[Renaldo5000]

Hmm...I've never been to Fallingwater either. Egg on my face.

[jay5835]

Originally Posted by iwonderwhy2124

Hmm...I've never been to Fallingwater either. Egg on my face.

You need to buy tickets for the specific date you want to go. You can't just drive down there and look at it. Fallingwater | Tours and Tickets

[jimmyev]

It's typical for a suburbanite not to go into the city (remember Adventures in Babysitting?) And it's typical for someone not to have ever been to the major attractions near where they live (they could do that anytime and it keeps being put off). But what seems to be distinctly Western PA (maybe Appalachian?) is never, ever having set foot more than 5 miles from your house. Your entire life. The lady that lives beside my parents in New Castle is 62 years old and has never, ever been outside of New Castle and Shenango Township. Ever.

[Katiana]

Originally Posted by jay5835

You need to buy tickets for the specific date you want to go. You can't just drive down there and look at it. Fallingwater | Tours and Tickets

Well, that depends. I tried to get reservations for Oct. 9, and they were all sold when I got online Oct. 7. So we got reservations for the Kentuck Knob tour instead (a FLW house I had never heard of before, that is near Fallingwater). After we toured Kentuck Knob, we drove over to Fallingwater where you CAN buy tickets for the grounds. When we asked about the house tour, they said a bus was late so they sold us tickets for the tour on the spot. It's better to plan ahead of course. I'd try at least a week in advance, if not more.

[greg42]

Fall reservations for Fallingwater fill up well in advance usually, yeah, because everyone wants to see it with the leaves changing. So you need a bit of luck like the late bus unless you planned well in advance. Kentuck Knob you can reserve as well, but I think a fair amount of the time you can probably still walk in and take the next tour.

Slower times of year at Fallingwater, especially midweek, you probably only need a few days or so in advance, and yeah sometimes you might still be able to walk in. And you can do the grounds tour (self-guided) anytime. The res is for the inside tour.

Ask your tour guide about the work they did a few years back to strengthen Fallingwater. There's no trace of it really and surprisingly (to me) when I was last there they did not even make mention of this construction on the tour. I thought it was odd to talk about the huge cantilever structure without even mentioning that they ended up making some repairs.

Gonna go back one day for the in-depth tour. I've taken the regular tour I think 3 times now, maybe 4. The first time was before I moved here.

[Honest Bob]

And somebody is surprised that these people live in their own little worlds.

I love it when someone comes on the forum and asks where the cheapest place to buy tires or food or clothes and you tell them and it is like talking to the wall.

They not only want the cheapest price - they want it just down the street from where they live.

I ran into that mentality many times when I was dealing with people from Export. They thought Export was the center of the universe and they didn't know where anything was at 40 miles away or couldn't fathom someone driving 71 miles each way every day to go to work.

Instead of a employer paying you a livable wage, they just told you to go buy a cheap little car that gets good gas mileage. Like that is going to solve all your problems.

[TelecasterBlues]

The whole "bubble" mentality is something that's been around for ages. If you really thing about it, SWPA/Pittsburgh more or less sits inside of a gigantic bowl due to the Appalachians surrounding all points east, south, and a little towards the west. Travel was difficult, especially during the winter, and well...just put two and two together. By nature, this region has always been isolated and cut-off from the rest of the world. Such a thing is bound to influence people, even today we don't really have another city within the region for people to connect with.

It takes time to change things, and most generations have carried that "shut in" type of behavior up until present. This kills me too, not because it makes the people bad or anything like that...it's just kind of frustrating. There's people around here that consider a 10 minute drive to Wal-Mart as an adventure and some never explore outside of their township and have barely seen SWPA let alone the rest of the country or even Pittsburgh itself. It is what it is; some people will argue to the death that even the most decayed little coal town is the be-all-end-all simply because they just don't know any better.

[raubre]

I have no idea why but it seems that all the people that are and were in my life live(d) in a bubble. My mother, my friends, my exes.... I accept it from them, but sometimes it would be cool to actually be able to travel with someone who have the same interests as you. Am I a bubble magnet or somethiing? lol