Pittsburgh VS Cleveland (Philadelphia, Erie, York: hospitals, homes, crime)

[RowJimmy]

Originally Posted by pittnurse70

Well, yes, this is true. What I am disputing is that the cities mentioned are doing anything different than Pittsburgh and Cleveland have done. There seems to be a belief that all western cities are constantly annexing up suburbs, which makes their statistics look better. This is not true. There are a lot of western cities that have mostly "urban core", as you expressed it. For example: Seattle, Portland, Salt Lake City, and even Phoenix have suburban cities that are not part of the city proper. The only city I know of that is annexing a lot of suburbs is Omaha, Nebraska, and it is debatable whether that is a western city.

Most Texas cities, and south Western cities are annexing their suburbs. Most cities in the south west are well over 200 sq miles in Area. Pittsburgh is 55 square miles. It is a small city in land area. The density of cities in the south west is only like 1000 per sq mile, Pittsburgh was around 6,0000 within the bounderies.

Denver is 155 sq miles and roughly 550,000 people = 3,500 sq/mile

Pittsburgh is 55 sq miles and roughly 320,000 people=5,818 sq/mile. (also remember, that about 10 square miles in Pittsburgh is inhabitable because it is mostly rivers are steep hillsides.)

Denver may look bigger in population stats, may have a better crime rating, etc (which actually I think Denver's crime rate is comparable). However, it includes suburban places like Stapleton, Cherry Creek, etc.

Point is, even if they are not annexing their suburbs they still have a lot more land area that covers areas that would be considered well into the surburbs in the North East.

[Katiana]

RowJimmy: I swore I was not going to mention the "D" city again, since some people got annoyed when I answered a question on this thread with that city. But I will say, since you brought it up: The City and County of D was formed in 1901. There have been very few changes to its land area since then. An amendment to the Colorado constitution in 1976 made it all but impossible for D to annex any more land. That was over 30 yrs ago, and at the beginning of City D's big population boom. The Cherry Creek area of D is not "suburban". If you are thinking of Cherry Creek schools, none of them are in Denver proper; some are even in Aurora. Stapleton is a "new urbanism" area that is being developed since the closure of the old airport. It is comparable to the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Shadyside in that it attracts the young, affluent types, a sort of gentrification area. Prior to the closure of the airport, the area surrounding Stapleton was rather low-income.

The question was crime rates, and someone said that Phoenix, San Antonio and Las Vegas have suburbs within their boundaries. I disagreed. I have been to Phoenix. It has a city core surrounded by suburban cites, that are NOT part of Phoenix. I have read other places that some Texas cities are annexing their suburbs. I cannot confirm or deny that. I can tell you that D is not.

[RowJimmy]

Originally Posted by pittnurse70

RowJimmy: I swore I was not going to mention the "D" city again, since some people got annoyed when I answered a question on this thread with that city. But I will say, since you brought it up: The City and County of D was formed in 1901. There have been very few changes to its land area since then. An amendment to the Colorado constitution in 1976 made it all but impossible for D to annex any more land. That was over 30 yrs ago, and at the beginning of City D's big population boom. The Cherry Creek area of D is not "suburban". If you are thinking of Cherry Creek schools, none of them are in Denver proper; some are even in Aurora. Stapleton is a "new urbanism" area that is being developed since the closure of the old airport. It is comparable to the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Shadyside in that it attracts the young, affluent types, a sort of gentrification area. Prior to the closure of the airport, the area surrounding Stapleton was rather low-income.

The question was crime rates, and someone said that Phoenix, San Antonio and Las Vegas have suburbs within their boundaries. I disagreed. I have been to Phoenix. It has a city core surrounded by suburban cites, that are NOT part of Phoenix. I have read other places that some Texas cities are annexing their suburbs. I cannot confirm or deny that. I can tell you that D is not.

From my message I wrote above: Point is, even if they are not annexing their suburbs they still have a lot more land area that covers areas that would be considered well into the surburbs in the North East.

Also, I would compare Stapleton much more with the South Side works, which is a new urban area that has been placed over an existing steel mill site and attracts many young proffessionals, then Shadyside, which is a old area that is more fluent.

[Katiana]

Originally Posted by RowJimmy

From my message I wrote above: Point is, even if they are not annexing their suburbs they still have a lot more land area that covers areas that would be considered well into the surburbs in the North East.

Also, I would compare Stapleton much more with the South Side works, which is a new urban area that has been placed over an existing steel mill site and attracts many young proffessionals, then Shadyside, which is a old area that is more fluent.

I agree somewhat with the above comparison. S. Side Works is a retail area. Stapleton is a housing area, with some retail. My point was simply that Pittsburgh has these affluent areas, too. And cities are what they are. That can't be changed. That's why some of these comparisons are "apples to oranges". BTW, Seattle's land area is ~84 sq. miles, Portland Ore. is 115. just FYI. Not all western cities are huge sprawling places.

[RowJimmy]

Originally Posted by pittnurse70

I agree somewhat with the above comparison. S. Side Works is a retail area. Stapleton is a housing area, with some retail. My point was simply that Pittsburgh has these affluent areas, too. And cities are what they are. That can't be changed. That's why some of these comparisons are "apples to oranges". BTW, Seattle's land area is ~84 sq. miles, Portland Ore. is 115. just FYI. Not all western cities are huge sprawling places.

I never been to the north west. The most sprawling places are Arizona, La, and Texas. I don't know what Seattle is like, but want to see it. S. Side works is also a large part housing and apartments also. It isn't just retail.

[barneyg]

Originally Posted by pittnurse70

Not all western cities are huge sprawling places.

I'm aware of that; this is actually why I decided to use Phoenix, San Antonio and Las Vegas as examples. I didn't imply that Pittsburgh's annexations strategies from a century ago were different than western cities' more recent annexation strategies.

My point is (extreme but relevant example):
San Antonio: city - 1.3 million, metro - 2 million. 65% of metro lives in city.
Pittsburgh: city - 300k, metro - 2.35 million. That's less than 15%.

Crime rate = crime / population.
Most crime (especially violent crime) is concentrated in poor inner city areas, which for both Pittsburgh and San Antonio (and most others) are inside city limits. Low crime populated subdivisions and neighborhoods obviously dilute the rate through their effect on the denominator. So to compare central cities that have significant suburban subdivisions inside city limits to other cities that don't will be misleading.

Proof: city rates
Pittsburgh is 19th most dangerous city in America, San Antonio is among the 10 safest.

metro area
Pittsburgh is 134th most dangerous metropolitan area, San Antonio is 84th most dangerous.

Which is the most dangerous? It is my belief that countrywide comparisons should use metropolitan area as a basis as they reflect current built-up area, not current arbitrary municipal boundaries.

[RowJimmy]

Originally Posted by barneyg

Which is the most dangerous? It is my belief that countrywide comparisons should use metropolitan area as a basis as they reflect current built-up area, not current arbitrary municipal boundaries.

I so agree. Even little things **** me off about how they determine cities state. Stuff like information please almanac has information on the 50 largest cities in the nation. They don't include Pittsburgh, but include El Paso, and Mesa arizona, etc. (I know that is a very superficial thing to be pissed at, but still) THey should take incount how large cities borders are when taking things into account and use metro areas. If Pittsburgh made its borders as large as Houston or Jacksonville our city would be well over 1 million people. We are within the top ten most dense cities in the nation.

[Katiana]

barneyg: Some people would use the stats on San Antonio to argue they have less urban sprawl than Pgh. I have never been there, have no idea if it's true. My guess would be no. But since Pittsburgh city is shrinking, apparently more than the suburbs, the city:suburb ratio has become very skewed. Back in the day, Pgh had ~700,000 people in the city of the same size as today. That was one crowded city! So maybe some of the dispersal to suburbs was good. I get everyone's point about this; I just think you will always be comparing apples to oranges when you compare different cities. The initial concern was about crime rates in Pittsburgh and Cleveland, not Pittsburgh and San Antonio, anyway.

[lostinpgh]

Originally Posted by RowJimmy

They don't include Pittsburgh, but include El Paso, and Mesa arizona, etc. (I know that is a very superficial thing to be pissed at, but still) THey should take incount how large cities borders are when taking things into account and use metro areas.

The development between Phoenix and Mesa is continuous, so I wouldn't necessarily use that as an example. Phoenix would then swell to include nine or ten adjacent communities of over 100,000 people each.

A better source for that sort of data is the Census Bureau, which defines metropolitan areas differently (in this case, the Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale Metropolitan Area IIRC.)

[JoeP]

Cities like San Antonio are sprawling in annexed land area, so saying that it is less sprawling because a higher percentage lives within city limits is as useless as comparing city limits alone. Most of sprawling cities like San Antonio are not urban. These sprawling "cities" have small urban cores and have been fortunate to annex suburban development within their political boundaries.

Pittsburgh is an even odder one for this because a fair amount of the non city population lives in communities that are not suburbs, they are communities that were born from industry along the rivers well before cars were king.