Accounting student considering Pittsburgh.

[RowJimmy]

There is plenty of hiking out here, and lots of canoeing and kayaking. We do have skiing, but nothing close to what you have out west.

I lived out in Colorado for about 3 years, and been going to Sun Valley, ID for 1 or 2 times a year for about 5 years. Don't expect great winter sports like you have out there, or extreme outdoor sports either.

However, I will say this. There are more rivers (large and small), plus lakes in the east for canoeing and kayacking. We do have white water rafting as mentioned above. I know that there is extreme white water rafting down the Colorado or snake river when the snow melts in the spring, but we have it about all year round. Hiking around here is more calm. I personally like to go up to the Allegheny National forest or Laural highlands, or camping and a long hike around the State college mountains for the weekends. The forest in Pa are different. That is one thing I like a little better here. We have thick hardwood forest here instead of pine forest. They are like the peaceful old forest with wisdom (sounds corny, but it is hard to describe).

I still think if when you leave the mountain west, and pacific west the next best place for nature and outdoors is the north east and Appalachians down to North Carolina.

[Katarina Witt]

Thank you, RowJimmy, for saying what I was thinking about the skiing, winter sports, hiking and extreme sports. Pittsburgh is not Boise. Especially regarding skiing, there is no comparison between The Laurel Highlands and Sun Valley. That is why I think LeftSo.IL.Behind needs to come out to Pgh and take a look for himself, see if it's what he wants.

[Gerbil]

Just an FYI, people aren't really leaving Pittsburgh. I mean, they do, but people leave any city. They just don't leave here any more than average. Today's population loss is an artifact of the real population loss we had many years ago, which left us with an unusually high number of elderly people. So deaths outpace births, and we don't currently get enough people moving into the region to make up for that. However, plenty of people do move here. Mainly we just need more immigrants. That seems to be improving though.


I know I sound like a broken record to regulars here, but I'm not sure if the OP has seen other threads.

[LeftSo.IL.Behind]

Thanks again for all the info, everyone. Pitt is a great forum.

Gerbil, the older population being a cause of the net loss of population makes sense, but a lot of the population loss has to be due to outgoing migration, right? The median pop. in Pitt is only 35 (Penn as a whole is 38). Is there perhaps a lot of movement from the city to the area suburbs, also?

[Katarina Witt]

I posted this on another Pittsburgh thread today. I have posted it in the Pittsburgh forums several times.

Pittsburgh, PA MSA Population and Components of Change

You are correct So.IL. That doesn't mean it's a bad place to live. It's just something to know. And there are pockets of growth. But it's not growing like Boise, which you may consider either good or bad.

[Gerbil]

Of course some of it is out-migration. It's just important to remember that every city has out-migration. Locally we just need more immigrants to make up for those normal losses.

That's an interesting table pittnurse posted. You can see just at a glance that while we don't get a lot of immigrants, we are currently getting about twice as many as we did in the 90's. So I think things are improving slowly but surely.

It's also worth noting that the percent drop in population is less than one percent each year.

[guylocke]

Leftso.IL.Behind, to go back to your original question, here are two links you may like to read. Pittsburgh recently took top honors for best "urban adventure" city and best city for "outdoor enthusiasts."

City becoming destination for outdoors enthusiasts - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Travel to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - National Geographic Adventure Magazine

[LeftSo.IL.Behind]

Thanks for the articles, Boylocke. Sounds like some cool stuff is going on.