If Pittsburgh wasn't so artificially small (Johnstown, Canton: 2013, gated, vs.)

[trackstar13]

Originally Posted by Katiana

Didn't see this when I wrote the last post. Talk about yada, yada, yada!

Reach? I didn't create these statistics, the census bureau did. I just put them all together. Kill the messenger! I'm not going to answer every one of these issues. They're a deflection. It is what it is.

Crime rate? Who's talking about crime rates, or tourist areas, or cities out in the middle of nowhere like SLC? Are you friends with the mayor of London, perchance?

BTW, Denver has an airport that is ~ 50 sq. miles, 1/3 of the city. Virtually no one lives in the airport area. So Denver should get some special compensation b/c its density is really higher than it looks on paper. I believe Pittsburgh's airport is outside the city limits. J/K. It is what it is, in EVERY city.

Who is a deflection? You are saying they, but I am not sure who you are talking about? Atlanta had a very high crime rate for a while and this perception has stuck with the city despite the reduction in crime in recent years. Tampa is a gateway for many tourists and this definitely influences the metro area stats. Being in the middle of nowhere like Salt Lake City and getting free reign over most of an entire state as a metro area definitely influences the numbers. If we are strictly looking at the numbers, Pittsburgh is smaller than Arlington, TX, which is simply a suburb of Dallas-Fort Worth. Even Arlington, which is a suburb, is twice the land size of Pittsburgh. For this type of an issue simply looking at the numbers does not cut it and I am glad you are not making decisions for us all or we would be doomed.

Despite what you might think I am anti-annexation, however, since many other cities are passing up Pittsburgh due to the endless annexation of former suburbs, it may be a necessity at some point in the near future. Even if the city of Pittsburgh continues to grow, it is growing at a smaller pace than many of the top 100 cities and I for one don't want to see the day when Des Moines and several other similar cities are listed as "bigger" than Pittsburgh.

[Katarina Witt]

^^So what? The discussion is about Pittsburgh's size, not its crime rate, or its tourism industry, Salt Lake City's location "in the middle of nowhere", etc. BTW, both Minneapolis and St. Paul are smaller geographically, and only Mpls is larger in population. Together their total pop is 676,000 people, just below Detroit. What city is interfering with Pittsburgh's MSA?

BTW, here are some numbers for metro area square miles:

Salt Lake City: -------2100 Land and water; 1687 land only
Pittsburgh: ---------- 4678 Land and water; 4625 land only
Denver: ------------- 3778 Land and water; 3760 land only
Minneapolis/St. Paul: - 6364 Land and water; 6063 land only

Every city is different!
It is what it is!

Census Data: Metropolitan Area Population & Housing Density

[Goinback2011]

The size of the city is irrelevant.

For all comparative purposes, it's the SMSA that is the unit of measure.

The only reason anyone here is paying attention to the 'size' of the city is they're salivating over all that cost-shifting they could create if the suburbs were annexed.

[trackstar13]

Originally Posted by Katiana

^^So what? The discussion is about Pittsburgh's size

Yes and part of Pittsburgh's population size is directly related to the land size and topography. How many cities have hills like this?

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by track2514

Yes and part of Pittsburgh's population size is directly related to the land size and topography. How many cities have hills like this?

That has NOTHING to do with the sqare miles in a city. Of course, you pick a picture of one of Pittsburgh's more extreme hills. Surprise! Portland, Seattle, San Francisco all have lots of heavily hilled land (of cities I've been to). Even LA has land that is not developable due to hills, canyons, etc. Hell, even Omaha has some pretty steep hills!

[SPSGuy]

Pittsburgh is an interesting city with it's topography because it does really shape the densities of the neighborhoods. Majority of Pittsburgh's dense neighborhoods are along rivers where former steel workers were concentrated along the industrial zones. A lot of cities in the mid west and east are very homogenous in urban density on a grid system.

Even among Pittsburgh's suburbs the density was largely in older mill towns along the river that went downhill.

[I_Like_Spam]

Pittsburgh seems to be the right size, I think expanding its borders would just be asking for trouble.

Its fairly successful right now, but if you expand Mayor Luke and City Council's responsibility over a much larger geographic area, I think that's beyond their pay grade.

Currently, the various townships and boroughs have a good degree of automony, which gives the local people a lot more say in local affairs, what they want to do about police, parks, street repairs, schools. Putting everyone into one huge conglomeration is a recipe for out of control government as everyone would want to have "cadillac" services, figuring that the others will be helping to pay for it.

That's the current real problem with the city budget, and the 9 "district" representatives. If there is going to be spending in one area, every area wants it, and taxes get out of control. I think the city would work better with the old style "at large" elected council.

[trackstar13]

Originally Posted by Katiana

That has NOTHING to do with the sqare miles in a city. Of course, you pick a picture of one of Pittsburgh's more extreme hills. Surprise! Portland, Seattle, San Francisco all have lots of heavily hilled land (of cities I've been to). Even LA has land that is not developable due to hills, canyons, etc. Hell, even Omaha has some pretty steep hills!

You seem to use the numbers you like, but ignore the ones you don't:

Portland = 134.3 square miles
Seattle = 83.87 square miles
San Francisco = 46.87 square miles
Los Angeles =468.67 square miles
Pittsburgh = 55.5 square miles

All of the cities you listed are much larger in terms of land area except San Francisco. Additionally, Pittsburgh actually has something called WINTER. You know when that white stuff comes from the air and lays on the ground sometimes making steep roads treacherous. Some of the roads in San Francisco and Seattle would be literally impassable with an inch of snow and this is why there are not even more streets in Pittsburgh like Canton Ave. It simply amazes me that you and a few other posters fail to acknowledge that city population can be related to the physical size of the city. If we cut Portland in half the population would be less than 300,000 and the land mass would still be greater than that of Pittsburgh. By the way on a less serious note, have you ever tried to walk up Canton Ave. in the winter? It is seriously a blast

[GregHenry]

Originally Posted by Katiana

Of course, you pick a picture of one of Pittsburgh's more extreme hills.

Nah, I can find that hill almost everywhere I look in Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh's oldest areas, those in the triangle, appear to be its flattest. I doubt the original idea of Pittsburgh was to venture too far outside of downtown. If I were planing on making a life in Pittsburgh, I'd head to the old inner city, where it's more level, and rehab something down there.

At a quick look, Southpointe also seems current and livable.

[SPSGuy]

Originally Posted by GregHenry

Nah, I can find that hill almost everywhere I look in Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh's oldest areas, those in the triangle, appear to be its flattest. I doubt the original idea of Pittsburgh was to venture too far outside of downtown. If I were planing on making a life in Pittsburgh, I'd head to the old inner city, where it's more level, and rehab something down there.

At a quick look, Southpointe also seems current and livable.

We get it dude. You don't like hills. You are much more happy in flatter sprawly generica cities, and hilly tight cities like Pittsburgh are not your liking.

The older parts are on flatter surfaces as I mentioned above. It deals with industry being along the river valleys. Not that early Pittsburghers expected giant hummers to drive them on flat sections of suburban highways lined with fast food options. Walking up city steps to the slopes were what many mill workers did.