The historic rationale for Pittsburgh's "Fake" Neighborhoods? (York: new home, buying)

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

I think the OP is just flabbergasted by the sheer volume of Pittsburgh neighborhoods---90 for 307,000ish people! Where you live, for example, in Loudoun County you probably have a similar number of neighborhoods spanning a much larger geographical area (Lansdowne, Cascades, Lowe's Island, Broadlands, Brambleton, etc.)

But we also have some very small neighborhoods. Richland Acres, for example, only has 10-20 homes. It's a separate neighborhood because it was built long before anything else was built here and thus has a different feel and personality. Outsiders might not appreciate the difference, but so what? Neighborhood names are for people who live in those neighborhoods--what matters is they mean something to them.

[Uptown kid]

Today the only part of Homewood that keeps the Brushton name is the Brushton-Hilltop section from Bruston Ave-Standard Ave, north of Franstown Ave-south of the Penn Hills border. Then again from Homewood calls it Homewood W or S or. Everybody just calls it Homewood, but for people in their 40's and under it breaks down into "UpTown," "DownTown," "Dallas Park," and "Bruston-HillTop."

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by aw_now_what

Chateau is a contrivance that some city planner came up with after that part of Manchester was bulldozed in the 1960s. I'm not sure if a single person calls it that. It's Manchester.

Duquesne Heights and Observatory Hill are names that go back to the 19th century.

South Shore is a dumb name. I agree that it's part of South Side and there's no apparent reason to differentiate it.

Project neighborhoods- it never made sense to me why somebody designated Bedford Dwellings and Terrace Village as separate neighborhoods. "Crawford-Roberts" is also a city planner's contrivance.

Agree on the dumbness of dividing Oakland, Homewood and Lawrenceville into "separate" neighborhoods. Although for Lawrenceville, it could make some sense as residents have differentiated between 6th, 9th, and 10th wards for many years.

Also, 50+ years ago, anyone living in what's now called Highland Park, Larimer, or Lincoln-Lemington-Belmar, if asked, would've told you they lived in East Liberty.

I kind of want to punch people who say they live on the North Shore. Unless they live in those apartments that look like Red Roof Inn, or are homeless, or are a Canadian goose.

50+ years ago, the zoo was considered in Highland Park. I think that's an oldie.

Originally Posted by Hopes

North Shore is stupid. It never existed. And Allegheny West, Allegheny East, and Central Northside were always just North Side too.

Agree. And what's with this "South Shore"? I never heard that until I read this thread yesterday!

[FreightTrainRunning]

Originally Posted by Hopes

North Shore is stupid. It never existed. And Allegheny West, Allegheny East, and Central Northside were always just North Side too.

I'll admit that North Shore is a dumb name since rivers have banks not shores but the North Shore area is well defined and distinct from the rest of the North Side, it makes sense for it to have a specific name.

And I don't know how old you are but Allegheny West has been a distinct neighborhood for close to fifty years now.

[Caladium]

Well, I must say this has been an interesting thread. Intriguing how names & neighborhoods change as years go by. I'm still not sure how any of this makes one neighborhood "fake" and another neighborhood "real", though.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by Caladium

Well, I must say this has been an interesting thread. Intriguing how names & neighborhoods change as years go by. I'm still not sure how any of this makes one neighborhood "fake" and another neighborhood "real", though.

Sometimes it's the choice of names, to sound more "hipsterish". e.g. North Shore instead of North Side, ditto South Shore. There was a discussion a while back about "Deutschtown" (sp?) a neighborhood I never heard of growing up.

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by Katiana

Sometimes it's the choice of names, to sound more "hipsterish". e.g. North Shore instead of North Side, ditto South Shore. There was a discussion a while back about "Deutschtown" (sp?) a neighborhood I never heard of growing up.

LOL, you may be onto something, although it's funny that "shore" is somehow hipper than "side." Deutschtown is one of those words that sounds authentic and like it has character--if it's a name that's been around for decades. Yet at the same time you're right, it sounds a little affected if it's a new name from people trying to make their neighborhood sound hip.

Funny how some names can do that. After all it's just a name--does changing a name really make such a difference in making a place "hip"?

[SteelCityRising]

We're fairly certain we're going to be buying a house in Deutschtown, actually. It has all of the roots and aura of an authentic and historic working-class German neighborhood (at least where we're buying near the juncture of the Troy Hill and Spring Garden neighborhoods). We just have to figure out how to overcome closing costs being dramatically higher than we had budgeted for, and Deutschtown (or is it East Deutschtown, Allegheny East, East Allegheny?) will be our new home!

[FreightTrainRunning]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

We're viewing a home in East Allegheny in about an hour, and I've always wondered why the neighborhoods are called East Allegheny and Allegheny West. Why not Allegheny East and Allegheny West or East Allegheny and West Allegheny? I'm just going to tell people I live in Deutchstown if we buy the house.

The name West Allegheny was already taken.

[LIRefugee]

Originally Posted by Katiana

50+ years ago, the zoo was considered in Highland Park. I think that's an oldie.

It still is, much like how the Aviary is in Allegheny Commons West.

Originally Posted by Caladium

Funny how some names can do that. After all it's just a name--does changing a name really make such a difference in making a place "hip"?

I think it can. Some names can create an aura or cachet that the plain street-based name cannot. Would you rather live in Brightwood or Marshall-Shadeland?

I agree with the general gist of the thread that some neighborhoods seem superfluous and/or ill-defined. I think that is largely a byproduct of the use of census tracts as the units making up a neighborhood and the use of since-destroyed housing developments when the neighborhoods were initially defined. There are definitely some that could stand to be removed, like Arlington Heights.

One interesting thing I found with the 2010 census is that many of the 2000 census tracts have been combined. For example, now Beltzhoover and Bon Air are part of the same tract, but I believe the city is now using census blocks in order to keep the neighborhood definitions intact.

It's interesting how the neighborhood definitions have evolved. Back in 1974, the city included all of Point Breeze with Squirrel Hill North (of Forbes), East Liberty was shrunken compared to today, and Hays, New Homestead, and Lincoln Place were all a part of the evocatively named "31st Ward". The Pittsburgh Neighborhood Alliance produced its own 1977 neighborhood definitions that are, in some cases, vastly different from the official versions. My favorite is the tongue of East Liberty extending down Negley Run Blvd to Washington Blvd.