Why did Pittsburgh stay so white? (Philadelphia, Allentown: construction, live, vs)

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Katiana

RE: Lincoln-not so. https://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-...&ved=0CJgBELYD

All you have to do is switch to satellite view and you'll see exactly what I mean. Inside city limits it's gray (developed). Outside it's green (largely fields with a few small subdivisions).

Originally Posted by Katiana

That Lincoln is newer and has grown in recent years rather than shrunk means there are newer homes there, but it's not particularly suburban. Being a college town, there are lots of apartment buildings and duplexes.

I just picked a random residential street about halfway between the city core and edge. It doesn't look urban in any way to me.

Closer in, it looks a bit more urban to me, although it's still mostly detached craftsmen bungalows and the like even in the gridded sections of Lincoln. Still, the area which looks like this seems like it comprises less than 1/4th of the land area of the city. Again, if it was somewhere in the northeast or industrial Midwest, this "core" and most of the suburbs would probably be different municipalities.

Originally Posted by Katiana

Omaha has annexed most of Douglas County, but again, the homes are newer, but not necessarily "suburban" as understood on this board to mean big yards, etc. AND, they have sidewalks in most areas. I was just through Lincoln and in Omaha last weekend.

I don't consider suburb to mean big yards. I consider it to mean detached homes with a significant setback from the street, particularly if they have front-facing driveways.

Originally Posted by Katiana

You left Minneapolis out of your discussion.

Pittsburgh is whiter than Minneapolis.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by I_Like_Spam

I've been here in Pittsburgh my whole life, and certainly don't think it sucks. I thought it was fine in the 90's, parking was sure a lot easier.

But transforming it into another Portland or San Francisco or Manhattan isn't my idea of "progress".

I was not saying that all "old-timers" think Pittsburgh sucks. Only that those people who think Pittsburgh sucks tend to invariably be locals. Particularly locals who have never been anywhere else for any reasonable length of time.

There are many places I'd rather live than Pittsburgh if I was independently wealthy. But I don't want to pay Northeast Corridor prices for living again if I can help it. Even with housing appreciation, Pittsburgh still has some of the cheapest "non-ghetto" neighborhoods of any city with a reasonable amount of things to do.

[nei]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Lincoln only ranks high (in population and to a degree whiteness) because like many western cities essentially all non-farmland is incorporated in the city proper (meaning a lot of "suburbs" in the city). The two in Kentucky are city-county mergers. Colorado Springs, Fort Wayne, and Omaha have a lot of suburban-style subdivisions in the city. Henderson, Nevada is an "incorporated suburb" of Las Vegas. Really, Portland and Seattle are probably the only other two heavily white city cores in the country.

Even if Lincoln hadn't annexed almost its entire metro, it would still be relatively white. Take a look at its core on this map:

Mapping the 2010 U.S. Census - NYTimes.com

[choose racial/ethnic distribution on the arrow to the right of choose more maps]

Btw, Kansas City appears to have less of a old core = minority, newer annexed neighborhoods = white but instead west half = white, east half = black both center and outlying. Seattle and Portland aren't quite as white as their numbers suggest, because there's very little (more so Seattle) white % change in city vs suburb. Much less segregated than the north. Seattle's metro is actually quite a bit more diverse than Boston, the geographic distribution is just different.

That said, I do think the existence of the river boroughs helped the city in a different way. If you look at somewhere like Cleveland, industrial zones built in the early-mid 20th century essentially obliterated all the 19th century residential neighborhoods around downtown well before urban renewal even kicked into high gear. Because industry was so decentralized in Pittsburgh, a lot more of our housing stock survived.

That's interesting. I was puzzled why residential neighborhoods around downtown were so scarce for Cleveland. Even Chicago has a bit of that pattern, though the non-residential ring has mostly become residential at this point.

[zman63]

Originally Posted by gortonator

What's the basis for the 'high stress' comment? What are your comparisons and what experience are they based on? Presumably other regions of similar size you have extensive experience of living in? Would e good to understand your terms of reference.

When you say 'definitely' it's kinda nice to back up your opinions.

Here you go.

Pittsburgh Ranks In Top 10 Of Most Stressed Cities In Nation « CBS Pittsburgh


Dont get me wrong there are a lot of good people in the burgh. There is also a large amount of people i notice that are stressed out and angry. These people like to take it out on others. I had a guy at the local suburban shop n save threaten to put a bullet in my head because i was taking too long with coupons. My wife was freaked out as well and started to cry. This is not a laid back city. I have lived in cleveland for 4 years and Florida for 1. I have also spent a few months in new england. Not once did I ever have a blatant threat on my life. There is also a weird obsession with firearms here. Ive been in the most rural areas of vermont , maine and new hamp. You dont see the gun crazy , loose cannon people or the heavy drinking either.

[Tiger Beer]

Originally Posted by eschaton

If you look at nearly every rust-belt city in the country, the number of whites and blacks are fairly even. Places like Cleveland, Cincinnati and Saint Louis, all have white and black populations in the 40-50% range. Cities with a notable Latino population (Buffalo, Philly, Milwaukee, Chicago) have smaller black percentages, but the white population is still somewhere in the 40s.

Pittsburgh has been getting more diverse, but in 2010 it was still 65% white, which is among the highest for any city. This chart is old (from 2007 ACS) but Pittsburgh was the whitest MSA at that time, with only Portland and Seattle being whiter core cities overall.

My guess is that Pittsburgh doesn't have the suburbs, to the same degree, that the other cities had, which is where many of their white people fled to.

[JimboPGH]

Originally Posted by I_Like_Spam

I've been here in Pittsburgh my whole life, and certainly don't think it sucks. I thought it was fine in the 90's, parking was sure a lot easier.

But transforming it into another Portland or San Francisco or Manhattan isn't my idea of "progress".

No one wants to transform Pittsburgh into any of those cities. What most transplants and more progressive younger natives want is to incorporate ideas that have worked in other places to improve aspects of the city that interest us and can raise the overall quality of life in the region (stuff often as simple as expanded urban agriculture, more efficient public transit, continued expansion of the local music and art communities, etc.)

Pittsburgh can become a more progressive place while still retaining it's unique cultural heritage. The eccentric, working class, neighborhood-oriented vibe of this region is very attractive to those of us who grew up in more static, sterile areas. No one who really cares about this place wants to trade that in for the transient detachment of a hipper city. Those who do don't stay here for long.

[JimboPGH]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Pittsburgh is whiter than Minneapolis.

Did Prince and Kirby Puckett have a baby?

[JustinCaseIII]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I'm sorry, but this is the exact opposite from my experience here.

From my own experience, the people who think Pittsburgh sucks are all natives. Generally speaking, they're either older people who moved out of the city long ago and base their impression on the "bad old days," or they're under 30 and have no experience with other cities at all (and often don't live in the lauded parts of the city anyway).

In contrast, I think every single person I know who is a Pittsburgh booster is a transplant.



Pittsburgh briefly dropped below 300,000 sometime between 2000 and 2010. It recorded at just over 300,000 at the last census though, and continues to grow now.

Lincoln only ranks high (in population and to a degree whiteness) because like many western cities essentially all non-farmland is incorporated in the city proper (meaning a lot of "suburbs" in the city). The two in Kentucky are city-county mergers. Colorado Springs, Fort Wayne, and Omaha have a lot of suburban-style subdivisions in the city. Henderson, Nevada is an "incorporated suburb" of Las Vegas. Really, Portland and Seattle are probably the only other two heavily white city cores in the country.



Well, in 2007 Pittsburgh had the whitest suburbs of any metro in the nation, so those suburbs weren't a big draw. Besides that, historically aside from Homestead there wasn't a big black population in the river boroughs AFAIK.

That said, I do think the existence of the river boroughs helped the city in a different way. If you look at somewhere like Cleveland, industrial zones built in the early-mid 20th century essentially obliterated all the 19th century residential neighborhoods around downtown well before urban renewal even kicked into high gear. Because industry was so decentralized in Pittsburgh, a lot more of our housing stock survived.

Wow. Only Pittsburgh transplants like the city. How long do those new transplants feel that way? Can a city survive with that?

[jimmyev]

Pittsburgh's greatest growth came in the first half of the 20th century. It's 'diversity' reflects the ethnic groups that immigrated to the US (or moved north) during that time period - African-Americans, Italians, Eastern Europeans, and Byzantine Catholics from the remnants of the Ottoman Empire. Other cities' growth came in the second half of the 20th century (Phoenix, Las Vegas, Houston, Dallas, Miami) and their 'diversity' reflects the ethnic groups that immigrated to the US during that time period - Cubans, Vietnamese, Mexicans, Salvadorians, Guatemalans, Hondurans, and Haitians.

Currently, for whatever reason, Hispanics and/or Latinos (unless they happen to be of Peruvian descent and shoot a teenager in Florida) are separated out from other Caucasians. This makes cities with recent immigration artificially look more diverse than cities with older immigrant populations. But it's still just as hard to find a pierogie in Houston as it is to find decent pho in Pittsburgh.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by eschaton

All you have to do is switch to satellite view and you'll see exactly what I mean. Inside city limits it's gray (developed). Outside it's green (largely fields with a few small subdivisions).



I just picked a random residential street about halfway between the city core and edge. It doesn't look urban in any way to me.

Closer in, it looks a bit more urban to me, although it's still mostly detached craftsmen bungalows and the like even in the gridded sections of Lincoln. Still, the area which looks like this seems like it comprises less than 1/4th of the land area of the city. Again, if it was somewhere in the northeast or industrial Midwest, this "core" and most of the suburbs would probably be different municipalities.



I don't consider suburb to mean big yards. I consider it to mean detached homes with a significant setback from the street, particularly if they have front-facing driveways.



Pittsburgh is whiter than Minneapolis.

That is not the standard definition of suburb. What is "significant" setback?

Originally Posted by Tiger Beer

My guess is that Pittsburgh doesn't have the suburbs, to the same degree, that the other cities had, which is where many of their white people fled to.

12%, about 1 in 8 people in the Pittsburgh metro live in "the city". Pittsburgh is a city of 300,000 in a metro of 2,300,000 (approx). I'm not sure which other cities you're talking about. Seattle: 17% live in the city. Portland: 25% in the city. Omaha, 46% in city.