What pieces of the puzzle does Pittsburgh lack to be a great city? (York: fit in, hotels)

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by greg42

That is rather different than the loaded question that you wrote as the title of the thread. Understand that you posed this as a very loaded question "What pieces of the puzzle does Pittsburgh lack to be a great city?" Thus you start off from the assumption that Pittsburgh lacks something and is not great, which of course encourages one sort of poster and rankles another as you've already seen. And yet you yourself do not wish to make commentary on what Pittsburgh lacks. I find that puzzling.

The funny thing is, I was about to post that "Vision in the leadership" might be an answer, before I decided to just be annoyed that it's a loaded question. Also I backed off from it because I was questioning why there should be some sort of vision/goal.

I don't think you'll find too many people in Pittsburgh with a grandiose vision, not in the public and not in the leadership.

Although some might say that such an attitude is a hallmark of Pittsburgh.

So what do YOU think it needs Mathman? You may in fact be onto something here (now that we've deciphered this better) that Pittsburgh is at a pivot point, where the survival bit is stabilized and there thus should be a pivot to a focus on a grander vision/goal. I personally have no particular opinion off the top of my head on what that vision should be.

But let me ask you though: do you think Houston has a goal/vision? Do you think Boston has a goal? Do you think NYC or Chicago or San Francisco or Orlando or St Louis or Portland or Seattle has a goal? Or even that they had one in the past? You seem to think Atlanta has a visionary goal that has taken hold, one that even resonates with the populace. That's interesting if it really plays out as you have described it. Right now I'm wondering how commonplace this is in cities, so I'm just throwing out some city names. My initial hunch is that it is not commonplace to have an overarching visionary goal. I tried to pick some city names that might be at different stages of different things.

Yes, I would imagine that in some department in those cities, there are some goals and visions. That is probably true of Pittsburgh as well. It's like a business needing a "mission statement".

Originally Posted by eschaton

Pittsburgh will never be world-class, because the U.S. really only has 1-3 world-class cities (NYC and arguably LA and Chicago). The "best case scenario" for Pittsburgh is we become the next Portland and double population over the nest 20 years. Even if we did that, we'd still be a mid-sized U.S. city. Not world class - just a lot denser and more expensive than today.

I think Pittsburgh is already one of the best cities within its size range in the country. Let's look at the list of all U.S. cities from 400,000 to 200,000 people.

Alabama: Birmingham, 1,136,650 Montgomery 377,149
Alaska: Anchorage392,535
Arizona: Chandler (not listed, is part of Phoenix MSA), Gilbert (ditto), Glendale (ditto), Scottsdale (ditto)
California: Anaheim (not listed, part of LA), Bakersfield 856,158, Chula Vista (part of San Diego), Fontana (part of San Bernadino), Fremont (part of SF), Irvine (part of LA), Modesto 521,726, Oxnard 835,981, Riverside 4,350,096, San Bernardino (part of Riverside), Santa Ana (part of LA), Stockton (part of San Jose/San Franscisco/Oakland CSA)
Colorado: Aurora (Part of Denver)
Florida: Hialeah (Part of Miami), Orlando 2,223,674*, St. Petersburg 2,842,878*, Tampa (part of St. Petersburg)
Hawaii: Honolulu 953,207
Idaho: Boisie (Spelled it wrong) 637,896
Indiana: Fort Wayne 421,406
Iowa: Des Moines 588,999
Kansas: Wichita 636,105
Kentucky: Lexington 485,023
Louisiana: Baton Rouge 815,298, New Orleans 1,227,096, Shreveport 447,193
Minnesota: Minneapolis 3,422,264, Saint Paul (Part of Minneapolis)
Missouri: St. Louis 2,795,794*
Nebraska: Lincoln 310,342 I will point out that even Omaha, which is bigger than Pittsburgh, has an MSA of only 885,624, about 1/3 the size of the Pittsburgh MSA
Nevada: Henderson (Part of Las Vegas), North Las Vegas (Part of Las Vegas), Reno 433,843
New Jersey: Jersey City (Part of NYC, have you no shame?), Newark (also part of NYC)
New York: Buffalo 1,134,210, Rochester 1,082,284
North Carolina: Durham (Part of Raleigh), Fayetteville 374,585, Greensboro 736,065, Winston-Salem 647,697
Ohio: Cincinnati 2,128,603*, Cleveland 2,063,535*, Toledo 608,711
Oklahoma: Tulsa 951,880
Texas: Arlington (Part of Dallas), Corpus Christi 437,109, Garland (Part of Dallas), Irving (Part of Dallas), Laredo 259,172**, Lubbock 297,669, Plano (Part of Dallas)
Virginia: Chesapeake (Part of VA Beach), Norfolk (ditto), Richmond 1,231,980
Washington: Spokane 532,253, Tacoma (Part of Seattle)
Wisconsin: Madison 620,778

Let's start some process of elimination here. A large number of the sun-belt "cities" in the peer group are basically giant incorporated suburbs, or have a very small urban core compared to Pittsburgh. They aren't peers. Saint Louis and New Orleans are cities which are better known than Pittsburgh, but have much worse issues regarding safety and urban blight than we do. The only cities on this list which I would argue are more successful as cities are Madison (which has the virtue of being both a giant college town and a state capitol) and the Twin Cities (which, when lumped together, form a bigger core urban area than Pittsburgh, thus perhaps shouldn't be compared).

Thus I'd argue that Pittsburgh is already well on its way to becoming the best medium sized traditional (e.g., non sun belt) city in the U.S.

Oh, come on! You know good and well that Pittsburgh is considered a major metro! Comparing it to Lincoln, Nebraska (much smaller pop and MSA) is ridiculous. So is a comparison between Pittsburgh and Aurora, CO, though if you want Pittsburgh to come out smelling like a rose, that'd be a good choice.

Let's look at MSA population of these cities (in blue, MSAs under 500,000 in red).
* Similar in size to Pittsburgh, ** Smallest metro. Do you really think Pittsburgh is comparable to Laredo, TX?
List of Metropolitan Statistical Areas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here are Pittsburgh's peer cities in MSA population (the 3 larger and 3 smaller)
St. Louis; Baltimore; Denver; Charlotte, NC; Portland, OR; San Antonio. If you want to go 5 larger add Tampa and San Diego; 5 smaller add Orlando and Sacramento.

[Moby Hick]

Originally Posted by Katiana

Comparing it to Lincoln, Nebraska (much smaller pop and MSA) is ridiculous.

Lincoln is my favorite place, except in August, January, and February.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by Moby Hick

Lincoln is my favorite place, except in August, January, and February.

I have no issue with Lincoln. My husband is from Omaha, and while I've spent very little time in Lincoln, I've spent a lot in Omaha. My point is, you can't expect a Lincoln or even Omaha to have the cultural facilities, etc that a Pittsburgh has. Pittsburgh's MSA is 2,360,733, making Lincoln about 1/8 the size of Pgh. Even Omaha is only about 1/3 the size of Pgh. Actually, per capita, Omaha probably is close to par to Pgh for cultural facilities.

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by MathmanMathman

Sure there was an economic bust. Those places that had a lot invested in growth suffered the most. But i don't see that as a bad thing. Apparently, Pittsburgh didn't invest much in growth so it had little to lose.

The most important thing is Pittsburghers lost less then people in other cities where homeowners lost their houses and workers lost their jobs. Boom and bust economies are too volatile. Anyone who invests in booms are playing odds. That's gambling, not wise investments for retirement funds or cities. Slow steady diversified economic growth wins.

[Moby Hick]

Originally Posted by Katiana

Actually, per capita, Omaha probably is close to par to Pgh for cultural facilities.

Omaha is also great.

[PghYinzer]

Originally Posted by zman63

I have beaten a dead horse on issues that I see. If pittsburgh should try to model itself after somebody else it should be columbus ohio. The article I am posting speaks of 190 companies that relocated to the columbus metro in an 18 month period totaling 22,000 new jobs. When you read this article you could replace columbus with pittsburgh. The fact of the matter is we arent there yet. How can we make this a pittsburgh article?

Columbus, Ohio Region: Driving Economic Growth In the Midwest | Site Selection Online

I was just in Columbus this past weekend and I have to say, I can't name a more unremarkable place. I was downtown for the marathon, and I was struck by how "unstruck" I was by it all. It was nice enough, and was very clean, but it was not a model of what anyone should aspire for.

[Tinare]

Originally Posted by MathmanMathman

What is Pittsburgh's vision?

PLANPGH

[youngabe]

Originally Posted by PghYinzer

I was just in Columbus this past weekend and I have to say, I can't name a more unremarkable place. I was downtown for the marathon, and I was struck by how "unstruck" I was by it all. It was nice enough, and was very clean, but it was not a model of what anyone should aspire for.

Precisely how I feel about Raleigh, NC. This may sound insulting, but it may be one of the most boring, personality/character lacking lumps of land I've ever been to. Clean and new, sure, but my goodness, it has nothing to draw a person back. What IS the draw...IMO, it's for people who want suburban living but to say they live in a "city." The much smaller Wilmington, NC, I'd recommend anyone visit in a heartbeat. Funny how that happens.

[Aqua Teen Carl]

I've been to a lot of places that this forum would scoff at for having "zomg lack of characterrrrr". Half the time we don't even know how "character" is defined. The reality is that many of these "character lacking mounds of nothing" have a higher quality of life than what we get in Pittsburgh but we're too proud to admit it.

It's kinda like people in NYC who take awful things like 5 foot high mounds of garbage on a sidewalk or people pooping in a subway as something endearing ('Only in New York'). In reality they're just too proud to admit that "lesser" places have a higher quality of living and putting them down makes them feel better about their own personal choices.

[pman]

Originally Posted by Aqua Teen Carl

I've been to a lot of places that this forum would scoff at for having "zomg lack of characterrrrr". Half the time we don't even know how "character" is defined. The reality is that many of these "character lacking mounds of nothing" have a higher quality of life than what we get in Pittsburgh but we're too proud to admit it.
It's kinda like people in NYC who take awful things like 5 foot high mounds of garbage on a sidewalk or people pooping in a subway as something endearing ('Only in New York'). In reality they're just too proud to admit that "lesser" places have a higher quality of living and putting them down makes them feel better about their own personal choices.

so....older cities are inherently worse places to live than newer places that lack character? seems more like personal preference on your part than fact. some people prefer character, others don't prefer it. I suppose you could say Pittsburgh could use the same focus on job creation and keeping costs down that NC seems to have. just because some place lacks character doesn't mean you can't have a decent quality of life.