What are Pittsburgh's peer cities? (Indiana, Franklin: employment, to live, costs)

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by Moby Hick

It was a rhetorical question.

So you don't really want to know. I haven't lived in the Pgh area for a long time, don't keep up with all that. I know there was often talk of the little borough where my family lived, Patterson Hts, merging with the larger township, Patterson Township. Never happened, both valued their independence too much. (Beaver County) I recall hearing of some mergers, can't recall the details.

[Moby Hick]

Originally Posted by Katarina Witt

So you don't really want to know. I haven't lived in the Pgh area for a long time, don't keep up with all that. I know there was often talk of the little borough where my family lived, Patterson Hts, merging with the larger township, Patterson Township. Never happened, both valued their independence too much. (Beaver County) I recall hearing of some mergers, can't recall the details.

I thought that "close to none" was both sufficiently accurate and known to everybody who posts here.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by Moby Hick

I thought that "close to none" was both sufficiently accurate and known to everybody who posts here.

See this article. Pa. communities often turn to merger or consolidation to ease financial strains | TribLIVE
The Fallston/Patterson Twp proposed merger was the one I was thinking of. Now if there is no interest, there will be no political will, so what exactly is the problem.

[Moby Hick]

Originally Posted by Katarina Witt

The Fallston/Patterson Twp proposed merger was the one I was thinking of. Now if there is no interest, there will be no political will, so what exactly is the problem.

Which is basically what 106 said.

Yes, there is technically an option for mergers, but not anything that could form a large city. Mergers are rare here and those that have happened lately are almost entirely very small places coming together, not a city growing by annexation like you see in the midwest.

[g500]

Moby Hick - I dont know anything about you man, or if you even said it before, but you really should be looking at Urban Areas to compare populations. Pittsburgh's "true feel" population is really over 1.7 million, vs. the city limits which are ~300k.
PA is especially out of whack with super small city limits like Pgh, Hbg, Lancaster.
Btw, Pitt is a really cool city. It's hard to find another city that is exactly like it given its history, geography, and culture.

[Moby Hick]

Originally Posted by g500

Moby Hick - I dont know anything about you man, or if you even said it before, but you really should be looking at Urban Areas to compare populations. Pittsburgh's "true feel" population is really over 1.7 million, vs. the city limits which are ~300k.
PA is especially out of whack with super small city limits like Pgh, Hbg, Lancaster.
Btw, Pitt is a really cool city. It's hard to find another city that is exactly like it given its history, geography, and culture.

I will google Pittsburgh's metro population so I know what it feels like to live here in case living here for a dozen years hasn't gotten through to me.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by Moby Hick

Which is basically what 106 said.

Yes, there is technically an option for mergers, but not anything that could form a large city. Mergers are rare here and those that have happened lately are almost entirely very small places coming together, not a city growing by annexation like you see in the midwest.

The only midwestern city I know of doing that is Omaha, and 1) they have not annexed anything since Elkhorn in 2005, and 2)they can't annex much more because they have already annexed most of Douglas County and as I understand it, can't annex outside the county.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elkhorn,_Omaha,_Nebraska

Surely you are aware that Pittsburgh did the same thing, annexing "Manchester" (north side), Birmingham (south side) and some other areas, just in a different era?

[Moby Hick]

Originally Posted by Katarina Witt

Surely you are aware that Pittsburgh did the same thing, annexing "Manchester" (north side), Birmingham (south side) and some other areas, just in a different era?

It was indeed a different era. For example, when Pittsburgh last annexed another city, the automobile was a novelty. That's why Omaha has a metro area where the about half of the people in the metro area live in the city and Pittsburgh is under 1/5th.

[g500]

I would recommend using Urban Area (UA) rather than Metro Area. UA is a better representation because Metro areas (for all cities now) take an entire county even if just a tiny bit of the city area spills into it (so it can end up including far out rural areas). And of course county limits (just like city limits) can be seen as just arbitrary. Urban areas are also defined by the US Census Bureau, but instead follow connected, developed areas and generally represent one labor market.

If your interested type Wiki US Urban Areas - that's the list as of 2010. It has changed since then obviously. Also that list on Wiki includes Puerto Rico cities, which you have to remove. Using this list you can compare US cities with urban areas >50k.

Metro Areas and CSA's tend to go a bit too far. But you can use that too if you want.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by Moby Hick

It was indeed a different era. For example, when Pittsburgh last annexed another city, the automobile was a novelty. That's why Omaha has a metro area where the about half of the people in the metro area live in the city and Pittsburgh is under 1/5th.

That doesn't make sense to me. Omaha is newer, should have more people in the burbs. But it doesn't. Pittsburgh is at about 1/8.