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... And as an aside, there's plenty of places you can buy a rowhouse with no front yard if you don't want to deal with landscape maintenance.
I owned two different ones for a total of 15 years. Still more work than I am currently able to do given the need to rake leaves, clear snow, clean gutters, etc. Also, row houses usually don't have garages, which means street parking and the attendant issues with that.
When comparing comparable square footage and finishes Shadyside condos are actually more expensive than houses.
And that's just to buy, let alone the monthly fees. Not to say fees aren't justifiable, but they push the price of condos out of line for many people who would like that lifestyle.
It all depends. Some condo fees that may look high include water or some utilities, in addition to maintenance. I've seen fees for various older buildings in Oakland/Shadyside in the $150 - $300 range. The newer and more deluxe building are, of course, much more.
I've worked around the music business for a long time and Pittsburgh has an excellent reputation nationwide (and in some genres even worldwide) as a music city.
Pittsburgh is on the tour list for most popular musicians. Even concerts of the less popular music styles (e.g. blues, jazz, ethnic-folk) draw good crowds in Pittsburgh. The city has a variety of excellent music venues and musicians of every ilk are available at the drop of a hat for contract work. Bruce Springsteen hired a string section for his most recent concert in the city. Most of them were unfamiliar with his work but they were top-flight pros so were ready to go after a single rehearsal. Broadway-musical touring companies and even experimental musical theater do very well for a city of Pittsburgh's size.
It's easy to get to a concert throughout most of the US so I don't count tours. As far as the grass roots music scene, Pittsburgh is one of the worst cities to live in as a musician. This is where I really miss the South. Venues, interest, and the quality of musicians is just not the same here.
Last edited by bluecarebear; 10-18-2016 at 08:17 PM..
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Originally Posted by bluecarebear
It's easy to get to a concert throughout most of the US so I don't count tours. As far as the grass roots music scene, Pittsburgh is one of the worst cities to live in as a musician. This is where I really miss the South. Venues, interest, and the quality of musicians is just not the same here.
Pittsburgh used to have plenty of small venues for live music, they've all but disappeared. When I was going to shows we had the Banana, the Upstage, Decade, Graffiti, City Limits, Turmoil Room, Sonic Temple, Rosebud/industrial bar next to it, and so forth. We even lost the 31st St Pub, sad.
It's easy to get to a concert throughout most of the US so I don't count tours. As far as the grass roots music scene, Pittsburgh is one of the worst cities to live in as a musician. This is where I really miss the South. Venues, interest, and the quality of musicians is just not the same here.
Live, local music is such niche entertainment. Outside of country, music that you'd find at most live music venues just isn't popular anymore. Rock is no longer one of the dominant genres of pop music. Kids aren't starting rock bands like they used to, and, outside of college towns, people really aren't spending a lot of money to see bands that they are not that familiar with.
Live, local music is such niche entertainment. Outside of country, music that you'd find at most live music venues just isn't popular anymore. Rock is no longer one of the dominant genres of pop music. Kids aren't starting rock bands like they used to, and, outside of college towns, people really aren't spending a lot of money to see bands that they are not that familiar with.
Ten years ago, I loved going to shows and watching local artists press the play button on their laptops.
It's not just rock music. I dabble in many genres. There aren't a lot of trained musicians or those who have a general interest in live music. If someone does play, then it is basic stuff. Down south the culture is much different. It isn't uncommon for people to start playing an instrument as a child. I suppose it is because Pittsburgh focuses so much on sports.
For one, people can't look past the low cost of living and zero in on the low pay. Pittsburgh likes to think of itself as a tech hub but in the grand scheme of things, Pittsburgh is one of the minor hubs. Not sure what it can do to turn its image around.
The article rang true to me as far as my/my wife's experiences with the Pittsburgh tech job market. In particular, the eagerness of hiring managers to "woo candidates away" from large, coastal cities was a theme we observed repeatedly. Many employers would let the job sit vacant or eliminate it if they could not get Mr. NYC Dreamboat Hire. And now, living in the large talent pool from which Pgh-area tech companies like to fish, we see it in reverse.
Of course, some recruiters enjoy taking the tack that we are just too dumb to appreciate the "vast COL savings" that come with that lower salary et. al. -- from the article:
Quote:
TreatSpace can't offer the huge paychecks of its larger competitors in San Francisco, Helon said. But some people he's tried to recruit fail to do the basic math and consider the relative cost of living in Pittsburgh versus the Bay Area. San Francisco's cost of living is 51 percent higher than in Pittsburgh, according to Expatistan, a website that tracks cost of living in cities around the world.
He lost one recent software engineer to a company in the Silicon Valley because of this. Helon thought he was close to hiring the person, but then he got an email from the candidate saying they opted to take the same position at a California company that offered more money.
“Just getting them to fully appreciate the lower cost of living here in Pittsburgh is sometimes a difficult sell,” Helon said. “So they end up taking the bigger salary in Silicon Valley and take a one-bedroom apartment 90 minutes from work.”
So it IS job market, if not the job itself, that's a deterrent in the end. The salary is too low, and if the remote candidate accepts, he's entering a market where salaries in general are too low. It's an easy thing to solve -- source locally or regionally, or source from other small/midsize markets -- but that isn't EXCITING like chasing the "hard to get" candidate. Some of these hiring managers or recruiters misjudge what they're up against. In NYC, or "Silicon Alley," currently the 2nd-largest tech job market in North America and the #1 fastest growing several years running, above-average salaries and Cadillac-tier benefits are the norm. Perks include 3-5K/year edu/college stipend, employer-paid family plans, unlimited PTO, discounted transit (plus, gyms and yoga studios and vehicle shares, and whatever lifestyle fad the hipster set likes this month goes here too), 7-8% 401K matching, company shares, hiring bonuses, time off for all federal holidays plus 2-3 floating, free lunches plus gourmet coffee, tea, fruit, snacks and even breakfast, on the job training for promised career advancement, etc. The offer package as a whole starts many people out considerably ahead of where they'd be with a less "robust" offer, and the company paid education and emphasis on OTJ training and promotion from within will widen the gap further in a few years' time.
Now, I know what the companies that are frequently mentioned in these "Pgh tech profiles" offer, and it's not even remotely like a Valley or an Alley tech job package. In most cases, too, the skills sought are not so "rare" that the incumbent candidate talent pool can only be sought in the Valley or Alley. Further, the recruiter, who tells the remote candidate s/he is foolish for "failing to appreciate" the "low COL" that comes with the salary and benefit cuts usually lacks knowledge of their remote prospective candidate's city and COL. This is the norm for recruiters, and is made worse by those who insist that internet COL conversion guides are gospel, and by too many people claiming to know "what it's like" to live in another city. This mindset is as common as dirt on numerous city-data subs, each of which contains many individuals who are experts on day to day life in cities they stepped foot in once, for a week in 1985. So you can be damn sure there are many recruiters swarming talent pools in large/global cities, telling those passive, long-shot candidates that we are (for all intents and purposes) "stupid" for refusing their sweet, sweet offer -- yet the ways they believe we are "being stupid" has nothing to do with our daily reality.
Why compete with enormous tech job markets like the Valley and Alley? Especially if you are a small business, a local concern, or start-up? Go local, or hire regionally! Or source in markets of a similar size to yours (Cleveland, Cincy, Indy, Minneapolis, Baltimore, the college towns of W. Va. and Northern Maryland, and numerous others that should be obvious talent pools). Of course, egos are not placated by common sense...and many who go into recruiting et. al. have some of the largest egos on the planet. I could tell you some knee slappers about the recruiters we have encountered here these past 5 years, but we don't have all day, and there's nothing sadder than comparing the narcissistic tirades of NYC tech hiring personnel. Overall, I'd say a minority of recruiters are legitimately ignorant of market realities. The majority by far are just willfully delusional. And can get nasty when you tell them "no." My most recent go round with that occurred in June, with a pushy young man who screamed that I was ENTITLED and must "think [i] can just get any job in THIS ECONOMY" (um, what? it's not 2008, man!) when I refused to hear more about a sys-analyst job with pay and bennies that were an insult. At least he was all of 23 and can learn. Can't say the same for the guys doing this well into middle age.
Last edited by Mr.BadGuy; 10-20-2016 at 02:45 AM..
Previously, I'd written my thoughts on why the hell any recruiter would limit himself to wooing candidates hundreds to thousands of miles away. Besides the much greater insecurity that comes with doing your long-term corporate planning (yes, an oxymoron for many companies these days, but let's go with it) around a new hire who only lives in the area BECAUSE of a job, you will often be ponying up for relocation and interview expenses if the hire is mid-level to senior. There is a reason I'm only hiring Pgh-area talent for my Pittsburgh branch and it ain't to save money -- it's for SECURITY and longevity's sake.
Then it occurred to me that these recruiters, at least the ones working for agencies or independent outfits (unaffiliated with the company's HR), may command larger bonuses for hiring out-of-town talent. If the commission and bonus structure is predicated on the final offer amount, and relo/expenses are included, chasing the remote hire means a bigger final check for the recruiter. More than ego, in many cases, this incessant insistence on sourcing only from cities that already have robust high tech job markets seems motivated by greed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by szug-bot
I think you are correct...but sort of.
Yes, sports here is a HUGE part of the pulse of this city. That is a GOOD thing. Why? Because otherwise, you would need a critical mass - and voila! You have a manhattan wannabe town.
I don't want that. It is nice that this is not a bustling area at all times. There are quiet corners of the city that you can enjoy now and then.
Manhattan is more than tourist stuff though. My hood here is quieter than where we lived in Pittsburgh. Inwood is a family neighborhood in Manhattan with rolling hills and lush greenery, so quiet you'd hear a pin drop, and the Upper East Side is similarly quiet and decidedly a neighborhood rather than a "scene." To name but a few, as there are many more quiet hoods here, period, than there are neighborhoods total in a smaller city. But like anything, you'd have to see it to believe it, and no one comes here for a week just to ride the E Train deep into Queens or whatever. Most U.S. cities do offer that mix, with the quiet outnumbering the "bustle" as you say.
Of course NYC fails as a sports town, since it is a city of non-NYC natives and immigrants from around the world, and American sports culture is not globally ubiquitous. You would sooner find a Steelers bar here, and you can. So many Pens and Steelers fans live here and some are not pleased by the lack of sports culture -- hence the Steelers bar's for them. In general, if pro-sports watching etc. is your bag, this is not the best place for you. Though it's not true that "every U.S. city's sports culture is like Pittsburgh" -- this is another favorite chestnut on city-data, but I have lived all over the country and can say with confidence, yes Pittsburgh is its own thing with its own sports culture. Those who enjoy it also see that Pittsburgh is special for what it is, and enjoy what it has to offer on its own terms. As it should be.
Someone in Pittsburgh once told me every city has Steelers bars for the Pghers who left during the steel crisis. I haven't investigated all the cities in the U.S. but it checks out for mine. I hear Florida has lots too but I don't know which cities have the "good" ones. Football isn't one of my interests, but it seems like a nice gesture for the "expats."
Last edited by Mr.BadGuy; 10-20-2016 at 02:50 AM..
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