What don't you like about Pittsburgh? (Liverpool: house, upper-class, company)

[londonbarcelona]

[quote=Imaginable;3621502]-The accent. On the other hand, I am usually asked “how long ago” I moved here, and people often assume that I'm from New York because I use proper grammar and pronunciation.


-The alternative culture or lack thereof. It consists of mangy middle-class kids donning thrift-store jeans and posing at the Brillobox. Anything the least bit edgy, alternative, or – gasp!- sexual does not fly here. Bands routinely skip here because no one goes to shows that aren't Epitaph bubblegum punk. Thee Eye failed. Laga failed. Basically, any interesting venue or performance space fails.


-The sports fanaticism. No, I don't give a **** about the Steelers, so quit trying to push your dull hobby on me.


-The job market. Unless you want to work at EDMC or UPMC, sorry, no jobs. Don't even get me started about the pay scale, especially for women and minorities.


-The transit. If I pay as much as a New Yorker for service, I should get the same level and quality of service.


-The inability of natives to take any criticism.[/quote]


Ditto - especially your last point!

[COPANUT]

The stranglehold the Democratic Party has on city/county politics.

[PGHPA611]

What I don't like about Pittsburgh? Well the weather isn't exactly that of San Francisco (lol) BUT If I could change one thing and one thing only it would be peoples perception of this amazing city. I don't like that Pittsburgh's Industrial History still has people thinking of it as a Blue Collar Industrial Town.

[londonbarcelona]

Originally Posted by PGHPA611

What I don't like about Pittsburgh? Well the weather isn't exactly that of San Francisco (lol) BUT If I could change one thing and one thing only it would be peoples perception of this amazing city. I don't like that Pittsburgh's Industrial History still has people thinking of it as a Blue Collar Industrial Town.

That's because it still IS. Sure most of the blue collar workers don't have jobs, but it's still majority Blue collar. It may be changing, but it's changing so slow that other cities are just whipping by.

[Iscubabir]

It's impossible for anyone to walk anywhere, it's polluted, and it's both sexist and racist. The other day my friend told me that their kid heard people making fun of jews and black people on the bus.

[guylocke]

That's because it still IS. Sure most of the blue collar workers don't have jobs, but it's still majority Blue collar. It may be changing, but it's changing so slow that other cities are just whipping by.

Pittsburgh can definitely no longer be considered a blue collar city, not even close. Maybe the citizens still have a blue collar mentality (in that they work hard and try to better themselves or whatever) but LESS than 25% of Pittsburgh jobs are blue collar, that is even lower than a great many American cities. Pittsburgh is definitely a service and technology city, now, and this is per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Not that it makes for such a great reference, but if you look up "blue collar worker" in wikipedia it actually uses Pittsburgh as one of their examples of blue collar MISCONCEPTION (the fact the the media portrays Pittsburgh as the ultimate blue collar city when, in fact, it is hardly blue collar at all anymore).

What's more, even though the job market in Pittsburgh isn't that spectacular and new positions are being created at a rate lower than the national average, the actual unemployment rate is still quite unremarkable. In fact, at least last year for many parts of the year (possibly even right now as we speak) our unemployment rate was LESS than the national average.

I'll even add one more thing, even though Pittsburgh is no longer a blue collar city, blue collar jobs are actually doing quite spectacular in Pittsburgh at the moment, ESPECIALLY construction, mining, mechanical, and engineering, etc. In fact, I recently read in the post-gazette that every single trade-school in Pittsburgh was at full capacity and there were waiting lists to enroll because demand is so high!!!!

So with all due respect, London, your post is wildly inaccurate and misleading.

[CaptainObvious]

I will come out of the shadows to add one (besides the soul-crushing weather)...

*The exceedingly low expectations of the region and the all-out, head-long race to drive them depressingly lower.

Almost all the problems I see with the area (and there are tons) can be traced to this one thing. The rediculous belief that "we were once the industrial leader of the country and by-God we will be again" Um, no you won't. Young people are leaving in droves. High taxes, terrible infrastructure, and general lack of leadership will not will Allegheny County into a manufacturing powerhouse once again. How about the housing stock? Row home after ugly row home falling apart. Even the "nice" areas aren't nice when you compare them to...well, almost anywhere else (Cleveland and Detroit notwithstanding). Go South young man (or woman) and you too can own a home that is not attached to one that is boarded-up on a...wait for it...PAVED STREET. Amazing how low the expectations have gotten in the rust belt where one tricks themselves into believing a 70 year old brick street that the snow plow rips up every winter is somehow nostalgic- I actually just finished reading a post where Lawrenceville was describer as "up and coming". Wow. Indeed it is- for Pittsburgh. Within lies the problem. In nearly any other economically viable city in the US Lawrenceville would be looked upon as out-and-out ghetto. Oh! Oh! It has a new coffee shop and two art galleries! So does Jamaica Queens. Hell, so does Kingston Jamaica for that matter. Oh Pittsburgh-where loyalty to a union that has failed their members time and time and time and time and time again is worn with a sense of pride. "Local -Insert the name of your trade here- #293" bumper stickers on 1983 pick-up trucks with rusted-through beds on retreaded tires. Yep-they're providing well- about as well as years of Democrat-controlled local government has. (When will they figure out more taxes invites people to leave, less invites them to stay? It really is a very simple premise) How about expectations so low that locals that care have all but abandoned the public school system. Private-school enrollment in Pittsburgh is amongst the highest in the US. Is there any outrage? Not really...the biggest event in the Pittsburgh public schools in the past 3 years was the closing of schools that forced the bussing of kids from one district to another. Trash. So much crap around. No pride in the community at all- I realize Pittsburgh is desolate-poor, but it costs nothing at all to throw your garbage in the garbage can instead of the street. Go to Harlem some day- it ain't the nicest place in the world by any logical measure at all, but at on any given Sunday afternoon you will see community groups out painting over grafitti or picking up litter. Not in Pittsburgh- not if it would interfere with drinking that case of I.C. Light- from cans nonetheless (at least spring for a bottle, would ya?).

I have been on (we actually sat down and figured this out one day) something like 92% of all the streets in Pittsburgh- and in homes on many many of those streets (somewhere near 1,000 homes at last count)...from Elliot to Homewood, Wilkinsburg to Dormont, The Hill, Upper Hill, Middle Hill, Polish Hill, Mount Lebanon to Mount Washington... and I have spent the last several months tooling around towns like Raleigh, Atlanta, Augusta, Charlotte and can say this without hesitation: They all have nice areas and bad areas. They all have nice people and mean. They all have an upside and downside to the weather. But nobody, and I mean nobody will bring you down like a Pittsburgher. The infinite ability of the Western Pennsylvanian to consistently underachieve is only topped by their complete and total lack of desire for that to change.

Having said that- most everyone I've ever met in Pittsburgh is nice. Truly, from the heart, nice people. Maybe ignorance is bliss.

Cap

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by CaptainObvious

Almost all the problems I see with the area (and there are tons) can be traced to this one thing. The rediculous belief that "we were once the industrial leader of the country and by-God we will be again" Um, no you won't.

I agree this is a problem. Pittsburgh's future is not its past, and it is highly unlikely it will ever again be a top 10 city by population with an economy dominated by heavy manufacturing. Rather, its future is as a top 30 city with a diversified service center and high-tech economy.

Young people are leaving in droves.

According to recent estimates, this is no longer true.

High taxes, terrible infrastructure, and general lack of leadership will not will Allegheny County into a manufacturing powerhouse once again.

Although manufacturing will likely never dominate the local economy like it once did, I think it is important to note that high-tech manufacturing is already an important part of Pittsburgh's new economy. And it may be poised to become even a bit more important, thanks to growing venture capital investment rates and Pittsburgh having a good base for supplying "green" technology.

How about the housing stock? Row home after ugly row home falling apart. Even the "nice" areas aren't nice when you compare them to...well, almost anywhere else (Cleveland and Detroit notwithstanding).

Some of Pittsburgh's rowhouse neighborhoods (the South Side and Lawrenceville) have had the highest appreciation in the region lately. That implies growing demand for such housing, and indeed this is not unique to Pittsburgh: in many cities there has been increasing demand for high density historic neighborhoods near the economic and cultural centers.

In nearly any other economically viable city in the US Lawrenceville would be looked upon as out-and-out ghetto.

Again, similar neighborhoods in cities like Boston, New York, Philly, DC, San Francisco, and so on have also become very popular recently.

[supersoulty]

Originally Posted by IAmAngieBowie

-The accent. On the other hand, I am usually asked “how long ago” I moved here, and people often assume that I'm from New York because I use proper grammar and pronunciation.

Not in the least bit presumptuous, I see. First off, its not an "accent" its a dialect. Pittsburgh English - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. As a linguist, let me assure you, there is no such thing as "proper"... the language is whatever the people are speaking... so long as it can communicate depth of meaning, there is no reason to see it as "bad". If everyone kept speaking the "proper English" way throughout history, then we would all still be walking around clanking tankards of ale together speaking like people in Beowulf... in fact, we wouldn't be speaking English at all... we would be speaking "Englisk"... and even that was based on other languages that changed over time, because people just refused to speak "properly".

Tell me... do you think people should still say "whither," "hither," and "thither"? Do you even know how to properly use those words? How about when you should be using "shall" and "will"? But, I bet you use "whom" just to sound smarter than everyone else, right?

My point is, if prescriptivist, pedants were really so concerned with the "integrity of the language" then they would demand that we revisit go back and reverse all the other changes that have happened in the language over the past 300 years that people fought to keep from happening in their day. No, rather, many of them are merely content to sit back, feel better than everyone else because they "speak properly" and fight a half-hearted battle to "keep the language as is" (even though it only got that way because of changes they see as "bad" if they are currently happening).

Anyway, that concludes my rant.

-The sports fanaticism. No, I don't give a **** about the Steelers, so quit trying to push your dull hobby on me.

I agree. I am constantly accosted in the street by locals who demand that I try their habit. I politely tell them no... but they persist. I had to tase a Steelers fan once, who just didn't get why I wouldn't be a fan....

In case you couldn't the sarcasm... regardless of what you perceive, I somehow doubt that anyone is "pushing" it on you. Just because alot of people are enthusiastic about something and you aren't doesn't mean you have to have an attitude about it.

-The job market. Unless you want to work at EDMC or UPMC, sorry, no jobs. Don't even get me started about the pay scale, especially for women and minorities.


-The transit. If I pay as much as a New Yorker for service, I should get the same level and quality of service.

Very little disagreement here.

-The inability of natives to take any criticism.

One thing I have learned through experience is that how you say things often makes the difference. If you express your concerns as you did just now, I can imagine why people might be offended.

[supersoulty]

Originally Posted by Iscubabir

It's impossible for anyone to walk anywhere, it's polluted, and it's both sexist and racist. The other day my friend told me that their kid heard people making fun of jews and black people on the bus.

Do you really think that doesn't happen anywhere else? Yeah, Pittsburgh has race problems... but OMG, little Jimmy heard someone making fun of Jews and Blacks. I'm sorry, no offense, but you have to be really, really sheltered if you think its surprising that kids are making fun of blacks and Jews.