Help Picking a Pittsburgh Neighborhood (Wilkinsburg, West View: crime rate, how much, house)

[Tractor Face]

Originally Posted by gg

Blawnox if you can find something. Also O'Hara has a wide variety of homes in all price ranges. Both are good commutes and Fox Chapel Schools.

Blawnox is a wonderful suggestion and would be significantly cheaper than Aspinwall albeit with smaller houses, but would enjoy most of the same benefits. I can't believe I forgot about Blawnox, again. I think others do too hence, the good value you can still get.

[TommyMaddoxWasTheMan]

OP needs a nearby mall?

Try the West Mifflin area, super liberal enclave and a huge safe mall right there! A hidden gem and ideal for this OP...

You’ll be in the heart of East Liberty in under ten minutes once you learn the back way.

[loverinthecold]

Thank you for all the wonderful responses! You've given me lots of good suggestions.

Aspinwall, Fox Chapel and Squirrel Hill all seem like a good commute. How urban are they? While my wife and I have experience living in very urban environments, my girls do not and I'd definitely be trying to keep them in a very family oriented area. Nearby parks and a backyard.

I'd be okay with an apartment or townhouse for a year or two. Just too hard to go in looking to buy sight unseen while we acclimate and figure out the best part of town for us.

A mall is not really a necessity, just wanted to make the point that we like shopping and dining options that are more than just boutiques and trendy brew pubs. A mall was the first thing that came to mind along with box stores.

Also not trying to be picky on the political thing. I assume Pittsburgh is pretty similar to Minneapolis and its suburbs. We get along with most people, but we tend to fit in better with left leaners and less devoutly religious folks though.

[tyovan4]

Originally Posted by loverinthecold

Thank you for all the wonderful responses! You've given me lots of good suggestions.

Aspinwall, Fox Chapel and Squirrel Hill all seem like a good commute. How urban are they? While my wife and I have experience living in very urban environments, my girls do not and I'd definitely be trying to keep them in a very family oriented area. Nearby parks and a backyard.

I'd be okay with an apartment or townhouse for a year or two. Just too hard to go in looking to buy sight unseen while we acclimate and figure out the best part of town for us.

A mall is not really a necessity, just wanted to make the point that we like shopping and dining options that are more than just boutiques and trendy brew pubs. A mall was the first thing that came to mind along with box stores.

Also not trying to be picky on the political thing. I assume Pittsburgh is pretty similar to Minneapolis and its suburbs. We get along with most people, but we tend to fit in better with left leaners and less devoutly religious folks though.

Look into Millvale perhaps or the areas of Shaler surrounding Millvale.
Millvale is pretty left-leaning - just started a newish community library, hosts a music festival, has a sustainability coordinator.. its home to a lot of artsy type folks who got priced out of the Lawrenceville neighborhood on the opposite side of the river (which was 10-15 years ago an artsy neighborhood, and is now a yuppie neighborhood). Your wife will have a decent drive to E Liberty - she'll be going outbound on 28 in the mornings and inbound on 28 in the afternoon to get to the Highland Park Bridge to get to East Liberty from Millvale.

Its in Shaler School District, which is a decent district. It's not as upper class as a place like North Allegheny would be, but its above Pittsburgh Public Schools.

Crime is not a concern in any of the places that anyone has mentioned to you.

The main shopping areas with box boxes would be McKnight Road (home to Ross Park Mall) - there is easy access to that from Millvale. Go north on Babcock and you can merge onto McKnight (19). It's a few miles of big box shopping. The WaterWorks (on Rt 28, near Aspinwall) is also a big box strip mall.

Millvale also has two breweries (Grist House and Strange Roots) and a concert venue (Mr Smalls).

Etna is the town next to Millvale. The STORExpress Self Storage facility has month-to-month rentals for band practice rooms if that is something that interests you.

[_Buster]

I'd throw out politics as a factor, its usually live and let live in Pgh suburbs. Just go with commute and neighborhood feel/amenities and personally I'd say best commute, and you've already got some good advice here.

[pittsburghaccuweather]

Again OP,

Here would be my choices for looking:

Scott Township
Greentree Borough
Reserve Township
Shaler Township
Ross Township
Brentwood Borough
Oakmont Borough

[fleetiebelle]

Originally Posted by pittsburghaccuweather

Again OP,

Here would be my choices for looking:

Scott Township
Greentree Borough
Reserve Township
Shaler Township
Ross Township
Brentwood Borough
Oakmont Borough

And of those, you can immediately discount Scott, Greentree and Brentwood, because they'll be much more than a 30 minute commute to East Liberty during rush.

[Charley Barker]

Originally Posted by fleetiebelle

And of those, you can immediately discount Scott, Greentree and Brentwood, because they'll be much more than a 30 minute commute to East Liberty during rush.

Actually, from Brentwood, going down Glass Run Rd. through Glen Hazel to Beechwood Blvd. to S. Dallas, it is around 30 minutes during peak rush hour for me. This is also true for the sections of Whitehall and Baldwin on the east side of Rt. 51. Also, checkout the Greenfield neighborhood of the city if you are looking for good access and a ~25-30% reduction in cost over Squirrel Hill.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Knepper3

Granted I dont live in Cranberry but we don most of our shopping outside groceries there. I've never really noticed it as noticeably right wing. I think as you get the the burbs things start to move a little less left. I honestly can't say I can think of anywhere I'd say is Far Right majority, I've lived down south so I do know far right communities and if that is what you mean I don't think you have any worry unless you get pretty far from the city.

It's easy online to find maps of Allegheny County election results by municipality, but hard to find for the outlying areas. My recollection however is Cranberry went for Trump over Hillary by about a 2/1 margin, similar to adjacent areas of the North Hills in Allegheny County. That still means about a third of the voters didn't vote for Trump, but still, that's definitely about as conservative as Pittsburgh suburbs get.

I do recall the North Hills in general didn't really move any further to the right in 2016 versus 2012, and a lot of the communities swung a little bit to the left. It's not so much Trump country as just a historically Republican area.

Originally Posted by Tractor Face

I go through Aspinwall quite often and seem to see "for rent" signs frequently. From Aspinwall, East Liberty is just across the bridge. And while I can't vouch for any particular political leaning, it's not a "Trump area" and would guess that it's moderate to left leaning. It's just a guess.

There are plenty of rentals in Aspinwall, but finding a three bedroom (I'm guessing they want separate bedrooms for their girls, even if it's just going to be for a year) will be tough.

You are correct about the political leanings of Aspinwall. It's always been Democratic-leaning, and getting moreso. Probably 2/1 or so.

Originally Posted by loverinthecold

Aspinwall, Fox Chapel and Squirrel Hill all seem like a good commute. How urban are they? While my wife and I have experience living in very urban environments, my girls do not and I'd definitely be trying to keep them in a very family oriented area. Nearby parks and a backyard.

My mother has a condo in Aspinwall. I'd describe it as a small streetcar suburban community. It's almost all single-family homes with yards, though off-street parking is kinda rare. There is a more suburban section up on the hill. There are two small business districts in the borough, and a very large strip mall complex for big-box shopping (the Waterworks) only a 5-minute drive from there. The good part for your wife is there is a bus - the 75 - which goes through East Liberty, meaning she would not be reliant upon driving to work.

Fox Chapel directly borders part of Aspinwall, and isn't urban at all. It's traditionally an "old money" part of the Pittsburgh area, and several sections of it contain multi-acre, multi-million dollar estates. Not all parts of it are as grand, though I think rental housing would be hard to find there. People might have been suggesting more broadly the Fox Chapel Area School District, which includes Fox Chapel, Aspinwall, Sharpsburg, Blawnox, Indiana Township, and O'Hara Township. All of those other than Sharpsburg would work for you I think - that borough is probably too gritty and urban for your tastes.

Squirrel Hill is in the city, but is an upper-middle class neighborhood with good public schools and a real "family" type vibe (probably the only part of the city I regularly see high school kids hanging out at night in the business district). The neighborhood is a mixture of professional families, observant Jews, and grad students and others associated with the universities (the latter including an increasingly large Asian population). It's hard to stereotype about the built form of the neighborhood, which ranges from this to this, but the streets are generally tree lined and there's plenty of greenery and parks. It has a huge business district spanning two different streets which includes basically everything you'd want, including a grocery store, independent movie theater, family-friendly restaurants, banks, post office, etc. Big box shopping isn't far away at the Waterfront, and your wife could always use the Target in East Liberty on her way home from work.

[guy2073]

I have never had a political discussion with any of my neighbors in the last 45 years. How is this even a requirement for house hunting?