A Happy Visitor

[bluecarebear]

SCR, your recent posts on rural inhabitants and uneducated immigrants have been appalling.

OP, my friends and family think Pittsburgh's roads and drivers are worst in the country.

[pittsburghaccuweather]

There is a lot of locals that claim to be experts on metro areas, livability and progression. These same folks have a disdain for anybody differing in opinion or providing constructive criticism on things that make a place desirable and things to make Pittsburgh better.

These same folks seem to be siloed into their own little city neighborhoods. They seem to relate everything to their own little block. They have trouble understanding what is really going on in the rest of the city let alone the Allegheny county suburbs or surrounding counties. They paint everybody outside of where they truly know with stereotypes and generalizations.

There is a failure to see both sides of the coin at times. Pittsburgh is a metro of 2.318 million people. 2.018 million of those folks do not live in the city limits. Roughly 900,000 reside in the suburbs of Allegheny county with the rest making up surrounding counties.

The majority of people in the Pittsburgh area voted for trump in 2016. While the Philadelphia metro area voted for Clinton by the same amount. They couldn’t be more polar opposites politically. Pittsburgh is also less liberal and progressive than Cleveland and Columbus. As far as politicians and who gets the majority of votes.

Pittsburgh industrial landscape looks a lot like Detroit, Cleveland and buffalo. It’s political leanings are more on par with Cincinnati and Dayton Ohio areas.

All of that said the people outside of the city limits are good people. I live in the panhandle of West Virginia, roughly 40 minutes from downtown Pittsburgh and 20 minutes from Robinson Twp and the airport. We are experiencing positive changes here for the first time in decades due to natural gas drilling and economic growth of the airport corridor and places west of the city limits. Again conservative with good people.

The Pittsburgh metro growth is limited to the I-79 corridor between zeilinople west past Pittsburgh airport and down to cannonsburg in Washington county. Contrary to what some folks think or believe there are a lot of good paying jobs and money on this corridor. There are good jobs in the city but the high tech employment is a small part of the Pittsburgh metro. Very tiny.

All of that said I am a middle of the road guy. I like to see both sides and experience something myself before passing judgement. I’m sorry you experienced what you did as far as harrassment, but you won’t have that everywhere around here. I’ve actually met more people open about social stuff where I live in West Virginia than the city itself. We just like our guns and lower taxes out here

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by bluecarebear

SCR, your recent posts on rural inhabitants and uneducated immigrants have been appalling.

How have my posts been appalling? Please directly quote what sentences, in particular, you are upset about so I can respond. Thanks so much!

[xdv8]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

How have my posts been appalling? Please directly quote what sentences, in particular, you are upset about so I can respond. Thanks so much!

You probably provided a slight criticism of general rural attitudes and were spot on. Their defenders believe that rural American Life and attitudes are beyond reproach. It's one of their double standards.

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by xdv8

You probably provided a slight criticism of general rural attitudes and were spot on. Their defenders believe that rural American Life and attitudes are beyond reproach. It's one of their double standards.

It’s interesting how you lump every rural person into 1 group. Like most assumptions, this one isn’t true in the least....and while it’s obvious that you think everyone should live the way you do, everyone has a different standard of living.

[Copanut]

Shame on you, SCR! Educated opinons are not welcome here!

[airwave09]

Originally Posted by Knepper3

That is a good point, more diversity would make it more affordable too. I know Pizza is common but as an example there is a very specific style I like which reminds me of traditional NJ pizza (Mama Lucias near wexford). We went Saturday and I paid $25 for 1 pizza and 2 drinks. There is no other place I can get that so I paid it but in NJ there is a similar pizza shop in every plaza so I could have paid $15 for the same meal which in NJ most everything is more $?.

And guess what... it's like this practically everywhere in the country that isn't a part of the New York metro. Just think, you could be living somewhere like LA where none of the pizza is even edible and that's a metro over 5x the size of Pittsburgh.

When I moved here and started living my day to day life I really noticed the overall lack of diversity in this region in terms of people. It really is a very black and white area, little other diversity beside a small pocket here and there.

This "lack of diversity" trope is so over hyped, and it's honestly completely meaningless. More racial diversity does not automatically equal a better society, it just doesn't. All it leads to is a diluting of ethnic cultures and buzzwords that politicians can easily latch onto.

[pittsburghaccuweather]

Originally Posted by airwave09

And guess what... it's like this practically everywhere in the country that isn't a part of the New York metro. Just think, you could be living somewhere like LA where none of the pizza is even edible and that's a metro over 5x the size of Pittsburgh.



This "lack of diversity" trope is so over hyped, and it's honestly completely meaningless. More racial diversity does not automatically equal a better society, it just doesn't. All it leads to is a diluting of ethnic cultures and buzzwords that politicians can easily latch onto.

I think the problem with the metro this large is that you have one highway corridor extending west past the airport where all of the new growth is. Diversity takes care of itself when there are jobs and economic opportunity for people. That is why this area of the the metro is growing and more money is coming in over here all positive things.

If the rest of the metro can attract small business and startups it would be growth across the board. You have a lot of areas outside the city resistant to change and then you have the city itself pandering to a handful of neighborhoods and the few groups of people that live there and the rest is forgotten. You can’t build growth thinking and seeing the metro through a silo.

I think the whole educated city thing is bogus like diversity. There are other city’s that may not have the educated percentage of the population like Pittsburgh, but they are better places to live and people move there. The reason is there is a diverse economy that works for all people and all education backgrounds.

Pittsburgh just being a majority Ed’s and meds economy and pandering to the ever so tiny tech groups that set up shop in a few east end neighborhoods isn’t going to be enough. Unless there is opportunity across various sectors of employment the population will continue to age and decline and it will always be black and white as a result.

You need manufacturing, energy, logistics and small business. That’s why the 79 corridor and west past the airport has growth.