Pittsburgh; Llivable or Leavable? (Austin, Penn: health insurance, loan, home)

[Katiana]

I would agree with Brian's post #78, and Denver does have the University of Denver in a neighborhood that reminds me somewhat of Oakland; also the University of Colorado at Denver, and Metro State College at the Auraria campus downtown. While the latter two are primarily commuter colleges, many students do rent apartments in the area.

Sorry for the diversion. Now back to Pittsburgh.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by scrapp

This I agree with. Even if you did fix it up, the property isn't likely to be in that "good" of an area of PGH.

At an under $100K pricepoint, I agree. But at a slightly higher pricepoint, you can still buy pretty large homes in need of some renovation in quickly gentrifying neighborhoods, such as Friendship. And for a bit more, you can buy such homes in more mature neighborhoods like Regent Square or Highland Park. And so on up the line, to where you are spending quite a bit (by Pittsburgh standards) for fully renovated large homes in neighborhoods like Shadyside ... but one of the nice things about the East End is that this large range of choices is available within a relatively compact area.

[scrapp]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Also, I wouldn't quite say "rather than Boston, NYC, DC, etc.," because Pittsburgh has some attributes in common with those cities, and also some attributes which distinguishes it. Generally, deciding which cities are "comparable" is really going to depend on then purpose of the comparison. So if you start with different purposes, you will likely end up getting a different list of cities most comparable to Pittsburgh.

Sure, agree. I was mainly thinking about previous discussions here on housing/living costs in conjunction with the kinds of amenities offered by a city.

[scrapp]

Originally Posted by Katiana

Anyway, the point is that $35K sounds low, nationwide, for an IT job, at least one requiring a degree.

35K is low for any kind of high-tech degree-requiring job. You could drive a Port Authority Bus or teach in the PGH Public Schools and do better than that.

[scrapp]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

That is because there are a lot of advantages to basically having what is a university town right inside the city, and thus in close proximity to the rest of the city's economic and cultural features.

Agree. In fact, one could argue that the "new Pittsburgh economy" is centered in Oakland around the Universities, while "old Pittsburgh" is represented by Downtown.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by scrapp

Sure, agree. I was mainly thinking about previous discussions here on housing/living costs in conjunction with the kinds of amenities offered by a city.

Of course, comparing access to regional amenities is an interesting topic. For example, from a given individual's perspective, there is likely to be a diminishing marginal utility to adding more of certain regional amenities. To use an overworked but nonetheless useful example, there may be a certain utility to an individual in having a major league sports franchise in the region, but much less utility to having a second, and even less to a third, and so on. That is part of why the biggest cities do not have a proportional amount of major league franchises: in theory there should be enough demand to go around, but the distribution of demand is such that it gets concentrated in just a small number of teams, making more than a handful of teams unviable in practice (but also making that handful of teams extremely lucrative).

What this creates is a bit of a "sweet spot" effect: from an individual's perspective, it may be useful to live in a city large enough to have amenities of the kind that depend on scale, such as major league sports franchises. But once you are significantly past that population level, it may get increasingly costly to make use of that amenity precisely because you are now competing with more of your fellow citizens for access to it. And a similar "sweet spot" effect can apply to many other amenities besides sports (e.g., symphonies, airports, and so on).

Anyway, all this implies that more amenities in a region with a larger population may not translate into a benefit for a given individual in the region, even if they are the sort of individual who would like access to such amenities. Rather, it depends on issues like the marginal benefit to the individual of the additional amenities, whether the number of amenities has scaled up in direct proportion to demand, and so on.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by scrapp

Agree. In fact, one could argue that the "new Pittsburgh economy" is centered in Oakland around the Universities, while "old Pittsburgh" is represented by Downtown.

I'm not quite sure this is correct. For example, part of the "new" Pittsburgh is being a business, legal, and financial services center for the region, and those activites are still centered Downtown. Indeed, I think things like UPMC locating its corporate headquarters Downtown are instructive: UPMC will still provide its medical services and conduct research in the East End, but it will now run its business Downtown.

And that is actually a variation on the old model too. For example, UPMC is taking space in the USX tower. USX itself wasn't making steel Downtown back in the steel town era--that was being done in mills along the rivers. But USX did (and still does) run its business Downtown.

In that sense, I would suggest it is more that the "new Pittsburgh economy" is centered in Oakland, while the "old Pittsburgh economy" was strung along the rivers. But Downtown was, and remains, a place providing professional services to whatever industries are in the region.

[fleetiebelle]

Anyway, the point is that $35K sounds low, nationwide, for an IT job, at least one requiring a degree.

For those of us in the "non-profit ghetto", making $35K is actually making a lot. And that's with an MA.

[Katiana]

Originally Posted by fleetiebelle

For those of us in the "non-profit ghetto", making $35K is actually making a lot. And that's with an MA.

For the most part, IT is not in the "non-profit ghetto". Even the IT jobs in that sector probably have to pay a little more than they might pay, say, a social worker, b/c the IT person can always go and make more elsewhere. Nursing is in that ghetto, too, for the most part, but nursing jobs do pay more than that, even for an AA.

[Seeker654321]

Originally Posted by fleetiebelle

For those of us in the "non-profit ghetto", making $35K is actually making a lot. And that's with an MA.

Oh my God...please tell me you're kidding.