Any BALANCED Views of the State of the City? (Pittsburgh: how much, homes)

[creepsinc]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

I think I get cast as an "unabashed cheerleader" just because I don't mind mixing it up with those who have mostly negative views of the city. But I am certainly up for your challenge, so here goes:

(1) Business taxes in the region are too high;

(2) The division of Allegheny County into so many municipalities is highly inefficient and creates inequities (e.g., with respect to public school funding);

(3) Personal taxes (including income, sales, and property taxes) in the region are often capricious and generally regressive;

(4) Overall there is far too much racial segregation;

(5) Too many people are focused on restoring Pittsburgh's past as opposed to creating a new future.

I had to pick a post to quote, so I picked my fellow "cheerleader" BrianTH. First, I'll comment on the racial segregation...I just don't see it but maybe it's because I live on the North Side. Pittsburgh has a much higher percentage of white people anyways, though nothing like Seattle or Portland. Anyways, that's the only real problem I had with your particular post. Maybe I should have quoted Awesomeo instead, whom I agree with even more. The first time I "had" to go out into suburbia here, I was pleasantly surprised at how tolerable it is. Kind of like in Seattle...it's all still wooded and hilly and kind of has a backwoods feeling, unlike what I've been used to in the past in California and the Southeast, with endless rows of clearcut McLots and big box after big box. Sure, there are Wal-Marts and Targets here, but not everywhere, which I'm sure a lot of people don't like.

As far as Pittsburgh's slow-moving mentality goes, I hope it never changes. What's the alternative, Charlotte? No thanks. The Rust Belt has charm...the Sun Belt hurts my eyes.

The music scene may or may not be good...my friend's band broke up and I stopped going to shows. Call me jaded, but I burned out on it in Seattle, playing and attending shows. I'm over it.

Downtown has become a flurry of activity since I moved here a year ago. They might have even added another GNC or two! Jokes aside, Market Square is completely made over. So is the Point.

I like the weather. It could be a little less humid in the summer, but I'm originally from VA so it's all relative, and the frequent thunderstorms usually help. Also, I love overcast. Love it.

Cons? Too many abandoned houses, which might be potential instead.
Drivers seem a little aggressive, but only when they're behind me.
TOO MUCH LITTER. Coming from Seattle, it's a culture shock.

That's it though. I'm staying.

[creepsinc]

Originally Posted by dugdogmaster

Bravo! I for one believe a rapid population growth would spell disaster.

Yes! One more thought: Old Pittsburgh is never coming back. The potential is there for it to be one of America's most spectacular smallish cities, and it's probably at least halfway there already. To me, it's already there, but I'm just a cheerleader.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Katiana

I am saying, and have said before, it is NOT true that all (or most) other cities are annexing land and that Pittsburgh can't do that, therefore, something is somehow "unfair". The only city I personally know of that is constantly annexing land is Omaha, Nebraska. They just annexed some more recently.

As an aside, here is a 2006 article on Phoenix:

http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/...12_revised.pdf

As it details, since 1950 Phoenix has been more or less steadily annexing land, although it may finally be running out of prime targets.

This is a 2001 article about Houston:

http://mudhatter.com/MUD_Folder/Annex.pdf (broken link)

It details the Houston annexations from 1978 to 1996.

So that is at least a couple more examples.

Anyway, I'm not sure who called the very different sizes of various cities "unfair". Speaking just for myself, it just makes population comparisons between incorporated cities not particularly useful, especially in cases involving cities still changing in size over the relevant period of comparison.

All this also explains why the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area and Pittsburgh Urbanized Area can both be ranked around #22, and yet the incorporated City of Pittsburgh itself is down in the 50s. Again I wouldn't say the incorporated City's ranking is "unfair", just not particularly useful.

[creepsinc]

Phoenix isn't a city, it's a cancer.

In the interest of staying on topic, uh...let me say, um, that Pittsburgh rules! Yeah!

[creepsinc]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

As an aside, here is a 2006 article on Phoenix:

http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/...12_revised.pdf

As it details, since 1950 Phoenix has been more or less steadily annexing land, although it may finally be running out of prime targets.

This is a 2001 article about Houston:

http://mudhatter.com/MUD_Folder/Annex.pdf (broken link)

It details the Houston annexations from 1978 to 1996.

So that is at least a couple more examples.

Anyway, I'm not sure who called the very different sizes of various cities "unfair". Speaking just for myself, it just makes population comparisons between incorporated cities not particularly useful, especially in cases involving cities still changing in size over the relevant period of comparison.

All this also explains why the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area and Pittsburgh Urbanized Area can both be ranked around #22, and yet the incorporated City of Pittsburgh itself is down in the 50s. Again I wouldn't say the incorporated City's ranking is "unfair", just not particularly useful.

Regarding Phoenix, I'll admit my opinion is mostly based on anecdotal evidence. My bride-to-be lived in Tempe for 2 months and one of my best friends grew up there. I have seen it from the air, and any sane person would agree that's the way to see it. That being said, Arizona is a beautiful state, it just has terminal cancer. Case in point: they're running a freakin' psychotic mummy for president.

Pittsburgh is awesome! However, there are a couple things wrong with it.

[Katarina Witt]

I mentioned Phoenix and Houston as cities known for their agressive annexation policies in a previous post. It may not be on this thread. But three is not a large number.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by creepsinc

First, I'll comment on the racial segregation...I just don't see it but maybe it's because I live on the North Side. Pittsburgh has a much higher percentage of white people anyways, though nothing like Seattle or Portland.

Allegheny County is about 84% white, 12% black. There are indeed some neighborhoods where there is a reasonable portion of both white and black people. But at least by my standards, too many neighborhoods are way off. For example, Mt. Lebabon is a popular recommendation around here, and I generally like it myself, but it is about 96% white and less than 1% black, and it is basically the same with neighboring Dormont, and several other places. In contrast, places like most of the Hill and Homewood more or less reverse those numbers.

Now to be sure, I'm not claiming that makes Pittsburgh more segregated overall than most comparable cities. Indeed, off hand I'm not aware of a good way to objectively measure overall segregation. I just view it as an inherent negative for there to be disparities in racial makeup this dramatic between these neighborhoods in the same county, regardless of whether or not that really distinguishes Pittsburgh from its peers.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Katiana

I mentioned Phoenix and Houston as cities known for their agressive annexation policies in a previous post. It may not be on this thread. But three is not a large number.

But I have no idea if it ends at three. I'm just not interested enough to keep looking up the recent annexation history of a bunch of cities.

What is easy, however, is looking up how big the cities are currently, regardless of how they got there, since that information is readily available on Wikipedia. Again to make this less controversial, lets think about Boston, the #10 Metropolitan Area by population, and yet way down at #23 when you consider only the incorporated city.

So what happened? We already know Boston got passed by #5 Phoenix, which is only the #13 MSA but 517 square miles in size. It also got passed by #7 San Antonio, just #28 on the MSA list, but around 408 square miles in size. Similarly it was passed by #8 San Diego, #17 on the MSA list but 324 square miles. And #10 San Jose, #31 by MSA but 175 square miles. Detroit is about right in the city rankings at #11, but then you have Jacksonville at #12, #40 by MSA but 885 (!) square miles. #13 Indianapolis is a #33 MSA, but 372 square miles. Again #14 San Francisco is about right (a little low in fact), but #15 Columbus is the #32 MSA but 210 square miles. #16 Austin is the #37 MSA but 252 square miles. #17 Fort Worth isn't even an MSA in its own right, but for what it is worth it is 293 square miles. #18 Memphis is the #41 MSA but 302 square miles. #19 Charlotte is the #35 MSA but 280 square miles. Baltimore at #20 is about right. #21 El Paso is the #68 MSA but 249 square miles. #22 Milwaukee is the #38 MSA but 96 square miles. And thank goodness we are finally back to #23 Boston.

OK, so I think that is pretty good evidence that a lot of high-ranked incorporated cities (not all, but a lot of them) are getting relatively high rankings simply because they are relatively large in geographic size. Again I don't know exactly how they all got that way, but I think that is more than enough evidence to support the basic point that the incorporated city rankings are systematically less-than-useful.

[Katarina Witt]

I agree with your last statement. In fact, I don't think I ever disagreed with it. I just think the P-G and others should quit hammering on about this annexation business, as if every other city but Pittsburgh can and does annex land constantly.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Katiana

I agree with your last statement. In fact, I don't think I ever disagreed with it. I just think the P-G and others should quit hammering on about this annexation business, as if every other city but Pittsburgh can and does annex land constantly.

It doesn't seem like we have ruled out the possibility a lot of these geograhically large cities have been annexing land relatively recently (and Pittsburgh last annexed land about 100 years ago, so "relatively recently" covers a lot of time). But again I'm not interested in chasing down all those timelines personally.