Pittsburgh Misconceptions (State College, Oakland, Dayton: property taxes, vacation, wage)

[RowJimmy]

Penn State university park has a student population of 42,000 Students there
Pennsylvania State University - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The population per the census is 38,000 for the town. I guarantee you that 38,000 is nothing but the "townies" as we use to call them, that live there, work there, and make up the towns neighborhoods.

25% are not even PA residents.........Most likely not being included in the PA census.

Also, would like to add. If you count the neighborhood census numbers of Oakland, and account the number of student population at CMU, Pitt, Chatam, Carrlow, the student population about triples the number of the Oakland population. I know some students live in Shadyside, or other neighborhoods. However, many upon many are probably not accounted for. You can't believe something just because a sentence says it on the internet.

[Katiana]

State College evolved from village to town to serve the needs of the fledgling Pennsylvania State College, founded as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania in 1855. Since then, the school has grown into a major university, renamed in 1953 The Pennsylvania State University, also known as Penn State. State College was incorporated as a borough on August 29, 1896 and has since grown with the university. Borough and university share a symbiotic relationship. In 1973 State College adopted a home rule charter which took effect in 1976. The areas outside of State College are filled with historic towns and villages, immense tracts of farmland, and an expanse of mountains and forests.

The university has a post office address of University Park, PA, which is sometimes a cause for confusion. When Penn State changed its name from College to University in 1953, its president, Milton S. Eisenhower, sought to persuade the town to change its name as well. A referendum failed to yield a majority for any of the choices for a new name, and so the town remains State College. After this, Penn State requested a new name for its on-campus post office in the Hetzel Union Building from the U.S. Post Office Department. The post office, which has since moved across a street to the McAllister Building, is the official home of zip code 16802 (University Park). The new zip code was granted directly by President Dwight D. Eisenhower at the request of his younger brother Milton S. Eisenhower .

From Wikipedia

The University Park address includes the dorms. Surely as a Penn State student, you knew that.

People in group quarters in State College
10443 people in college dormitories (includes college quarters off campus)
198 people in nursing homes
43 people in other noninstitutional group quarters
20 people in homes for the mentally ill
15 people in other nonhousehold living situations
3 people in other group homes
3 people in religious group quarters

My link is from the census bureau itself, not some lame citation on the internet. (And do keep that comment in mind the next time you post some dubious link). Apparently, you did not look at it before you replied. I lived in Champaign, IL. (home of the University of Illinois) for seven years. Believe me, they counted every body they could as it affected their federal funding .

[RowJimmy]

I wrote a post that I just ended up deleting at you getting so defensive about people questioning your "facts". Yes I read the link. Yes, I knew State college had its own POST OFFICE for the UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS. I am just questioning one thing. Penn State main campus has a Student Population of 42,000 People. Most of which live in the Town of State College. The town of State College has a population of 38,000 people. We will deduct the 10,000 boarding students at Penn State on dorms. There is 32,000 students roughly in State College, and believe me, there is a lot. That means that only 6,000 people live up there in the town? The people who work at the university, the people who own all the shops, restaurants, bars, the people who work at all the offices, the retirees that are up there, and so on. Also, why isn't this town mentioned in any of the Census boroughs stats? Why don't I ever see, University park, ever mentioned in the cities of PA from the census borough? I am not trying to say your wrong Pittnurse, I am not even trying to get in an argument that obiously can not be conducted with you. I am just asking questions on your stat. It seems to me that there just should be more people added to State College in the Census then 38,000 people. In the summer time, when the students left. Yes, it felt like a town with 38,000 people. State College does have its fair share of neighborhoods and full time residents that work and live there. I just find it fishy that there would not be more considering the school's population with according to the Census stats. Is it wrong to question things? If you would like, just tell me. I will stop responding to your arguments.

[RowJimmy]

I am still curious too, why my link is "dubious". It is just a link showing that Penn State's student population at the main campus is 42,000 people.

Anyways the whole point that I was trying to make, was even if it didn't count the 10,000 living in the University. That is a lot of extra people adding to the town anyways.

[RowJimmy]

Lets break this up, and try to get a more point to point on what is even being argued here.

I said:

Honestly the most diverse place I've been is State College and Oakland in Pittsburgh because of all the foreign student population that doesn't count in population statistics.


You posted: Not true, and linked the following from the Census borough link

STUDENTS

Boarding school students - Counted at their parental home rather than at the boarding school. (10,000 people) which is most foreign student population I was first talking about.
College students living away from home while attending college - Counted where they are living at college. I questioned this stat
College students living at their parental home while attending college - Counted at their parental home. This is park of my questioning, because even though I was at penn State for the fall and Spring semesters like most students, I believe I was included in this since I was still counted as dependent on my parents at the time. This is where my argument later on came from


I then went to ask: The population of Penn State's main campus students is 42,000 people. This can easily be obtained from psu.edu, wikipeadia, and other sources.

I asked then: Why does State College have a population of only 38,000 people?

You brough up University park post office. THat was good understanding. However as I mentioned I never see that noted as a city in the PA census.

My whole initial point was just saying that foreign students add diversity to a town. You help show that in my example State College 10,000 BORDING STUDENTS IN THE DORMS ARE NOT COUNTED FOR. Bravo. This somehow doesn't add to the diversity in my initial point. My whole initail point being, that student areas add a lot of diversity to a town. Now, I do know some live in the town they go to full time, but that is only a certain percentage. We can argue if the ones there for two semesters, dormitories, on campus are counted or not. Which by those census borough stats say no. Then that goes back to my initial thing that I said.


read this one:
Brochure hmmmm. lots of students there seemingly adding to the towns population huh? That is from PSU.edu. Maybe its dubious. Also Students don't pay taxes in State College, and are not allowed to vote for town canidates. I will look for a link. I know this being true from living there. This just helps to show what I was initially trying to say: Students add diversity to a town, and most are not accounted for. WHhch of course the link you posted help say that too.

Then again. I am just giving up on this whole redudant argument. South Park is on.

[vwscottie]

Originally Posted by boylocke

Pittsburgh is one of the cleaning

I think the original poster meant to say "cleanest" and if so, I don't agree. I have lived here a month shy of a year and that has been one of my few complaints. One of the best examples is around Penn Circle in East Liberty. Another great example are the off ramps from the Highland Park Bridge, terribly cluttered with litter.

[RowJimmy]

Originally Posted by vwscottie

I think the original poster meant to say "cleanest" and if so, I don't agree. I have lived here a month shy of a year and that has been one of my few complaints. One of the best examples is around Penn Circle in East Liberty. Another great example are the off ramps from the Highland Park Bridge, terribly cluttered with litter.

Every city has its areas of litter. Many areas are very clean. You go to Shadyside, Squirel hill and it is very clean. I highly doubt there is any city out there that doesn't have its areas that have litter in them. I still think our downtown needs cleaned up more. I still see people littering down there. It ticks me off. They never heard of a trash can.

[schwinghammer]

Originally Posted by claremarie

If you tell someone that Pittsburgh is 90% white, and then they come here and go walk around Oakland or the South Side or the Strip, they'll be pretty damn surprised.

And if you tell someone that Pittsburgh is a "diverse" city, and then they go to Ross Park Mall, or the Science Center, or a Pirate game, or a Pittsburgh Symphony Concert, and they see a veritable sea of white faces, a smaller number of black faces, and one or two Asians/Hispanic/Indians, they'll think you are nuts.
MOST people in the Pittsburgh metro area aren't spending their time in Oakland or Shadyside. They aren't students or faculty or 20-something hipsters. If they're working, they work downtown or the suburbs. If they are retired, or home raising kids, they're spending their time zipping around their suburban or city neighborhoods. Where, in truth, more than 90% of the people they see every day are white.
Trying to sell the Pittsburgh area as "diverse" when it's overwhelmingly white is absurd.

see, you're actually the one being narrow minded. you only think that the differences in people are black, white, yellow, purple, and green.

how about this:
Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Polish, German, Irish, Italian, Greek, exceedingly wealthy, blue collar, white collar, old folks, young folks, punks, hippies, yuppies, slackers, loners, nerds, shall I continue?

look around in Pittsburgh. the cultural differences aren't in the color of skin as much as in the way of life, background, or ancestors. Pittsburgh may not be a rainbow like some other cities are, but don't clump everyone into the batch of "average" until you actually think about what they stand for. Go to The Strip on a Saturday morning. Sure, most of the vendors are white. But they all have different cultures which are evident in their wares.

Once you get past skin color, you'll start to appriciate the TRUE culture that Pittsburgh has; and it's attitudes like YOURS that keeps racism afloat. Take your blinders off and start to get to know people for the lives they lead, not their skin tone.




I apologize for being 4 pages behind on this comment. It just caught my eye.

[RowJimmy]

I see a lot of asian people at the markets in the stip too.

[Katiana]

Well, while you were banging out insults to me, my daughter fixed dinner for us, then my husband was using the computer, which is why I haven't seen any of this stuff till now.

I am not being defensive, you are. You can question the census bureau till h*** freezes a six foot crust, but that is their definition. It does not freaking matter whether you are dependent on your parents or not. Where you were on census day (April 1) is where you were counted. If you were in State College, you were counted as being in State College. If you were in Pittsburgh, you were counted as being in Pittsburgh. Let's look at a college town where the dorms have the same city address as the town: Boulder, Colorado. The University of Colorado. Here is what Wikipedia has to say:

The student population is just under 30,000 (24,000 undergraduates; 4,000 graduates and postgraduates) and the faculty population is about 2,000. The university population makes up a significant portion of Boulder’s total population (91,000 people).
Here is what City-Data gives for Boulder's group population statistics:

People in group quarters in Boulder
6125 people in college dormitories (includes college quarters off campus)
621 people in nursing homes
455 people in local jails and other confinement facilities (including police lockups)
83 people in other noninstitutional group quarters
67 people in halfway houses
53 people in other group homes
31 people in homes or halfway houses for drug/alcohol abuse
27 people in homes for the mentally ill
10 people in other nonhousehold living situations
6 people in religious group quarters

Only freshmen are required to live in the dorms; that number includes all the CU students in the dorms. All of the above supports that the university students are counted in Boulder's population.

I have been through this stuff before. I lived in the Pitt dorms in the 1970 census. I lived in Champaign for seven years, including the 1980 census, and have lived in Boulder County for 25 years, for the 1990 and 2000 census. Every census, this comes up in college towns.

Let's go back to Pennsylvania. Centre County's population: County population in 2005: 140,561 (64% urban, 36% rural) From City-Data.
Other cities/towns in Centre Co: Bellefonte: pop 6400; Bellwood, Pop: 2000; Phillipsburgh, 3000; Tyrone, 5500, rural 50,600. That plus State College equals 105,500. There seems to be a gap of about 35,000 people, who apparently live in University Park. When my brother lived in the dorms there, his address was University Park. When he had an off-campus apartment, his address was State College.

I did not mean to imply your link about Penn State from Wikipedia was dubious. I have seen many links on these threads that come from opinion pieces that are supposed to "prove" something. That is what I meant.

I am not even trying to get in an argument that obiously can not be conducted with you.

I do not appreciate being insulted.

I wrote a post that I just ended up deleting at you getting so defensive about people questioning your "facts". Yes I read the link.

You apparently didn't see that it came from the census bureau or you would not have said:

You can't believe something just because a sentence says it on the internet.