Possible move from Pittsburgh to Albany...PLEASE tell me these two aren't as similar as I'm reading!!!

[MonticelloNYS]

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I'm glad you made it to troy farmer's market. Troy is great, and it's close to VT. You can be to bennington in less 45 minutes.

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Originally Posted by groar

funny that this got topped, i just visited troy for the second time (and drove around albany a bit) this weekend!

i am kinda pro-weirdo and the bad parts of troy don't seem so bad to me compared to other places i've lived so.... i like it!

we checked out the farmer's market in troy and it was really impressive. we also stopped at the co-op in albany to grab food for lunch, also impressive! we are sort of torn between troy and brattleboro vt at this point. brattleboro has a lot of cool stuff going on in a very small downtown, and it's beautiful around there. troy/albany/schenechtady is more run down but also has more big city amenities, and we feel like we could get involved in guiding where troy goes in the future (especially since we are both interested in eventually opening small businesses). brattleboro's already there. there are advantages and disadvantages to both places.

we still haven't gone to schenectady but at this point we've decided that if we move there, we're moving to troy. if schenectady is cool, we will go do stuff there! if it's not, no big loss.

i may be getting a job where i can work from home, which will solve the problem of finding absolutely no work up there (my call backs for jobs have been 100% in new haven so far!). if i get it we will probably just watch for houses in both places and see what happens.

[groar]

Originally Posted by MonticelloNYS

I've been to pittsburgh once. And although there are similarities, I can give you three major differences.

1.) Location, location, location. Albany is located in heart of a very diverse cultural region with world renowned arts, music, and outdoor activities. Albany has many great music and art venues in the city such as the Egg and the Palace theater. Just a short drive from Albany you'll find the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Tanglewood Music Venue (home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra), Jacobs Pillow Dance Company, to name a few.

Albany is located in between the Adirondack and Catskill Mountain ranges, two of the pretties mountain ranges on the east coast with year round activities (hiking, skiing, camping, swimming, boating, rock climbing, etc.).

2.) Albany is the state capital and has been well insulated from the decline in the manufacturing industries that other areas of country have experienced.

3.) Albany is the center of the growing nanotech industry. Albany is now called Tech Valley, and rivals areas of the west coast such as silicon valley. Transferring to GlobalFoundries | GlobalFoundries Malta NY . I can't overstate the importance of the nanotech industry and how this is transforming our area. The Albany area is poised to become a national and international economic powerhouse because of the billions, yes billions, of investment in nanotechnologies from GlobalFoundries in Malta NY to the Albany Nanotechnology College.

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i wouldn't say these are really differences, for the most part. the cultural amenities near albany and the proximity to a number of major metro areas, as well as the berkshires, catskills, and adirondacks, is definitely a plus, but pittsburgh does have an excellent cultural scene and western pennsylvania has a lot of wild beauty. i am looking forward to the more compact nature of the northeast though. i really miss being able to go to a major city other than cleveland without driving 5+ hours. and i used to go to the adirondacks all the time as a child and i'm very excited to have them nearby.

as far as the financial crisis goes, pittsburgh has weathered the recession very well. our crash due to loss of industrial jobs was quite a long time before that (70s/80s) and we've been recovering from it ever since. pittsburgh was actually just named as one of only 3 cities in the country that is no longer in recession. we also never had a housing bubble, so we never had a housing crash. looking at houses for sale in the albany area, i can see a steep decline in prices (good for me!) over the last 5 years in a lot of places. the capital region's definitely not as bad as places like connecticut and southern ny (or florida, california!) in that respect, but pittsburgh home prices have risen slowly but steadily over the last few years, unlike almost everywhere else.

pittsburgh also has a very strong tech industry. i'd say tech and health care are a big part of what has helped us keep unemployment down compared to a lot of other places. the one major problem i've found in the albany area is that i am not getting calls back from jobs. i don't have specialized tech industry skills, i'm sure if i did i would have less trouble. but as someone with a lot of experience as a high level administrative assistant in the health care and public health nonprofit fields, as a writer and a nonprofit development person, i've never had a problem finding work in pittsburgh. but in this job search, i'm getting tons of interviews in new haven and nothing in albany. if i get a job in new haven i am probably going to have to take it because the pay is so much more there for the same jobs. in some cases it's double - more than enough to make up for the higher cost of living.

i don't mean to slag the capital region, i think it's great and it's my first choice of a place to move. just gotta defend my current city a little!

[kdelage]

I'm a chemical engineer and I have a temporary job transfer in Albany and I worked in NYC before. Wow did I make a mistake. This place is terrible.

Albany is a ghetto dump. All the houses are rundown and I don't feel safe walking around. Troy is more disgusting. I thought a top notch school like RPI would be located in a cute, beautiful city. SUNY Albany and the Empire State Plaza are some of the ugliest architecture I've seen. It looks like it was designed by a blind architect.

The region is so uncosmopolitan. Orlando and Fort Worth felt more cosmopolitan. Most people look like bums with no sense of fashion. This is such a contrast from NYC, LA, Miami, and San Francisco where people are more fit and have style. The shopping stinks also, for a metro with 900,000 people in New York State there is hardly any good upscale shopping. There is no Whole Foods! I think this is the only metro I know of that lacks a Whole Foods. The gym chains here are bad. I can't find a modern, high end gym with dozens of aerobics classes and a pool. One woman in my office said that McDonald's food taste better than her home cooking and that Victoria's Secret is too expensive. Uhhh really what kind of talk is that?

Oh and the weather is terrible. Cold and always cloudy. You can't enjoy the outdoor activities 8 months of the year. The Adirondacks are nice but they don't compare to the Rockies or Cascades.

I find people grumpy and unfriendly here. Everyone from here is always in such a bad mood and always talk trash about the people from NYC.

The only positive thing I can say about Albany is that it's cheap but it shows you get what you pay for. I went to Saratoga a few times during the summer which was nice but kind of a tourist trap.

Most of the salaries for jobs here are low. People with master's degrees in science start off at $40,000 to $50,000. What the heck?! You'll start off with at least $20,000 more in the other cities I mentioned.

Everyone brags about how close Albany is to NYC, Boston, and Montreal. It takes 2-5 hours to get there so it's not like you can escape every weekend.

I need to get out of this place ASAP. How are people happy living here? I'm going to Buffalo next weekend for a wedding. Is it anything like Albany? I was hoping it would be nicer and more cosmopolitan because it's a bigger city.