Quote:
Originally Posted by FeelTheBern
When I graduate college, most of the cities I like are in the Midwest. Unfortunately this has not been an easy decision and despite the decision being years away, I am starting to gather people's opinions on the cities I like. Firstly, here are the cities:
- Minneapolis
- Cleveland
- Cincinnati
- Pittsburgh
- Kansas City
The main criteria I would like you to vote on is this:
- Avalibility Of Jobs In The Computer Science Field
- Amount Of Younger People
- Quality Of Restaurants
- Safety In Downtown
- Walkability
- Active Downtown Areas
- Woods/Water For Hunting & Fishing Outside Of City Limit
- Sports Stadiums
- Architecture
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Of course my screenname implies, perhaps correctly, that I'm a "homer", but Pittsburgh nails most of your criteria.
1.) Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is here, and they are
very reputable for producing some gifted minds on the tech front. As such Pittsburgh is home to expanding offices for Google (East Liberty), Apple (Strip District), and UBER (Strip District and soon Hazelwood). Companies with a smaller presence here include Microsoft (North Shore), Intel (Oakland), Facebook (Oakland), IBM (Squirrel Hill), and Disney (Oakland). There are also some great start-up "app" firms like NoWait (Oakland). I'm a bit of technophobe for a 20-something, so I admittedly don't know the difference between career opportunities for those possessing a "Computer Science" degree vs. those who work in "IT", "Network Administration", "Software Development", etc. From my understanding there are a plethora of tech jobs here these days; however, they also tend to pay less than comparable positions in many other cities.
2.) Allegheny County and the City of Pittsburgh as a whole are losing people overall; however, the population of Millennials, especially in the city, is
growing. What you see when you look "on paper" at the continued population decline here is the incessant issue of our relatively high elderly population dying off while our birth rate among younger people remains low.
3.) The "foodie" scene is blossoming these days here in the Steel City. Neighborhoods like Lawrenceville, the Strip District, Shadyside, East Liberty, Garfield, Downtown, Squirrel Hill, Oakland, Bloomfield, South Side Flats, Mt. Washington, Allegheny West, and the Central North Side are home to some excellent eateries.
4.) Our Downtown is quite safe. There is a fair amount of panhandling/vagrancy to contend with; however, other than asking if you can light up a cigarette or spare some change it's harmless. A walk down Smithfield Street, a major Downtown bus route, can be "interesting", to say the least, with plenty of people loudly yammering obscenities into cell phones and blowing cigarette smoke into your face. Overall, though, while our Downtown may have some nuisance "quality-of-life" issues it's still very safe.
5.) Walkability? Pittsburgh is a city of neighborhoods, and we have a variety of business districts where you can accomplish most of your day-to-day needs on foot. The biggest struggle you'll find here compared to, let's say, Minneapolis, which I'd also rank very highly against Pittsburgh, is the topography here. You'll feel like a mountain goat in many cases because our city was built right into the Appalachian Mountains. We have an extensive network of public staircases to link neighborhoods separated by ravines and cliffs. The upshot? The views from the tops of many of these hills and bluffs are
spectacular. The East End Plateau features a continuous string of relatively densely-populated neighborhoods that are very interconnected around Oakland (our "eds" and "meds" neighborhood) and East Liberty (an emerging entertainment/tech/retail neighborhood). The topography here is generally flat between these neighborhoods.
6.) This sort of goes hand-in-hand with my response above. Downtown Pittsburgh isn't incredibly lively, but it's improving. Unlike Cleveland, which has a thriving Downtown coupled with a paucity of hip city neighborhoods you'll find Pittsburgh is the inverse---a pretty but "okay" Downtown with several times as many lively walkable neighborhoods in the city proper as Cleveland.
7.) This is one where Minneapolis will certainly beat Pittsburgh out by a LANDSLIDE. Even within the city proper of Minneapolis you have a chain of lakes in the southwestern part of the city that are replete with recreational opportunities. The surrounding areas of Minnesota have some of the best fishing and hunting opportunities in the entire country. To the east of Pittsburgh you have the Laurel Highlands, home to the beautiful Ohiopyle State Park. North of the city are Moraine State Park and McConnell's Mill State Park. Northeast of the city you have some great hunting opportunities in Armstrong and Indiana Counties. South of the city into West Virginia you have Cheat Lake.
8.) I'm prepared for a bevy of Minneapolis homers to box me on this one, but, in my opinion, Pittsburgh's professional athletic facilities are unparalleled for a medium-sized U.S. city. PNC Park (Pirates) is consistently ranked the best ballpark in the country. Heinz Field (Steelers) is a bit "meh", but it's modern and is a quick walk from PNC Park. The Consol Energy Center (Penguins) is great. With any luck I'll be able to find the money soon to buy tickets to see Coldplay when they perform there.
The Riverhounds (our soccer team that is a step below MLS) have a great facility, too.
9.) Out of all the cities you listed I'm willing to fight with all the homers on here that Pittsburgh, overall, has the best architecture. Minneapolis compromised a lot of its historic architecture with failed mid-Century urban redevelopment projects. There are some stately gorgeous old homes in the Southwestern "lakes" part of the city, though. Neighboring St. Paul has some great Downtown architecture and a gorgeous, large, leafy, liberal neighborhood (Summit Hill? Summit Park?) to the west of Downtown. Cleveland? We love the city and plan to visit there for a day-trip this coming Saturday, actually. Architecture isn't one of its strong points, though, outside of Downtown treasures like the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame, Playhouse Square, and the Cleveland Arcade. Ohio City is pretty awesome, but it's also tiny. The West Side Market Building there is amazing. There are some great cultural amenities and architectural gems in/around University Circle/Case Western Reserve's campus. You'll find people on the Cleveland sub-forum have some sort of weird obsession with Tremont and Detroit-Shoreway, but I found both neighborhoods to be underwhelming architecturally when I saw them in person---perhaps because they would be just "typical" neighborhoods in Pittsburgh. Kansas City? Meh. Just meh. It's a nice city, but it's not the city that comes to mind when you want to be blown away by architecture. That leaves Cincinnati. I've often remarked how similar Cincinnati and Pittsburgh can feel in many ways, and architecture there is no slouch! I'd still give the edge to Pittsburgh, but Cincinnati would be my second-place pick of that list for architecture, followed by Minneapolis, followed by Cleveland, followed by Kansas City.
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