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I bet none of those random neighborhoods scattered throughout are typical of Pittsburgh, either.
I doubt that you really found all of that randomly, but much of it is bombed-out ghetto. And yes, there's plenty of bombed-out ghetto in Pittsburgh. But it's in better shape, overall, than most old American cities.
Look, I don't understand what all of the defensiveness is about here. I have no problem admitting that Boston, NYC, DC, San Francisco, and pretty much every city in Europe trump Pittsburgh when it comes to urban architecture and classic "city" feel. And Pittsburgh trumps Minneapolis in this regard. Most Americans don't want to live in cities anyway, so I don't know why you're worried about it.
I see street views from Allentown, Fineview, Hazelwood, Lincoln-Lemington and Arlington, and two street views from the Hill District. With the exception of Fineview, you "randomly" picked five ghetto neighborhoods. Not only that, but the street views from Fineview, Hazelwood and Arlington were located on or adjacent to steep hills, which continue to depopulate because they're a complete pain in the ass to get to or from, and also because they present a landslide hazard. Development was never practical on them in the first place because they're actually escarpments, which are geologically unstable.
Whatever blight there is in the East End of Pittsburgh is quickly being erased. The lower Hill District is being redeveloped, and Garfield and Larimer are on the bleeding edge of gentrification. And there are huge plans to redevelop an old brownfield in Hazelwood. It's possible that the only blighted areas in the East End 10 years from now will be Lincoln-Lemington and Homewood, plus a small slice of the upper Hill District that's not easily accessible by car or transit. And gentrification has sped up on the North Side as well, spreading out from the Central North Side to Deutschtown, Manchester and Allegheny West.
Even a couple of the South Hills neighborhoods like Brookline, Beechview and Carrick seem to have some interesting things going on, though the change there is more gradual and doesn't involve developers throwing lots of money around. The only quadrant of the city that seems to be declining across the board with no end in sight is the West End.
Just out of curiosity, I'll try and do ten random streetviews of Pittsburgh. Since I know the city too well, I'll use MapCrunch to find them.
Few of my favorite areas showed up, but only a few pics are of actual blight.
It did come up with some weird areas, though. That last one from Stinkin looks like flat-out wilderness. I haven't been in that area for a long time, it's reaaalllly bottomed out.
Zoomed in a little closer to Downtown. The former zoom was far enough out I kept getting a lot of locations in suburban municipalities I needed to filter out. Here's ten more.
Two advantages that neighborhoods in Minneapolis have over neighborhoods in Pittsburgh:
1. Not as much uglification by power lines.
2. Not as much tacky "remuddling" of houses.
Pittsburgh needs to start burying or hiding power lines, because they make otherwise decent neighborhoods look kind of ugly, and they also disrupt what would otherwise be nice views. A lot of houses are also covered with either insulbrick or aluminum siding, and have windows that don't fit the way they're supposed to. Bonus points if the windows have permanent aluminum awnings over them. Mid-20th-Century remodeling efforts have not aged gracefully at all, so I'd like to see more houses restored to their original state.
Two advantages that neighborhoods in Minneapolis have over neighborhoods in Pittsburgh:
1. Not as much uglification by power lines.
2. Not as much tacky "remuddling" of houses.
Pittsburgh needs to start burying or hiding power lines, because they make otherwise decent neighborhoods look kind of ugly, and they also disrupt what would otherwise be nice views. A lot of houses are also covered with either insulbrick or aluminum siding, and have windows that don't fit the way they're supposed to. Bonus points if the windows have permanent aluminum awnings over them. Mid-20th-Century remodeling efforts have not aged gracefully at all, so I'd like to see more houses restored to their original state.
1. Part of the burgh's charm.
2. Probably not going to happen without a huge influx of cash. Seems a lot of the pro-Pittsburgh yuppie types trying to call the city utopia are looking to get downtown or upscale already.
it seems like you will find more historic buildings in Pittsburgh. both have great urban pockets but Pittsburgh seems to have a more dense and bustling downtown. Pittsburgh will also have more interesting terrain. houses on the hills and such. i would go with Pittsburgh
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) but I just spent eight days vacationing in MSP. 
