Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Philly and Pitts imo, two entirely different kind of animals. I think Cincinnati is a really underrated town though.
Btw, poll asking the exact opposite question might skew your results a bit there, OP. I almost voted myself without looking, but then it caught my eyes. I have this feeling that plenty of people don't even look at the poll questions before voting. That's why I try to make them the same as my tittle on threads I create.
Except now I just realized it really is the same as the title...Opps
Pittsburgh could easily fit in Ohio or West Virginia while Philly could easily fit in New Jersey or possibly Delaware/Maryland. Both cities are very different.
Cleveland and Cincinnati aren't as different. Cincinnati draws some Appalachia influence from Kentucky, just like Pittsburgh draws Appalachia influence from West Virginia. That's one big difference. Really, southern Ohio and western Pennsylvania are a bit Appalachia in general. Cleveland is more so comfortably situated in the Midwest, like Detroit. Still, all three cities (Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh) are similar.
I think you're melding a lot if thing together based on modern-day cultural stereotypes. As has been noted by eschaton, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are historically much more tied together than people realize due to settlement patterns in the colonial era of the US, as they both became very diverse immigrant magnets. These were also very heavy industrial cities, making them among the pre-eminent hubs of blue collar jobs.
Yes, today, the East Coast/Northeast Corridor cultural overlay of which only Philadelphia is apart has become so iconic and identifiable that I think many forget this history, but the similar foundational attributes of Philly and Pittsburgh is very significant. Also, given population and history, if anything, it is Pittsburgh/Western PA that has influenced West Virginia, not vice versa.
I can't speak from personal experience regarding Cincy and Cleveland, but I get the sense that they're a bit more dissimilar due to, again, history and settlement patterns (e.g., the Midland/Lower Midwest and the Great Lakes area).
They were all heavy industrial centers so isn't that a wash?
Cincinnati and Cleveland are both majority-minority cities. That's one similarity that Philadelphia and Pittsburgh do not share. Moreover, a third of Philadelphia's Black population, which makes up 43% of the city, is Muslim. That's sort of an odd thing about Philly that sets it apart from any city and especially these three.
As I said earlier, I don't know much about Cincinnati and Cleveland, and they may be so ridiculously different that going with Philly-Pittsburgh in this matchup is the only logical choice. But in my mind, it's hard to say that a city with heavy Afrocentric/Islamic influences is that similar to a majority White city. Seems like a non-starter to me lol.
Last edited by BajanYankee; 01-12-2016 at 05:13 PM..
I always thought a major difference between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in terms of their settlement history was the Scots-Irish.
Quote:
The Scots-Irish were the first Europeans to settle in Southwestern Pennsylvania in large numbers. These were people who had migrated to northern Ireland (Ulster) at the beginning of the 17th century. Many of them emigrated to North America at the end of the 17th century and during the 18th century. When they arrived in Pennsylvania, typically via the Delaware River, the Scots-Irish found that Germans, Quakers, and other English settlers had already settled much of eastern and central Pennsylvania.
Though some Scots-Irish did settle in southeastern Pennsylvania, the majority headed west, bypassing these settlements. Arthur Lee, who visited Pittsburgh in 1784, noted that the settlement was "inhabited almost entirely by Scots and [Scots] Irish, who live in paltry log houses" (Wayland F. Dunaway, The Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania University of North Carolina Press, 1944, p.83). These settlers spoke a Scottish variety of English, which was influenced, in Ulster, by Irish English. Among the many words and structures used in this area that are Scots-Irish are "redd up," "nebby," "slippy," and "diamond" for a town square. "Yinz," which is found throughout the Appalachians in various forms (such as "you'uns"), is Scots-Irish as well.
They were all heavy industrial centers so isn't that a wash?
Philly was certainly a city based around manufacturing as well though. I'd honestly argue if you're looking at city cores only, and not considering the suburbs, Pittsburgh is arguably more "recovered" from being part of the Rust Belt today than Philly is, considering Pittsburgh developed a strong concentration of office jobs in Downtown, which Philly has lacked until very recently.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BajanYankee
Cincinnati and Cleveland are both majority-minority cities. That's one similarity that Philadelphia and Pittsburgh do not share. Moreover, a third of Philadelphia's Black population, which makes up 43% of the city, is Muslim. That's sort of an odd thing about Philly that sets it apart from any city and especially these three.
As I said earlier, I don't know much about Cincinnati and Cleveland, and they may be so ridiculously different that going with Philly-Pittsburgh in this matchup is the only logical choice. But in my mind, it's hard to say that a city with heavy Afrocentric/Islamic influences is that similar to a majority White city. Seems like a non-starter to me lol.
Pittsburgh is pretty much unique in the country in that it was a major manufacturing hub which sort of missed out on the later portions of the Great Migration entirely. Certainly this makes it less like Philly, but it makes it less like every city of its size or greater in the Northeast/Midwest as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BajanYankee
I always thought a major difference between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in terms of their settlement history was the Scots-Irish.
True. I will say that the Scotch-Irish legacy in Pittsburgh is really, really attenuated now. By the turn of the 20th century, the main remnant was how many prominent local families (like the Mellons) were Scotch-Irish, as the poor neighborhoods were almost all transforming into "ethnic" enclaves (Germans on the North Side, Irish in Garfield, Italians in Larimer/Bloomfield, etc).
Philly was certainly a city based around manufacturing as well though. I'd honestly argue if you're looking at city cores only, and not considering the suburbs, Pittsburgh is arguably more "recovered" from being part of the Rust Belt today than Philly is, considering Pittsburgh developed a strong concentration of office jobs in Downtown, which Philly has lacked until very recently.
On a per capita basis, Pittsburgh does very well with # of jobs Downtown, but on a raw number basis, Center City always had more jobs. Today's numbers are 288,000 in Center City Philadelphia and 158,000 in Downtown Pittsburgh.
What impresses me is Oakland in Pittsburgh vs. University City in Philadelphia. Both are currently at about 80,000 jobs.
Philly was certainly a city based around manufacturing as well though. I'd honestly argue if you're looking at city cores only, and not considering the suburbs, Pittsburgh is arguably more "recovered" from being part of the Rust Belt today than Philly is, considering Pittsburgh developed a strong concentration of office jobs in Downtown, which Philly has lacked until very recently.
When I said it was a "wash" I meant that the manufacturing aspect didn't do anything to resolve the question one way or another since they were all manufacturing centers. So we need to look for other distinguishing characteristics.
I'm not sure what you mean by Philadelphia lacking a strong concentration of jobs in its Downtown until very recently. Center City was always a strong jobs center but it wasn't gentrified the way it is today. If anything, employment in Philadelphia is becoming more and more decentralized even as the downtown residential population continues to grow.
Quote:
Originally Posted by eschaton
Pittsburgh is pretty much unique in the country in that it was a major manufacturing hub which sort of missed out on the later portions of the Great Migration entirely. Certainly this makes it less like Philly, but it makes it less like every city of its size or greater in the Northeast/Midwest as well.
That was just one glaring difference I pointed out between Pittsburgh/Philadelphia that doesn't exist with Cincy/Cleveland. On the other hand, one could point out that Cincy lacks Cleveland's large White ethnic population, which is a difference that doesn't exist between Philly and Pittsburgh.
WRT the Black population, it's not just that Philadelphia has lots of Black people, but it's also that the city's Black community has a very distinctive personality. In my mind, it stands out in that regard in a way that Cleveland and Cincinnati do not.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
