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I can't decide between Pittsburgh, Cleveland, or St. Louis, so I don't feel comfortable voting. All three cities have a lot of grit. I would be happy living in any of these three cities. In Cleveland I'd be happiest living in Ohio City. In St. Louis I'd want to live in Soulard. In Pittsburgh I feel like our best residential neighborhood for grit would be the Strip District. The problem is that they are putting up new high-end mid-rise apartment and condo projects left and right, and instead of having aged brick facades to complement the surrounding area's working-class/down-on-its-luck vibe it all looks like something Walt Disney would have designed---very generic "cartoony" garbage. Modern-day architects lack vision and/or developers just want to maximize profit by building the worst (cheapest) designs possible.
2. Buffalo - went through tough times as well, once being in the top 20 urban areas now barely in top 50. Not bashing any of these cities, they literally are my favorite cities. Grit=struggle/character/respect. Also in Buffalo's case - the cold and very snowy winters further amplifies the gritty feeling. I think people forget Buffalo sometimes, hence no votes in the poll. But in reality Buffalo is up
So much of the "grit" that I remembered has been demolished, polished, or gentrified in the last few years. The steel mills and coke ovens are gone, and much of elevator alley is now being lined with apartments and entertainment venues. Fewer and fewer boarded up houses and businesses, either demolished or back open and occupied. Decades of empty churches, schools, and warehouses are now re-opended as businesses and apartments. Main Street is coming back alive after 30 years. The "grit" is less in your face today than in probably the last 150 years. Today, I find large sections of Los Angeles and Houston much grittier than Buffalo, or many of the other cities on this list.
I wouldn't say that New York does grit best. But I would say that New York does urban best. Which is are two entirely different things. Though the average poster on C-D feels that urban has an interdependence on grit, but it really doesn't. Or, the average poster on here is in their feelings because the South and the West Coast successfully do urban without grit, meaning that the population is still growing in those areas. Then of course Atlanta and cities like Birmingham are probably underrated, as far as grit, IMHO.
Maybe back in the seventies; I can't think of any situation where the grit is as well documented as NYC back in the seventies, but now, no.
Well, NYC, even in the super gentrified neighborhoods, has many tenement style buildings which by default look gritty (but in a good way in my opinion). And a lot of other things about the city that are hard to describe that maybe someone else can do for me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by That_One_Guy
I was gonna say this^^^. LES, EV, Chelsea, SoHo, Williamsburg, Greenpoint and Bushwick come to mind.
What you're thinking of is gentrified hipster industrial grit. The NYC equivalent of this would be Williamsburg and Bushwick. This is actually my favorite kind of grit, but very different from the upscale, chic, SoHo grit.
SoHo is not like that at all. I really think that SoHo is one of the most unique + distinct urban neighborhoods in the world and I don't think Philly has an equivalent.
I think the closest thing Philly has to something like SoHo would be Walnut St/Rittenhouse area because of rich people and upscale shopping, but the architecture is nothing alike. SoHo has very distinct architecture. Also, Rittenhouse didn't really seem that gritty to me at all.
As someone familiar with both Philly and NYC areas, I guess I would describe SoHo in Philly terms as if you took King of Prussia and turned it into a Manhattan neighborhood, with the upscale shopping and insanely rich people and all, but also added an element of grittiness and streetart to it.
Definitely, all of those neighborhoods have lots of grit despite generally being expensive. I was in Chelsea earlier and was looking at all the little tenements squeezed together, which is a common look in much of the city.
I wonder how those odd sized buildings came to be.
I know you guys may think it cannot be compared, but I would say both South Seattle and Tacoma, WA are two of the grittiest neighborhoods/cities I have ever seen. Seattle and Tacoma, ironically have their roots as blue-collar, industrial and seaport cities. Much of this grit still exists today, although may seem a bit hidden with the large emerging white collar base and rapidly growing and gentrification of the city. However, a few cool neighborhoods have emerged from the grit, such as Georgetown in Seattle, where grit is embraced rather than disowned. Seattle has the largest industrial complex I have ever seen. All of Tacoma is gritty and one of its nicknames actually is Grit City.
Detroit. It is just a city that exudes toughness and grit IMO plus it has some great architecture and is also going through a renaissance of late. If I didn't have kids and public schools weren't so bad there, when I relocated back to the Great Lakes area, I would have moved back to Detroit. I lived there for a couple years as a teen.
can someone explain to me how pitt is winning over Detroit and Cleveland?
Have you been to all three cities?
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