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I wouldn't say Cleveland and Pittsburgh are all that different, in terms of neighborhood income level and class. In terms of flat-out wealthy and large estates, the Edgewater neighborhood has that along with some solid middle/upper middle class areas, which also exist, significantly, in West Park, Shaker Square, Tremont, Old Brooklyn, Ohio City, portions of Collinwood (along the lake shore) and others... Even though streets are narrow and lots are tight/small-ish generally, there's considerable wealth in Little Italy and, in its larger neighbor, University Circle the older, larger upper-middle class houses -- often old brick and sometimes wood frame -- are being well maintained and lovingly restored. This includes strip in/around Wade Park Ave westerly from its terminus at E. 118th Street to Rockefeller Park (jokingly referred to as "Hough Heights") and spilling over into lower Glenville.
I dunno. Look on Justice Map, and click on income. Pittsburgh has three census tracts (Squirrel Hill North and Point Breeze) where the median household income is above $100,000. A lot of the truly wealthy areas aren't clear on census tract basis actually, because they are included in tracts with college students, who nominally shift the income level far downward. A further 34 census tracts have incomes above $54,000 but below $100,000 (broadly speaking middle class).
The same isn't true for Cleveland. There are no $100,000+ income census tracts in the city. Middle-class income tracts (I won't count, because I don't know the city/suburb borders of Cleveland by heart) seem limited to Downtown, a single tract in Tremont, and a handful of outer Westside neighborhoods like Kamm's Corner.
A lot of it comes down to the different typologies of Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh industry began decentralizing in the late 19th century out of the city proper, into mill towns like Homestead and Braddock that were never annexed by the city. This resulted in a lot of economically distressed "suburban" areas when the mills closed, some of which later underwent white flight. In contrast, Cleveland was much more all in with the industry in the city proper (until you got outside of Cuyahoga County) meaning the working-class population was more centrally located to begin with.
I dunno. Look on Justice Map, and click on income. Pittsburgh has three census tracts (Squirrel Hill North and Point Breeze) where the median household income is above $100,000. A lot of the truly wealthy areas aren't clear on census tract basis actually, because they are included in tracts with college students, who nominally shift the income level far downward. A further 34 census tracts have incomes above $54,000 but below $100,000 (broadly speaking middle class).
The same isn't true for Cleveland. There are no $100,000+ income census tracts in the city. Middle-class income tracts (I won't count, because I don't know the city/suburb borders of Cleveland by heart) seem limited to Downtown, a single tract in Tremont, and a handful of outer Westside neighborhoods like Kamm's Corner.
A lot of it comes down to the different typologies of Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh industry began decentralizing in the late 19th century out of the city proper, into mill towns like Homestead and Braddock that were never annexed by the city. This resulted in a lot of economically distressed "suburban" areas when the mills closed, some of which later underwent white flight. In contrast, Cleveland was much more all in with the industry in the city proper (until you got outside of Cuyahoga County) meaning the working-class population was more centrally located to begin with.
I wouldn't put a ton of stock in census tracts. These, like city borders, is often/usually arbitrary. As a neighborhood, by border definition, Edgewater has some areas, in its southern region (near and south of Detroit Ave) that very well may be low and moderate income-wise (though these areas are seeing some gentrification, also)... But you can't tell me that the mile-lone portion of Edgewater at and north of Lake Ave don't blow past, way past, $100K in terms of annual income average, and quite frankly, even with the few areas of very nice homes in Squirrel Hill, I have yet to visit a Pittsburgh neighborhood with estates comparable with those along, and just off, the lakeshore in Cleveland's Edgewater neighborhood... Cleveland's "problem" unlike, I guess to some extent, Pittsburgh, is that while there are substantial areas (and people) of wealth and, more commonly, upper-middle class status, they are thrown into areas, arbitrarily, that pull down the overall total.
Pittsburgh probably does not have the extent of blighted areas as does Cleveland -- partly because of Pitt's hilly typography and smaller area, in total. But I don't believe the relative differences between the 2 cities in terms of relative "wealth" and/or stable professional residential areas is as stark as you seem to believe.
Very similar with the slight difference being that Buffalo has more of a blue collar feel, while Rochester is a little more white collar due to its economic history.
What’s crazy is that if the 2 areas were set up the same way in many other states, they form a metro or combined statistical area of about 2.3 million people.
This. I was gonna post that Cleveland-Detroit-Buffalo are all very similar. And Cleveland (down to size) is exactly what you would get if you blended Detroit and Buffalo together and plopped it halfway between each other (on the US side of Lake Erie).
Cleveland had the Slavic, Middle Eastern, black similarities to Detroit.
It then has the Italian, Puerto Rican, black similarities with Buffalo.
Buffalo has a pretty big Slavic(mainly Polish) and relatively substantial Middle Eastern(Lackawanna is about 12% Arab)populations as well.
Detroit has some Puerto Ricans scattered across the area, but has substantial Italian populations in suburbs like parts of Macomb County and the Grosse Pointes.
It's been mentioned several times already, but Columbus and Indianapolis are really similar in size (both about 2.1 million metro), layout (a beltway that surrounds the city, with most of the wealth to the north, and more blue-collar to the south), almost identical race and ethnicity makeup, two pro sports teams (Indy with NBA and NFL and Columbus with NHL and MLS), weather, topography, sprawling city limits, magnets for young people from other areas of the region, etc.
It's been mentioned several times already, but Columbus and Indianapolis are really similar in size (both about 2.1 million metro), layout (a beltway that surrounds the city, with most of the wealth to the north, and more blue-collar to the south), almost identical race and ethnicity makeup, two pro sports teams (Indy with NBA and NFL and Columbus with NHL and MLS), weather, topography, sprawling city limits, magnets for young people from other areas of the region, etc.
Buffalo has a pretty big Slavic(mainly Polish) and relatively substantial Middle Eastern(Lackawanna is about 12% Arab)populations as well.
Detroit has some Puerto Ricans scattered across the area, but has substantial Italian populations in suburbs like parts of Macomb County and the Grosse Pointes.
Hamtramck, an enclave suburb of Detroit, is VERY Slavic; esp Polish.
We're also very similar to Chicago, just on a much smaller scale.
Take two cities. Place them a mere 90 miles apart. Make them the largest cities in their respective states. Place them both on the same Great Lake. Line the two lakefronts with parks beaches in a way not found anywhere else. Place their downtowns in the same east central location on the shore line. Make sure both downtowns have a river running through them. Better still, make sure that each river carries their city’s name. Connect the two downtowns with the same interstate highway. Let’s call it 94. How about making both of them America’s summer festival capitals. On the lakefront of course. Throw in pretty much grid related streets. Have endless overlaps in street names on what are generally flat cities (although the southern one is flatter). Make sure that one city between losing its MLB team and getting a replacement borrowed the other city’s baseball team for a few “home games” for a few seasons when the city finally gets its current baseball team, make the other city’s other team’s fans account for a huge percent of attendance. Give both a string of expensive, beautiful suburbs line the lake north of their city limits. Remember the past when an old interurban line connected the two by using a raised rail encircling its downtown, a famous configuration, and then have it run to the other city’s downtown. Find the midpoint between the two, basically either side of the state line and load it with outlet malls, an amusement park and cheese. Lots of cheese. Make the vacation playground for both cities be the same state, the state where the northern of the two is located. Place their respective state’s main university system its second largest campus and second best instate public university in each
Stir, not mix together. And you get Chiwaukee or Milcago or something like that.
Actually I find Baltimore to be like Philadelphia's little brother: from the rowhouse architecture, strong longshoreman/working class core to the distinct regional accents of locals, these 2 just seem cut from the same cloth. They even have their own regional inferiority complexes viz a close-by neighbor: Balto to DC and Philly to NYC.
As a Baltimore resident and someone that has visited St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia in the past couple of years, I would attribute more similarities to St. Louis and Philadelphia. St Louis is Baltimore's demographic twin in many ways, but the built environment in Baltimore is much more similar to Philadelphia's. I liked Milwaukee, but it doesn't share as many similarities with Baltimore as the other two.
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