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Unfortunately-Pittsburgh and it irks me that that’s the car. Pittsburg felt like a smaller downtown Boston and I like it a lot. Way cleaner, more restaurants, walkable. To get what you get in Pittsburgh you have to go to Fells or Fed Hill or something.
It’s not really all that close. Baltimore has better bones but it is way to dangerous, no retail, very dirty, kind of bland, some disruptive arterial roads etc etc.
If we are going of just downtown proper? Definitely Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh's downtown is the focal point of the city, Baltimore's acts as a back drop to the surrounding neighborhoods if anything else. Despite downtown Baltimore having a substantially larger residential population, said population doesn't hang in and around it, they go to Harbor East, Fells, Federal Hill or Canton because downtown is a retail/food/entertainment void atm.
Baltimore for sure attracts the bigger crowds, but outside of the National Aquarium/Camden Yards the crowds it draws are for the Inner Harbor/events, not the downtown itself which is why I'd give this to Pittsburgh, it's downtown isn't a tourist trap.
That being said, Baltimore for sure has the potential to leap frog Pittsburgh. It still arguably has the best downtown waterfront of any major city in the country and has the urban bones/population that can support new high-density developments to activate it.... It just needs love and attention right now
If we are going of just downtown proper? Definitely Pittsburgh right now and I'm from Baltimore
Pittsburgh's downtown is the focal point of the city, Baltimore acts as more of a back drop to the surrounding neighborhoods if anything else. Despite Baltimore having a substantially larger residential DT population, said population doesn't hang in and around it, they go to Harbor East, Fells Point, Federal Hill, Canton because downtown is a retail/food/entertainment void.
Baltimore for sure attracts the bigger crowds, but outside of the National Aquarium/Camden Yards the crowds it draws are for the Inner Harbor/events, not the downtown itself which is why I'd give this to Pittsburgh.
That being said, Baltimore for sure has the potential to leap frog Pittsburgh. It still arguably has the best downtown waterfront of any major city in the country and has the urban bones/population that can support new high-density developments to activate it.... It just needs love and attention right now
Very true. I agree 100%
The Harbor is what brings most people downtown aside from jobs. Within the CBD itself is where I'd give Pittsburgh a slight edge. Most of the higher end restaurants are scattered around downtown, and the biggest nightlife draw in the CBD is Power Plant Live, and Baltimore St.
Despite the small sample size, I'm surprised by the results so far. Pittsburgh's downtown is dense, old/historic (but no more so than Baltimore's) and architecturally interesting, but is nowhere near Baltimore's in terms of downtown living, 24/7 buzz/excitement, mass transit accessibility and, perhaps most notably, access to water (the Harborplace area is still viable, though the mall itself has declined, and Pittsburgh has absolutely no answer to B'more's 20-odd-year-old East Harbor development with massive, beautiful condos, apts, hotels (including a 32-story Marriott), trendy shops, a movie theater, restaurants and a 24-hour grocery store... among others). So many more people reside in downtown Baltimore, already, and many live in historic 2-century old row/town homes that Pittsburgh can't match ... at all. Pittsburgh, though better more recently, still is a bit of ghost town after hours, even on weekends.
Pittsburgh's downtown has the looks, but it needs more people. The Golden Triangle is a bit of an island as it tends to be cut off from the rest of the City (where most of the people live) by 2 of the massive 3 rivers and, also, but steep (near mountainous) hillsides both to downtown's east as well as to the South just beyond the Monongahela River.
Downtown Baltimore is packed with many more cultural activities (theater, symphony, museums, the fantastic National Aquarium, etc), while Pittsburgh's culture, save it's very nice theater district, resides 3 miles east in Oakland. Again, no comparison in my mind. To me this just reflects the usual C-D popularity contest, and Pittsburgh usually wins on these grounds in spades.
Man heeeelllllll no, Pgh's downtown has Bmore in a landslide...
All of these cultural activities you say are in Downtown Bmore, are also in Downtown Pgh, but more easily noticeable---->DTPgh has the downtown of a city significantly larger than what it actually is. When you're out about the cities, it becomes apparent Bmore is larger, but downtown specifically, Pgh has tighter structural density, more people on the street, and as someone else mentioned serves as more of the center of Pgh, than downtown does for Bmore. I dont get your point about mass transit accessibility, there are four subway stations in DTPgh and the city-defined downtown is only 0.6m² as is...
This isn't really close. DTPgh is geographically smaller and more compact but is way more active than DTBmore; Pgh certainly has the strongest downtown of any city I've seen below the Top 12 cities, and really has a better downtown than some of those cities...
I agree with the characterization of it as reminiscent of DT Boston; what a unique and special city...
I think Baltimore's has gotten worse. Harborplace was a big deal in the 90's, but then it didn't evolve, and is like a suburban food court with shady characters. Outside of a few blocks around Fed Hill, Fells Point and Canton, Baltimore's pretty disappointing.
While the freeway overpasses break the connection between Oakland/CMU and DT Pitt, they're far more connected than JHU and DT Balt are. There's too many sketchy neighborhoods to stitch those two areas together well. Baltimore needs gentrification to link these areas, but it fell way behind other cities in the 2000s and 2010s gentrification waves, and not sure a more vibrant city will ever happen.
Baltimore has other problems that it needs to fix before it can think about having a better downtown. If the trend has become urban living due to gentrification, City Hall needs to figure out what's Baltimore is doing wrong to prevent growth.
Baltimore has other problems that it needs to fix before it can think about having a better downtown.If the trend has become urban living due to gentrification, City Hall needs to figure out what's Baltimore is doing wrong to prevent growth.
*--A fed up Baltimorean--*
Lower crime rates, slice the property tax in half and change the business climate attract/retain businesses/startups (MD as a whole needs to fix that one).
Those 3 things would literally fix 95% of the cities issues. The city already has the underlying foundations to boom hard, it just needs it's ducks in a row
Lower crime rates, slice the property tax in half and change the business climate attract/retain businesses/startups (MD as a whole needs to fix that one).
Those 3 things would literally fix 95% of the cities issues. The city already has the underlying foundations to boom hard, it just needs it's ducks in a row
If the Freddie Gray incident never happened, I think Baltimore would be seeing noticable positive changes across the city right now. That S*** happened 5 years ago and we've been stuck in a rut ever since.
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