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Honestly I think Pittsburgh is more like Cincinnati than the cities on the eastern seaboard but that’s just my opinion. Cincinnati also has its share of very urban spots. Now I’m not saying the answer to this thread is Pennsylvania but there are some similarities. https://maps.app.goo.gl/99mf2b8kCcsBoyFCA?g_st=ic
Cincinnati is really an outlier for the Midwest, but when compared to other Midwestern cities you can notice how Pittsburgh aligns more with East Coast. 86% of housing in Philadelphia is Duplex/Triplex with Pittsburgh at 26% compared to Indianapolis at 13%, Cicinatti 11% and Detroit 8%
Cincinnati is really an outlier for the Midwest, but when compared to other Midwestern cities you can notice how Pittsburgh aligns more with East Coast. 86% of housing in Philadelphia is Duplex/Triplex with Pittsburgh at 26% compared to Indianapolis at 13%, Cicinatti 11% and Detroit 8%
Oh about 50 percent of Pittsburgh is rowhomes like Philly. in fact many hoods are very similar.
there are a few like that in Cincy that are fairly similar, but way fewer than Pittsburgh. and maybe one area in Cleveland if that. but its very much less in Ohio cities.
Exactly. The aesthetic/built environment of Pittsburgh is very prototypically Northeastern/Mid-Atlantic and honestly has very little in common with the vast majority of cities to the west of it.
Along with its topography, that's why it's patently silly for anyone to align it with the "Midwest."
I still don't get the topography argument. I don't consider Pittsburgh Midwestern but there are hilly areas of the midwest. Doesn't make these areas not Midwestern.
I still don't get the topography argument. I don't consider Pittsburgh Midwestern but there are hilly areas of the midwest. Doesn't make these areas not Midwestern.
Topography is a little complicated, I agree, but here's the difference.
The portion of Ohio that is hilly emanates from the east, since it's a byproduct Appalachian formation, which is fundamentally Eastern, not Midwestern, geographically.
There are fundamentally Midwestern hill formations, for sure, like the Driftless area or the Black Hills, but the Appalachians are not one of them.
So yes, there are of course exceptions, it's pretty clear that the Midwest has the largest share of non-hilly or non-mountainous land in the US. It's not a value judgement or inherently negative statement. It just "is."
Oh about 50 percent of Pittsburgh is rowhomes like Philly. in fact many hoods are very similar.
Pittsburgh is far from 50% rowhomes; it's much smaller than that, maybe 20%, if that... The typical Pittsburgh home is an individual brick building on a tight lot; more like this:
Pittsburgh is far from 50% rowhomes; it's much smaller than that, maybe 20%, if that... The typical Pittsburgh home is an individual brick building on a tight lot; more like this:
Pittsburgh's zoning permits density which is why you have a lot of mixed residential density like in the link you posted. 50% may be an exaggeration, but it's far more than anywhere in the Midwest save for Cincinnati.
That's the thing, though. There's literally no part of Pennsylvania that gets as flat as the Columbus area; the state ranges from rolling hills to mountains.
Certainly a good chunk of Ohio is in Appalachian terrain, but most (at least 60%) of it is plains-based. It's a substantial difference from the composition of PA, which is like 99% Appalachian or Piedmont.
Can confirm. I took a drive from Wheeling, WV to Columbus and back last week, and I noticed the subtle changes in terrain. Columbus and Newark are generally flat. The hillier terrain begins east of Newark, at the Allegheny Escarpment. Zanesville and Cambridge are hilly, but the range in elevation is relatively low. If there's any analog to this in Pennsylvania, then it's a small area of northwestern Pennsylvania, north of Slippery Rock Creek and west of the Allegheny River.
The more extreme, Pittsburgh-style terrain begins at the Flushing Divide, east of Cambridge and west of St. Clairsville. At this point, you're within about 25 miles of the Ohio River, and I know from previous trips in eastern Ohio that the northern end of the more extreme terrain is east of Canton, south of Youngstown, and north of East Liverpool. It's in this area where, if I'm driving eastbound, I feel like I'm saying goodbye to the Midwest, and about to enter the Northeast.
Also, as flat as Columbus is, northwestern Ohio is even flatter. The Maumee Lake Plains are especially flat. For that matter, the rolling hills in north-central and west-central Ohio near Mansfield and Bellefontaine wouldn't be out of place in northern or central Missouri, judging by both slope and prominence. Even the Piedmont in Pennsylvania is more difficult than those. In addition, the highest point in Ohio is still less than 2,000' above sea level, while Pennsylvania has more than one area where elevations are more than 3,000' above sea level.
In all, there's only about a third of Ohio where the terrain is comparable to Pennsylvania, virtually all of it east of a line from West Union to Mt. Vernon, and south of a line from Mt. Vernon to Warren. Even areas of northeastern Ohio, though technically part of the Allegheny Plateau, are gentler than adjacent areas of northwestern Pennsylvania. The rise in elevation from Ashtabula to Warren is virtually imperceptible, and, like north-central and west-central Ohio, the hills are more Missourian than Pennsylvanian, qualitatively speaking.
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