Pittsburgh vs Providence (2023 Edition) (live, best, state, better)
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Another thread kind of devolved into this conversation, so I figured it was a prime opportunity to go ahead and make a separate "Providence vs Pittsburgh" thread.
Feel free to add or remove from the following list of criteria when making your comparison and casting your vote. I'm purposefully leaving out two that I think would be a little unfair here: sports and skyline. Pittsburgh does very well in these two for a city its size, and PVD is handicapped in terms of sports by having Boston so close. I thought about leaving diversity out as being heavily in PVD's favor by city proper, but the metro as a whole is still quite white in a way that's comparable to the Burgh. So, I left it in.
Food -
Higher Ed -
Economy -
Nightlife -
Parks -
Arts -
Shopping -
Diversity -
Public Transit -
Architecture -
Safety -
Weather -
Keep this limited to immediate metro area only. That means for Providence, Fall River and New Bedford could be fair game if that's what tilts you in the city's favor. However, pretend that anything north of Mansfield, MA doesn't exist.
Last edited by Boston Shudra; 02-07-2023 at 04:24 PM..
I think Rocifenve wins, Food, Diversity, and safety and Pitt pretty much sweeps the rest of the categories. Unless you’re cheating and count Boston jobs towards providence cause well it’s commutable. I mean without being a. Commutable to some job centers and b. Bring an entertainment destination for those SW of Boston who earn their money in Boston (or it’s general economic ecosystem) Providence would probably be worse off than most rust belt cities.
Pittsburgh is a far more complete city. Even if narrowing focusing on pure urbanity Providence has a strong argument for surpassing it. It just lacks in most other fields.
I think Rocifenve wins, Food, Diversity, and safety and Pitt pretty much sweeps the rest of the categories.
Saving this typo for prosperity, because: what the heck? Lmao.
Anyway, I figured “economy” would also weigh heavily in Pittsburgh’s favor. In Providence’s defense, there’s both Hasbro and CVS within the metro area. Those are pretty big-deal companies.
And do you really think “Arts” is a landslide for Pittsburgh? I actually thought PVD would have the easy win with that one due to RISD and Waterfire.
Nightlife, Higher Ed, and Public Transit I thought might go either way. Weather isn’t great for either, but I figured I’d include it.
Saving this typo for prosperity, because: what the heck? Lmao.
Anyway, I figured “economy” would also weigh heavily in Pittsburgh’s favor. In Providence’s defense, there’s both Hasbro and CVS within the metro area. Those are pretty big-deal companies.
And do you really think “Arts” is a landslide for Pittsburgh. I actually thought PVD would have the easy win with that one due to RISD and Waterfire.
Nightlife, Higher Ed, and Public Transit I thought might go either way. Weather isn’t great for either, but I figured I’d include it.
Well if CMU and Brown cancel out, Providence is more like Dusquene than UPitt. So Pittsburgh has a whole R1 Major research University over Providence.
Also since Providence is so small it’s walk share is very good, but compared to Pittsburgh, it’s Transit is lacking.
Arts is close, Providence has an artsy vibe but Pittsburgh gets big touring artists, has a much better high arts collection both performance and visual. But I guess you could make an argument
Night life is closer than one would expect but I think Pitt wind out just based on the bevy of regional events it’s holds. Between the Pens and Pirates alone there is something going on nearly every night. In addition there is just more in Pittsburgh imo.
Well if CMU and Brown cancel out, Providence is more like Dusquene than UPitt. So Pittsburgh has a whole R1 Major research University over Providence.
I’ll accept this one. Higher Ed probably goes to Pittsburgh without much argument. The only in defense I can think of might be “quantity over quality”. I’ll point out that URI is within PVD’s metro while Penn State is outside Pittsburgh’s.
I don’t think I’m convinced yet about the other criteria you touched on.
Another thread kind of devolved into this conversation, so I figured it was a prime opportunity to go ahead and make a separate "Providence vs Pittsburgh" thread.
Feel free to add or remove from the following list of criteria when making your comparison and casting your vote. I'm purposefully leaving out two that I think would be a little unfair here: sports and skyline. Pittsburgh does very well in these two for a city its size, and PVD is handicapped in terms of sports by having Boston so close. I thought about leaving diversity out as being heavily in PVD's favor by city proper, but the metro as a whole is still quite white in a way that's comparable to the Burgh. So, I left it in.
Food -
Higher Ed -
Economy -
Nightlife -
Parks -
Arts -
Shopping -
Diversity -
Public Transit -
Architecture -
Safety -
Weather -
Keep this limited to immediate metro area only. That means for Providence, Fall River and New Bedford could be fair game if that's what tilts you in the city's favor. However, pretend that anything north of Mansfield, MA doesn't exist.
Food - Prov
Higher Ed - Tie?
Economy - Pitt
Nightlife - IDK
Parks - Pitt
Arts - Prov
Shopping - Pitt
Diversity - Prov
Public Transit - Prov
Architecture - Pitt
Safety - Prov
Weather - Pitt
Overall I’m going Pitt due to affordability weather and scenery. Arts I was unsure about and nightlife I was kind of unsure about.
Food - Providence for more seafood, though I think Pittsburgh has better East Asian selection
Higher Ed - Pittsburgh even though Providence does well on this
Economy - Pittsburgh due to its relatively large tech basis, but Providence being state capital gives it more stability
Nightlife - Providence? Don't know much about Pittsburgh nightlife and really enjoyed Providence, so this is more of a non-answer
Parks - Pittsburgh has better historic parks I think, though I haven't spent any time in Providence parks
Arts - Providence as RISD and RISD adjacent puts out a lot of stuff
Shopping - Can't tell
Diversity - Providence
Public Transit - Pittsburgh has light rail, Providence has commuter rail, Pittsburgh wins though both have issues
Architecture - Pittsburgh in downtown and neighborhoods
Safety - Probably pretty similar? I don't think either is particularly dangerous by US standards
Weather - Providence
While I think I like Pittsburgh more as a city, if I were to move, I'd more likely move to Providence on account of me knowing more people there and it's accessible by train to more cities where I know more people. I don't personally know anyone who lives in Pittsburgh anymore unfortunately. The last person I knew there moved out because of the air quality and basically high-tailed it when it was clear that a new industrial plant that brings a quick flurry of jobs mostly for out-of-state workers and then leaves with rather few jobs in an outer suburb while upping emissions and worsening air quality for many more which was a bit disappointing. That plant just opened November of last year and unsurprisingly completely broke its pinky promise on emissions (not just carbon emissions, but emissions that have tangible health effects for the local area).
I don't personally know anyone who lives in Pittsburgh anymore unfortunately. The last person I knew there moved out because of the air quality and basically high-tailed it when it was clear that a new industrial plant that brings a quick flurry of jobs mostly for out-of-state workers and then leaves with rather few jobs in an outer suburb while upping emissions and worsening air quality for many more which was a bit disappointing. That plant just opened
Yes, the industrial history in the Pittsburgh area means that it's long been plagued by air quality issues (the topography doesn't help, either, leading to inversion).
It's important to note that air quality has been generally improving, however, in no small part due to a number of coal plant closures. This is from the American Lung Association last year:
Quote:
The [Pittsburgh] area did significantly improve across the board for the third consecutive year for all three measures of air pollution covered in the report, reducing its year-round average for fine particles, and recorded fewer days with unhealthy air for both ozone and particle pollution. The area’s best ranking was for ozone, improving to 46th worst of 226 metro areas with grades, compared to 35th last year.
And yes, don't get me started on the Shell cracker plant, which I personally find to be a flash-in-the-pan economic development strategy (much like fracking) that will only needlessly and carelessly prolong world dependence on plastics. Emissions are certainly a concern hyper-locally to the Beaver, PA area, but it would be a bit alarmist to extrapolate the impacts to the broader metro area, including Pittsburgh itself.
I've curiously been checking AirNow relatively often, just to see if you can detect a difference now that the cracker plant is operational. Just looking at today, even Beaver is on par with plenty of other locales on the East Coast, with a score of 70 (the higher the number, the worse the quality), compared to, say, Bridgeport, CT, with a score of 75: https://gispub.epa.gov/airnow/?conto...nitors=ozonepm. Don't know what's going on around Lancaster, PA today--that looks alarming!
Food - Prov
Higher Ed - Tie?
Economy - Pitt
Nightlife - IDK
Parks - Pitt
Arts - Prov
Shopping - Pitt
Diversity - Prov
Public Transit - Prov
Architecture - Pitt
Safety - Prov
Weather - Pitt
Overall I’m going Pitt due to affordability weather and scenery. Arts I was unsure about and nightlife I was kind of unsure about.
I would imagine Providence would win for higher ed, especially college. Yeah Carnegie Mellon is top tier and Pitt is decent, but Providence is on the door step of all the Ivy league school, and some great highly ranked smaller schools as well.
I would imagine Providence would win for higher ed, especially college. Yeah Carnegie Mellon is top tier and Pitt is decent, but Providence is on the door step of all the Ivy league school, and some great highly ranked smaller schools as well.
Yea nightlife and higher Ed are toughies… as is art but Providence is sort of known at least in New England for an outsized nightlife and art/PVDFest.
I know Pitt + Carnegie Mellon + Duquesne it could trump Prov, RISD, Brown? Idk I guess it breaks for Providence - I don’t know how many schools are in Pitt really…
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