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Regarding the OP, the reason there's been a lot of Cleveland bashing in the Pittsburgh forum lately is because a certain poster from Pittsburgh (who has posted in this thread) is relentlessly pessimistic about our city, to the point where he actively warns people looking to move here not to come. He frequently cites Cleveland as a model for how Pittsburgh could do things better, but he cites bad facts. For example, Downtown Cleveland does have more jobs than Downtown Pittsburgh, but given Downtown Pittsburgh is less than a third of the size of Downtown Cleveland, we have a higher job density in our downtown - which can be seen by how few surface parking lots there are.
FWIW, as with other Pittsburgh posters, I agree Cleveland does some things better.
1. Downtown is much better in Cleveland than Pittsburgh for nightlife. But my understanding is this is because there is less nightlife in the neighborhoods themselves. In contrast, Downtown Cleveland seems much more dead to me than Pittsburgh during the day. Hardly anyone is walking around on the street on weekdays, which just seems weird.
2. Your rail system beats ours out of the water in terms of functionality, as has been noted.
3. Going to Cleveland reminded me how deeply segregated Pittsburgh is in some ways. Everywhere I went in Cleveland, I saw young black professionals going to the same restaurants and clubs as whites. Yes Pittsburgh is only around a quarter black rather than half like Cleveland, but it can't entirely be due to this. Many posters in the Pittsburgh forum have spoken about how it's an unusually unfriendly place to be black and middle class, so it's not just me either.
I agree that, especially in the past 10 years, Pittsburgh has been getting better press, however I feel that the national media's view (or stereotype) of Cleveland seems to be changing. There has been a lot of press lately about our food, and our revitalized downtown.
I have to point out that Cleveland has the tallest building between NY and Chicago in the Key Tower, so Pittsburgh does not have taller buildings.
Also, to answer your question about bankruptcy receivership, the answer is no. Cleveland has been blessed with a financially responsible mayor who has balanced the books without needing to go on welfare from the state, and has actually improved city services.
Yes you are right i admire cleveland for keeping its house in order.
Yes you are right i admire cleveland for keeping its house in order.
Let's not break our arm patting ourselves on the back. Cleveland city government has its fair share of money issues. Frankly, barring some drastic changes most of the rust belt (Cleveland included) will likely suffer a fate similar to Detroit at some point down the road.
Let's not break our arm patting ourselves on the back. Cleveland city government has its fair share of money issues. Frankly, barring some drastic changes most of the rust belt (Cleveland included) will likely suffer a fate similar to Detroit at some point down the road.
Maybe. I think cleveland has all of the ingredients to grow and change for the better.
Irony much? The very post the OP chose to pull from the Pittsburgh thread was positive for Pittsburgh, meanwhile, fresh off the press today...
Read much?
"Greater Cleveland's percent of jobs lost -- 0.8 percent -- was not the largest in the nation."
.8 Percent? Sure any job loss sucks... but .8%? Hardly a disaster.
"The local metro area's consistent decrease in employment seems to be concentrated in a few sectors, said Jacob Duritsky, managing director of research for Team Northeast Ohio, which is focused on job creation and retention in the region. The government sector, which has seen deep cuts in employment, is one."
Not to sound like a Republican, but that's not an awful thing. We all know government needs to slim down.
"Other sectors are showing growth, he said. For example, manufacturing jobs were up by 1,000.
"That is really the first increase in manufacturing that we have seen in the Cleveland (metro area)," Duritsky said."
Nine Inch Nails first formed in Cleveland, though Trent Reznor and Chris Vrenna were both born and raised in northwestern Pennsylvania.
You put 'Pittsburgh' in the title of your post; what the hell else did you expect?
That's primarily a function of distance and establishment. Most of the good shopping in Cleveland is in the eastern suburbs, versus the northern suburbs for Pittsburgh, and Cleveland's eastern suburbs are closer to Youngstown than Pittsburgh's northern suburbs are. They're also a more established enclave of wealth, having been settled long before Pittsburgh's northern suburbs, which have emerged as a cluster of wealth in the last 20 years. You can zoom in on this map to see what I'm talking about.
That's because a) it's five miles from the Pennsylvania state line, and b) it's the closest large, modern shopping complex to New Castle and Lawrence County. And if you really want to go there, I could talk about the Grove City Premium Outlets being constantly overrun with Ohio, New York and Ontario plates. Something about tax-free clothing...
No ****; Erie's closer to Cleveland than it is to Pittsburgh. Downtown Erie to downtown Cleveland is 99 miles; downtown Erie to downtown Pittsburgh is 122 miles.
It's actually an Appalachian/Mid-Atlantic blend. This is why all the quality-of-life indicators in western and central Pennsylvania and the southern tier of upstate New York are better than they are in the central and southern Appalachians. As for conservatism, it's long since left the city of Pittsburgh, and is increasingly leaving Allegheny County. Bill Peduto would never have been elected the mayor of Pittsburgh if a forward-thinking attitude was limited to just a few neighborhoods. As for the outlying counties, let them be backwards for all I care; they're not the ones steering the ship anyway. Allegheny County is where all the action is, and where all the positive socioeconomic trends in the region are originating from.
By the way, I grew up in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, and we never got the day off for the first day of deer-hunting season. You'd have to leave the metropolitan area to even find any school districts that do.
Well that's similar to the way most of Cleveland east of the Cuyahoga River has missed out on the reinvestment taking place in the neighborhoods west of the river.
It's exactly why. The terrain escalates the cost of maintaining and upgrading critical infrastructure.
That's not entirely true. Both metropolitan areas have similar proportions of middle-class blacks relative to their entire black populations. The reason it's noticed more in Cleveland is simply because there are more than twice as many black people in the Cleveland metropolitan area as there are in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. The black middle class in Pittsburgh can be found in many of the eastern suburbs, including Edgewood, Swissvale, Forest Hills, Churchill, Penn Hills and Wilkins Township, and increasingly in Monroeville. You can also find them in city neighborhoods like Highland Park, Stanton Heights and Point Breeze in the East End, and Manchester and Brighton Heights on the North Side.
That's not true at all. Cleveland was labeled "The Comeback City" during the 1990's. Pittsburgh was largely ignored until about five years ago.
That's because it's the most easily accessible view. All the other nice views are off the beaten path a bit. Personally, my favorite view is from the West End Overlook.
There's a lot of blight in Cleveland too. And it's not really the hills hiding it in Pittsburgh, but the fact that the blight is decentralized. The former company towns up and down the river valleys (mostly the Monongahela River) are where most of the blight is. The good news is, it's easier just to let the outlying areas return to nature. On the other hand, most of the blight in Cleveland is in the city itself, due to the city being where most of the industry was.
If you know the difference between cyclical and structural economic corrections, then you know exactly why this was the case, considering Pittsburgh dealt with a structural correction in the 1980's.
Regardless, Pittsburgh has had a balanced budget for several years, which is more than can be said for most U.S. cities.
-Gnutella, you are right up there with the biggest Pittsburgh boosters always comparing yourself to Cleveland. You're obsessed with Cleveland, and it's weird. I promise you in the future you will find some way to belittle Cleveland to try and promote Pittsburgh.
-Pittsburgh in the title because that is EXACTLY what it is about, Pittsburgh on Cleveland all the time constantly. Now we have to hear it in here too. You do enough bashing of Cleveland there, don't come here and ruin threads.
-Mention Grove City and I can fire right back with the Eastwood Mall Complex. My point being is we hear a lot on this forum how you see sooo many Ohio cars in Pennsylvania. Guess what, we see a lot of Pennsylvania cars in Ohio, too. Funny how that works.
-99 miles to 122 isn't that much when you are going for a day of activities. Remember, you're always trying to claim Pittsburgh and its connectivity to the Northeast, that was you, right? Funny, distance doesn't seem to matter there.
-Oh please, Pittsburgh is more Applachian than anything else. However you want to sugarcoat it to fit your agenda. Pittsburgh is very distinctively Appalachian.
-Again, trying to cover anything up with how you sit fit. Pittsburgh is still a very conservative area. I don't care if you're blue or red, Pittsburgh fits the bill as a conservative area in a very conservative part of the state.
-As far as development goes, we always have to hear from Pittsburgh posters how great everything is without any issues. Lets face it, Pittsburgh has plenty of blight. Hell, you don't even have to travel too far from the East Liberty target to get a little Detroit-esque abandonment. If you want to argue that the hills don't hide the blight, I really wanna know what you're smoking cause it sounds crazy! The hills certainly hide a lot of the issues going on in Pittsburgh. How often do you see that picture of downtown from Mount Washington looking down onto the city. What you don't see are the neighborhoods behind the hills that suffer from poverty.
I wasn't going to get in on this, I was simply going to read and be quiet, but after some major LOL'ing I couldn't help myself.
In the OP, a link was made where Pittsburgh's job growth, which has numerous factual sources to back it up was discussed, meanwhile, this was ran across today:
Irony much? The very post the OP chose to pull from the Pittsburgh thread was positive for Pittsburgh, meanwhile, fresh off the press today...
And it puts a big smile on my face that you proved exactly my point.
Re-read the whole topic of discussion before you make comments like this, it will save you in the long run. The very thread that I linked it to, you guys managed to bash Cleveland (the whole point to this thread). Cleveland wasn't even the topic of conversation and you still brought it up.
BTW, check the BLS again. Cleveland is losing that year-over-year. Cleveland is NOT growing in population, so the labor market is not growing, but they make it seem like job losses are in the thousands each month. Again, continuation of Pittsburghers trying to constantly follow-up on what is happening in Cleveland by even reading the Plain Dealer. Thanks, I already read that today.
My goal, unlike what seems to be a past time over there wasn't to bash Pittsburgh, but make an observation. Lots of class though, really.
LOL, oh please. I think we all know the only point of posting this was to indulge in more Cleveland bashing, even though the rankings list you're basing the Bash Du Jour on is obviously flawed.
I don't get the big interest in Cleveland bashing lately. Isn't it getting a bit old? but enough already. And at least he's saying it to your face, not bashing behind your backs (which is what bashing a city in another city's forum is, let's face it). They don't indulge in Pittsburgh bashing on the Cleveland Forum. Don't you think the Cleveland bashing here is starting to make this forum look at bit, well, tacky?
And it puts a big smile on my face that you proved exactly my point.
Re-read the whole topic of discussion before you make comments like this, it will save you in the long run. The very thread that I linked it to, you guys managed to bash Cleveland (the whole point to this thread). Cleveland wasn't even the topic of conversation and you still brought it up.
BTW, check the BLS again. Cleveland is losing that year-over-year. Cleveland is NOT growing in population, so the labor market is not growing, but they make it seem like job losses are in the thousands each month. Again, continuation of Pittsburghers trying to constantly follow-up on what is happening in Cleveland by even reading the Plain Dealer. Thanks, I already read that today.
My goal, unlike what seems to be a past time over there wasn't to bash Pittsburgh, but make an observation. Lots of class though, really.
I wasn't bashing Cleveland. Bashing Cleveland would be saying, "Wow, Cleveland sucks." YOU started this entire thread which is apparently an "observation" of yours, so what did you expect? Did you expect no one to reply?
Quote:
Cleveland wasn't even the topic of conversation and you still brought it up.
So what's wrong with using another city as a benchmark? Is Cleveland as a whole some protected class that can only be spoken of in the positive light? The thread you linked in your OP contained an analysis using Cleveland as a benchmark--throw in some quirk and personal opinion of some other posters. I fail to see how that's so, "OMG how dare they!" insulting.
In regards to the bolded above, who is "they?" Facts are facts. From what I read, 7,700 jobs were lost in a one year period.
"Greater Cleveland is on a losing streak. And we're not talking sports. We're talking jobs. Since May, the Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor metro area has lost more jobs than any large metro area in the country."
All Peregrine did in reply to me was cherry-pick the article. It doesn't change the fact that in metros of 1 million or more, Cleveland lost the most jobs. That isn't insulting. You need to understand the difference between insults, facts, and personal opinions/observations. Personal opinions/observations are more likely to contain insults.
Fact: In metros of 1 million or more, Cleveland lost the most jobs. Insult: HaHa, Cleveland SUCKS, did you see the latest article? They lost the most jobs. That place continues to blow harder than the wind. Personal Opinion/Observation: I heard Cleveland lost the most jobs recently. In my last visit to Cleveland, I noticed the Downtown seemed to be developing and coming back. It's a shame the population and apparently jobs are on the decline. (HINT, HINT -- this is something I would say since I was in Cleveland this summer.)
"However, Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor was the only one of 49 large metros - those with populations of at least one million -- that lost jobs between October 2012 and October 2013. The metro area includes Cuyahoga, Medina, Lake, Geauga and Lorain counties."
With that said, sort through all of my posts, go for it. I've never "bashed" Cleveland. I'm sure there are people on the Pittsburgh board who have. There have been plenty of Cleveland folks on this thread that have said some extremely erroneous things in regards to Pittsburgh.
To summarize, I see nothing wrong with making comparisons to other cities as far as DATA and FACTUAL INFORMATION goes.
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