Trying to decide between Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Portland, ME

[speagles84]

Originally Posted by Summersm343

I meant that even the nice areas of Pittsburgh tend to look more rundown than the nice areas of Philly.

Am I wrong in saying that Pittsburgh feels half empty?

Pittsburgh does things better than Philly for sure, don't get me wrong, I love Pittsburgh. It just cracks me up when someone compares Pittsburgh to Philly because they really are in two different leagues.

North Philadelphia is 46.7 sq miles in total. I would say about 26 sq miles of that is ghetto. Remember there are nice areas of North Philly down around Center City and up towards the suburbs, and also the entire eastern half of Fairmount Park is in North Philly.
West Philadelphia is 14.2 sq miles in total. I would say about 3 sq miles of that is ghetto.
Southwest Philadelphia is 10.6 sq miles in total. Again I would say about 7 sq miles is ghetto.
On top of that, I would say there is about 3 sq miles of ghetto in the Riverwards, 1 sq mile of ghetto in Northwest Philadelphia, and probably about 4 sq miles of ghetto in Northeast Phialdelphia.

Total that is about 44 sq miles of ghetto in the city of Philadelphia. The total land area of Philadelphia is 134 sq miles. That's about 32% of the city is ghetto.

^^ That is what I always say. I always say about 30-40% of the city is rundown. You think Pittsburgh has less than 32% of the city which is rundown? No. I'm willing to bet it's about the same percentage.

Although I believe you are being quite generous with your estimates on this, I did a comparison. Also even the areas I considered "rundown" aren't nearly as rundown or dangerous as ones you would find in Philadelphia.

Good/Okay areas (Very Safe & Safe & Okay) - 40.47 mi^2 (73.0 % of the city)
Rundown areas (Rundown & Very Rundown) - 15.03 mi^2 (27.0 % of the city)

Neighborhood, Area of City, (Square milage) - Classification

Pittsburgh (55.4 mi^2)

Bon Air, Southside (0.31 mi^2) - Very Safe
Banksville, Southside (0.97 mi^2) - Very Safe
Brookline, Southside (2.08 mi^2) - Very Safe
Duquesne Heights, Southside (0.62 mi^2) - Very Safe
Friendship, East End (0.11 mi^2) - Very Safe
Greenfield, East End (0.77 mi^2) - Very Safe
Highland Park, East End (1.16 mi^2) - Very Safe
Lincoln Place, 8th Ward (0.99 mi^2) - Very Safe
New Homestead, 8th Ward (0.79 mi^2) - Very Safe
North Shore (0.30 mi^2) - Very Safe
Oakwood, West End (0.25 mi^2) - Very Safe
Overbrook, Southside (0.84 mi^2) - Very Safe
Point Breeze, East End (1.30 mi^2) - Very Safe
Regent Square, East End (0.20 mi^2) - Very Safe
Ridgemont, West End (0.37 mi^2) - Very Safe
Shadyside, East End (0.92 mi^2) - Very Safe
Squirrel Hill, East End (3.90 mi^2) - Very Safe
Summer Hill, Northside (0.44 mi^2) - Very Safe
Swisshelm Park, East End (0.48 mi^2) - Very Safe
Westwood, West End (0.70 mi^2) - Very Safe

"Very Safe" - 17.50 mi^2 (31.5% of the city)

Bloomfield, East End (0.70 mi^2) - Safe
Downtown, Central (0.64 mi^2) - Safe
Glen Hazel, East End (0.46 mi^2) - Safe
Lawrenceville, East End (1.80 mi^2) - Safe
Morningside, East End (0.38 mi^2) - Safe
Mount Washington, Southside (1.14 mi^2) - Safe
Central Northside, Northside (0.85 mi^2) - Safe
Oakland, Central (1.50 mi^2) - Safe
Perry North, Northside (1.21 mi^2) - Safe
Polish Hill, Central (0.26 mi^2) - Safe
South Side, Southside (1.87 mi^2) - Safe
Stanton Heights, East End (0.74 mi^2) - Safe
Strip District, Central (0.61 mi^2) - Safe
Troy Hill, Northside (0.46 mi^2) - Safe

"Safe" - 12.62 mi^2 (22.7% of the city)

Beechview, Southside (1.46 mi^2) - Okay
Brighton Heights, Northside (1.12 mi^2) - Okay
Carrick, Southside (1.67 mi^2) - Rundown
Chateau, Northside (0.38 mi^2) - Okay
Chartiers City, West End (0.13 mi^2) - Rundown
Crafton Heights, West End (0.75 mi^2) - Okay
East Carnegie, West End (0.43 mi^2) - Okay
East Liberty, East End (0.58 mi^2) - Half Safe, Half Rundown
Elliott, West End (0.61 mi^2) - Okay
Fairywood, West End (0.97 mi^2) - Okay
Hays, 8th Ward (1.75 mi^2) - Okay
Manchester, Northside (0.28 mi^2) - Okay

"Okay" - 10.13 mi^2 (18.3% of the city)

Allentown, Southside (0.30 mi^2) - Rundown
Arlington, Southside (0.47 mi^2) - Rundown
California, Northside (0.22 mi^2) - Rundown
Esplen, West End (0.23 mi^2) - Rundown
Fineview, Northside (0.25 mi^2) - Rundown
Hazelwood, East End (1.58 mi^2) - Rundown
Marshall-Shadeland, Northside (1.25 mi^2) - Rundown
Mount Oliver, Southside (0.04 mi^2) - Rundown
St Clair Village, Southside (0.31 mi^2) - Rundown
Sheraden, West End (0.89 mi^2) - Rundown
Spring Garden, Northside (0.28 mi^2) - Rundown
Spring Hill, Northside (0.63 mi^2) - Rundown
Uptown, Central (0.33 mi^2) - Rundown
West End, West End (0.20 mi^2) - Rundown
Wind Gap, West End (0.42 mi^2) - Rundown

"Rundown" - 7.40 mi^2 (13.3% of the city)

Beltzhoover, Southside (0.42 mi^2) - Very Rundown
East Hills, East End (0.54 mi^2) - Very Rundown
Garfield, East End (0.46 mi^2) - Very Rundown
Hill District, Central (1.40 mi^2) - Very Rundown
Homewood, East End (1.03 mi^2) - Very Rundown
Knoxville, Southside (0.30 mi^2) - Very Rundown
Larimer, East End (0.45 mi^2) - Very Rundown
Lincoln-Lemington, East End (1.81 mi^2) - Very Rundown
Northview Heights, Northside (0.31 mi^2) - Very Rundown
Perry South, Northside (0.91 mi^2) - Very Rundown

"Very Rundown" - 7.63 mi^2 (13.7% of the city)

[speagles84]

Originally Posted by Debbie1125

I agree. Also, parts of Northeast Philly are going downhill or are already there. Kensington is a mixed bag. Some parts are going through gentrification while others aren't fit for a dog to live in.

You are correct about North Philly.

Sure there are still some good neighborhoods left. However, I can see the bad passing by the good in a few years if the Section 8-ification of the Northeast continues.

Over the past year, I've become very familiar with Philadelphia. Its improving rapidly, sure, but its still significantly more rundown than Pittsburgh. No question. Also, there are not many large swaths of ghetto/blight left in Pittsburgh (at least in the city limits). In the upper Mon Valley, there are small cities that make Chester look nice.

[RightonWalnut]

Originally Posted by FamousBlueRaincoat

Two reasons. The first is that I'm greatly intrigued by your ghetto-metrics and want to know what you classify that particular block as.

Second is because it's a dirty, trashy, gritty area extremely close to Center City that often costs a great deal to live in.

Like I said. Broad and Fairmount is at the epicenter of drastically changing neighborhoods. It would be hard to classify it one way or another. It's definitely a transitioning area. I would hardly call it ghetto however.

[RightonWalnut]

Originally Posted by speagles84

Over the past year, I've become very familiar with Philadelphia. Its improving rapidly, sure, but its still significantly more rundown than Pittsburgh. No question. Also, there are not many large swaths of ghetto/blight left in Pittsburgh (at least in the city limits). In the upper Mon Valley, there are small cities that make Chester look nice.

Thanks for the comparison!

If you look at the percentages though, Philly is not significantly more rundown than Pittsburgh. Going by your numbers, 27% of the city of Pittsburgh is rundown. 32% of the city of Philadelphia is rundown. That's not a huge difference. It only feels as if Philadelphia has more rundown areas because Philadelphia is a much larger city in both population and sq mileage.

[pman]

Originally Posted by speagles84

Over the past year, I've become very familiar with Philadelphia. Its improving rapidly, sure, but its still significantly more rundown than Pittsburgh. No question. Also, there are not many large swaths of ghetto/blight left in Pittsburgh (at least in the city limits). In the upper Mon Valley, there are small cities that make Chester look nice.

the hill is very weird, I felt like I had drive out of the city and ended up in WV with a few houses here and there. perhaps in that sense near total depopulation has left it looking less blighted than a place that still has a good number of residents. still, it's like pittsburgh goes about its daily business like the hill doesn't exist.

[Larry Bowa]

Originally Posted by Summersm343

I meant that even the nice areas of Pittsburgh tend to look more rundown than the nice areas of Philly.

Am I wrong in saying that Pittsburgh feels half empty?

Pittsburgh does things better than Philly for sure, don't get me wrong, I love Pittsburgh. It just cracks me up when someone compares Pittsburgh to Philly because they really are in two different leagues.

North Philadelphia is 46.7 sq miles in total. I would say about 26 sq miles of that is ghetto. Remember there are nice areas of North Philly down around Center City and up towards the suburbs, and also the entire eastern half of Fairmount Park is in North Philly.
West Philadelphia is 14.2 sq miles in total. I would say about 3 sq miles of that is ghetto.
Southwest Philadelphia is 10.6 sq miles in total. Again I would say about 7 sq miles is ghetto.
On top of that, I would say there is about 3 sq miles of ghetto in the Riverwards, 1 sq mile of ghetto in Northwest Philadelphia, and probably about 4 sq miles of ghetto in Northeast Phialdelphia.

Total that is about 44 sq miles of ghetto in the city of Philadelphia. The total land area of Philadelphia is 134 sq miles. That's about 32% of the city is ghetto.

^^ That is what I always say. I always say about 30-40% of the city is rundown. You think Pittsburgh has less than 32% of the city which is rundown? No. I'm willing to bet it's about the same percentage.

NO!No!NO! North Philly is about 40 sq miles of ghetto, West Philly is about 12 sq miles of ghetto and SW Philly is definitely 9 sq miles of ghetto.
All the ghetto in the River Wards is in Kensington ... NE Philly has about 16 sq miles of ghetto (did you forget about FKD, Oxford Circle, Tacony, parts of Holmesburg and Summerdale?).
And what about the ghettos in South Philly (Point Breeze, parts of Snyder Ave, Greys Ferry, etc)?
What's Olney considered, NE Philly or NW? Lotta ghetto there ...

[SeattleorPhiladelphia]

You can always tell the people who haven't been to Philadelphia (or even NYC for that matter) in recent years when they comment that these cities are primarily dirty and crime-ridden. They probably still think the Midtown stretch of 8th Avenue is the red light district. Love to see the look no their faces if they went NOW. Philadelphia in 2015 is nothing like the Philadelphia of 1995.

I just wanna smack these people sometimes. San Francisco and Paris are often glamorized but just as dirty as NYC or Philadelphia, yet you never hear anything about them?

Philadelphia has come a long way in the last 20 years, and no doubt will become a very changed city in the next 10 as well. Its the last one of the big four (Boston, NYC, DC) to really gentrify and deindustrialize, and its the last one to remain as affordable. Now is the time to get in on the real estate there.

[kyb01]

Originally Posted by SeattleorPhiladelphia

You can always tell the people who haven't been to Philadelphia (or even NYC for that matter) in recent years when they comment that these cities are primarily dirty and crime-ridden. They probably still think the Midtown stretch of 8th Avenue is the red light district. Love to see the look no their faces if they went NOW. Philadelphia in 2015 is nothing like the Philadelphia of 1995.

I just wanna smack these people sometimes. San Francisco and Paris are often glamorized but just as dirty as NYC or Philadelphia, yet you never hear anything about them?

Philadelphia has come a long way in the last 20 years, and no doubt will become a very changed city in the next 10 as well. Its the last one of the big four (Boston, NYC, DC) to really gentrify and deindustrialize, and its the last one to remain as affordable. Now is the time to get in on the real estate there.

One other fact seems to get glossed over as well: the enormous homeless problem in San Francisco and LA for instance. Stuff that does NOT exist in Philadelphia to anywhere near the same scale. Does anyone ever notice it? Does Phila. ever get credit for not having the same level of problems like that inspite of the poverty which we do have?