Looking to move to Pittsburgh -- 5 days to investigate

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Raven1976

I've seen a few of the type of parties we like (new wave, industrial, goth type) . If more nights don't exist then maybe we can start one

That's another interesting aspect of the small large city thing--if you feel like having an impact in your area of interest, you often can.

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

NoVA was the only place where prospective mates overtly wrote me off due to my physical appearance.

Are you sure that's the reason? I always seemed to get plenty of dates, and I'm not a vision of beauty.

[TRH]

actually, (and take it from someone who's lived in Florida, NJ, NE, and others) its surprising how many good looking people do live in Pittsburgh. I see more attractive people in the 'Burgh when i go there and even in Cleveland, believe it or not, than in many of the "so-called" hot spots in the country...
And to be very precise, i've never seen one city with so many attractive, BLONDE, in-shape women...and i've been alot of places. So i wouldn't get the wrong idea that there are a bunch of ugly people there lol

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by TRH

actually, (and take it from someone who's lived in Florida, NJ, NE, and others) its surprising how many good looking people do live in Pittsburgh. I see more attractive people in the 'Burgh when i go there and even in Cleveland, believe it or not, than in many of the "so-called" hot spots in the country...
And to be very precise, i've never seen one city with so many attractive, BLONDE, in-shape women...and i've been alot of places. So i wouldn't get the wrong idea that there are a bunch of ugly people there lol

LOL, I was just looking at the photos from our superbowl party up there and you know what, you may be right. It was one good looking bunch of Pittsburghians.

ps Sorry for getting off topic. Getting back to the topic, 5 days is probably a decent amount of time to get a feel for the town. Best of luck!

[Raven1976]

Thank you for all your recommendations. I'm sure my husband might find a job but it looks grim for me because I'm a teacher in NJ. How are the overall teaching jobs in Pittsburgh? bad prospects?

[gg]

Originally Posted by Raven1976

Thank you for all your recommendations. I'm sure my husband might find a job but it looks grim for me because I'm a teacher in NJ. How are the overall teaching jobs in Pittsburgh? bad prospects?

It is very hard to get a teaching job because teachers here are paid so amazingly high compared to the cost of living. Those jobs are like gold. You might find a teaching job at a private school, but they don't pay as well because they are not involved in the high powered union that controls us all in this area and makes us have much less money in our pockets. Sadly our student test scores don't reflect these very high wages on a national scale, so we are just throwing money into the wind and seem to be okay with that.

[Raven1976]

Originally Posted by h_curtis

It is very hard to get a teaching job because teachers here are paid so amazingly high compared to the cost of living. Those jobs are like gold. You might find a teaching job at a private school, but they don't pay as well because they are not involved in the high powered union that controls us all in this area and makes us have much less money in our pockets. Sadly our student test scores don't reflect these very high wages on a national scale, so we are just throwing money into the wind and seem to be okay with that.

I really thought public school teachers weren't paid that great in Pittsburgh.
I really wish they would get rid of the unions everywhere! It keeps too many lazy teachers in jobs. I'm in a private school that is government funded and I've never been able to get a public school job in NJ either. It's so corrupt! looks like it's the same in PA

[BrianTH]

I'd take comments from that particular poster with a wheelbarrow of salt, including when it comes to teachers.

Teaching jobs in the Pittsburgh area are a little scarce, which is a function of there not being a lot of population growth and there being some good teaching colleges in the area. For more details, you should try to find someone who has recent familiarity with the teaching market.

[Bong477]

Teaching jobs are hard to come by in the area, that is pretty well established. Part of it is supply as there are lots of producers of teachers due to all the higher education in the area, but if the jobs weren't good they'd flee the city too.

Typical salaries are in the 50-80k range, its not uncommon for teachers to make near 100k with a masters and double digit years of service. The information is public record and you can pretty easily find what every school employee is paid if you want. Finding what the average salary is a little more challenging and it varies some by district but it probably around 60-65k for Allegheny county as a whole, with some districts being higher and some lower. Most principals are a little over 100k and superintendants mid 100s. It is quite a bit of money relative to cost of living here, not to mention summers are "off" (I realize that they aren't entirely off and good teachers will be doing some preparation during the off months, but still, summers are a good deal compared to a "normal" job) and benefits are substantially better than the average private sector job.

I think its hard to deny that teachers are compensated well for the area. Why, whether it's appropriate or not, and whether the taxpayers are getting good value for their money can remain a matter of debate.

[BrianTH]

I looked at a bunch of statistics a while back. I think it is fair to say public school teachers in the Pittsburgh Metro on average are paid a bit more than the U.S. average (controlling for things like the type of district, education and seniority levels, and so on). But only by a bit.

I'm not going to try to develop a whole economic model, but if I had to guess, by far the most important factor in there not being a lot of available teaching jobs is just that we haven't had a lot of school-age population growth, and in fact in many districts the population has been declining.