Pittsburgh area: good idea? (rent, credit, home)

[Hopes]

Seriously, if they can't find full time jobs searching 12-15 hours per day, they're doing something wrong.

[GregHenry]

Originally Posted by tdagarim

On a whim my fiance and I moved to Bloomington, Indiana last August and things just didn't work out after 6 months and now we're back living with my parents.

Bloomington is one of the neatest, most charming places in America. Bloomington is neat-as-a-pin and immaculate. Except for some of the hills in Brown County, Pittsburgh is the un-Bloomington.

[GregHenry]

Originally Posted by Moby Hick

The denser the development, the lower the amount of nature disturbed per person. Cities are denser than suburbs.

That doesn't follow, and it's bad science.

[Moby Hick]

Originally Posted by GregHenry

That doesn't follow, and it's bad science.

Suburbs are denser than cities?

[ferraris]

Originally Posted by GregHenry

Bloomington is one of the neatest, most charming places in America. Bloomington is neat-as-a-pin and immaculate. Except for some of the hills in Brown County, Pittsburgh is the un-Bloomington.

I haven't been to Bloomington, but you bring up a good point. Pittsburgh has a very run down appearance in much of the city. This can be alarming to outsiders because they equate run-down with high crime, but that isn't usually the case in Pittsburgh. We just have a generally older built environment combined with steady population loss that is just now stopping. Even our nicer neighborhoods can appear run down or unpolished to outsiders, but it's just simply something we are used to here, and many people are oblivious to it. I think it gives the city character.

[GregHenry]

Originally Posted by tdagarim

How is the public transportation in the city? Is parking a big hassle if driving a car inside the city?

Pittsburgh means no free parking. Pittsburgh also means sitting in lots of traffic, not moving, when you're going short distances. Streetview their highways. There are very few. No Interstate runs through town; the on-ramps are one-lane from one Interstate spur to the other. There are tunnels and bridges that jam traffic to a crawl. Pittsburgh is traffic hell.

You're looking in the wrong direction. Just go to Kansas City or Dallas.

[ferraris]

Originally Posted by GregHenry

Pittsburgh means no free parking. Pittsburgh also means sitting in lots of traffic, not moving, when you're going short distances. Streetview their highways. There are very few. No Interstate runs through town; the on-ramps are one-lane from one Interstate spur to the other. There are tunnels and bridges that jam traffic to a crawl. Pittsburgh is traffic hell.

You're looking in the wrong direction. Just go to Kansas City or Dallas.

Technically I-579 and I-376 both run through downtown. I-279 may as well be counted since it connects to the Ft. Duquesne bridge leading directly to downtown. It's true that no main 2-digit interstates run through the city, though. In any case I'd say it's a moot point for the most part. It can make traveling to Pittsburgh difficult, or traveling to different sides of the county difficult, but it doesn't really affect the average city-dweller on a day to day basis.

Public transit in Pittsburgh is serviceable. There are better systems out there in other cities, but there are definitely worse systems, too. Basically it is good enough for most commuting needs, but if you won't have a car at all then you are going to want to live in a select few neighborhoods that are walkable and have good transit access. One nice thing is that people in Pittsburgh generally don't place a stigma on riding the bus. People of all walks of life ride the bus and it's not looked at like a last resort only for poor people.

Parking can be a problem in some areas. In most neighborhoods where parking is a problem they have residential permits. So if you live there, it will be less of a problem.

[sealie]

I've spent a fair amount of time in Bloomington. It can become less charming as you get further away from downtown and from the campus, which is quite nice. They don't have a med school at IUB, which rather hurts one's job prospects although you can make an almost reasonable commute into the southern Indy suburbs. Wages are fairly low even for a midwestern college town. And it is also decidedly less "neat as a pin" if you're ever in town during the Little 500. It puts on a really pretty face for visitors however.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by Moby Hick

Suburbs are denser than cities?

Since this topic has been revived, consider this:

The amount of raw sewage, garbage and just plain trash generated by a high-rise apartment building is far more than the amount generated by a single-family development of the same acreage. In fact, the same is true of any high-rise building, be it offices or apartments. And many times, cities dump this stuff on land in the burbs.

[Goinback2011]

Pittsburgh is traffic hell.

Not for me. I work downtown and take the T. I bought a townhouse last summer within 1.5 miles of a T-stop park n ride. No traffic at all. I'm 30-35 minutes from home to work door-to-door.

I bought a new car in August. I've got 800 miles on it now, driving mostly on weekends. Car insurance is dirt cheap with this commuting arrangement.

I'm also living in a townhouse with a garage, so I'm not dealing with the parking issues of older areas. You can arrange your life here to avoid dealing with both commute and parking issues. This is NOT true in many cities.