South Side vs. Friendship (Pittsburgh, Duquesne: 2014, crime, homes)

[Tinare]

1) Safety
Draw

2) Transportation (Easiness to commute, public transportation, walkability, biking)
South Side

3) Character
Draw

4) Livability (in which neighborhood would you rather live)
Friendship

5) Amenities
South Side

6) Beauty (housing stock, parks, cleanliness, architecture).
Friendship

[steindle]

Haha... I just remembered three things that happened to my poor roommate in the course of about a week in Friendship:
- Her car was stolen from in front of our house (there was broken glass all over the street)
- A few days later her bike was stolen... WITH THE PICNIC TABLE IT WAS LOCKED TO.
- And then, a few days after that, she was sitting in the living room watching TV by herself when a concrete block busted out the window and landed next to her.

The worst I ever really got there was getting randomly assaulted by teenagers, offered drugs, offered stolen pants and fish (!), getting an empty keg stolen, having to run away from a man swinging a large chain at me, being purposely run off the road on my bike, and a few more things.

... Again, this is all anecdotal and it was almost a decade ago. It was without a doubt, and by far, the most intensive period of crime I've ever witnessed, though -- so it always cracks me up when people talk about how safe Friendship is in relation to, e.g., the South Side. I'm totally willing to believe that the stats bear that out, but it's semi-hilarious the extent to which that does not line up with my personal experience.

[JimboPGH]

1) Safety

Friendship. There is the occasional property crime spillover from Garfield, but it's few and far between. From my experience, neighbors look after each other very well there, and I never felt uneasy waking down Friendship Ave or Penn Ave late at night.

The South Side's "bar culture" problems are often sensationalized by the local media and are largely isolated to a relatively small section of the neighborhood. Most of the neighborhood is perfectly safe. That being said, there are a lot of unsavory characters strolling down Carson Street on the weekends, and the shopping complex on the riverside with the Giant Eagle is all sorts of sketchy.

2) Transportation (Easiness to commute, public transportation, walkability, biking)

Friendship. The South Side blows most neighborhoods out of the water on this one, but Friendship has walking distance to a plethora of great business districts, is arguably, along with Bloomfield, the most bike-friendly neighborhood in the city, and has bus access (or easy walking access to neighborhoods with bus access) to Downtown, Oakland, the Strip, the North Side, East Liberty, Highland Park, Stanton Heights, Morningside, Squirrel Hill, Greenfield, the Waterfront, Wilkinsburg, Penn Hills, and CCAC Boyce. Outside of Downtown, I'm not sure if any neighborhood can top that.

3) Character

South Side. I think Friendship is underrated as far as vitality and vibrancy go, but the South Side clearly has it beat on those fronts.

4) Livability (in which neighborhood would you rather live)

Friendship. This is obviously very subjective, and is the category in which Friendship won in the Neighborhood Tournament.

5) Amenities

South Side. While I love what Friendship and it's surrounding neighborhoods have to offer in this regard, the South Side has the longest business strip of any neighborhood in the region, and is walkable to Downtown, and has the best vegan brunch in the world. Plus Games N'at. So it wins this one pretty easily.

6) Beauty (housing stock, parks, cleanliness, architecture)

Friendship. For reasons I stated in the Tournament thread.

[JimboPGH]

Originally Posted by doo dah

As an aside, I just looked up the city GIS map of neighborhoods, and Friendship is TINY:
https://pittsburghpa.maps.arcgis.com...f000d24ee1ded5

I guess when I lived there back in olden times, I actually lived in Bloomfield (west side of S. Graham).

Again, consider Friendship to be everything between Gross and Negly going west to east, and between Penn, Liberty, and Baum, going north to south.

The "official" definition of Friendship is bull****.

[doo dah]

Originally Posted by JimboPGH

Again, consider Friendship to be everything between Gross and Negly going west to east, and between Penn, Liberty, and Baum, going north to south.

The "official" definition of Friendship is bull****.

I was going to ask, what do you want the boundaries of Southside to be in this contest, in all fairness? i see by this map that I didn't live on the Slopes., but in Allentown...

[JimboPGH]

Originally Posted by Der Schwabe

This is awesome. Sadly, I have no more rep to give you.

Well it was phatty's format and Hopes suggestion, so they should probably receive your accolades instead. But thanks!

While I'm thinking of it, and I want Phatty's consent on this since I'm really just lifting his idea (although granted, one he lifted from other sub-forums), does anyone think it'd be cool to do a "Pittsburgh Neighborhood World Cup" when the actual wold cup starts up this summer?

We'd have to limit it to 32 neighborhoods (maybe city neighborhoods only?), break them off into eight pools of four 'hoods, vote on all six categories for those pools, and then advance the top two vote getters from each pool into a 16-team knock out stage where we vote on all the categories, just like in this South Side vs. Friendship matchup.

It'd be a lot of voting, but I think this forum is up to the challenge, and it would be a great way to come up with a "Champion Neighborhood."

Whatta yunz think?

[JimboPGH]

Originally Posted by doo dah

I was going to ask, what do you want the boundaries of Southside to be in this contest, in all fairness? i see by this map that I didn't live on the Slopes., but in Allentown...

We'll go with the official definitions of the Slopes, in regards to it's boundaries with Allentown, Arlington, etc...

[jay5835]

Originally Posted by JimboPGH

Again, consider Friendship to be everything between Gross and Negly going west to east, and between Penn, Liberty, and Baum, going north to south.

The "official" definition of Friendship is bull****.

What is your Bloomfield then, James, just the part south of Liberty? Also, Hopes, do you agree with Jimbo or with the Blue Sign Squad about the boundaries? Since they're so vague, I've always thought of Friendship as (mostly) the detached houses and Bloomfield as (mostly) the rowhouses, regardless of which side of Liberty they're located.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by steindle

Safety stats are deceptive and hard to interpret with regard to neighborhoods that draw lots of outsiders for shopping, working, nightlife, and entertainment. Obviously gross # of crimes is totally irrelevant; crime per capita is quite a bit more relevant, but still extremely faulty in assessing crime in the South Side, since the number of people passing through there (upon whom crime may be committed to the same extent that it may on a resident) far outstrips the number of actual residents, 24/7.

This is why, like, Chateau has an outrageously high per capita crime rate: because you're basing that number on the 24 people who live in that neighborhood, when a more accurate portrait should take into account the thousands of workers there each day.

With that in mind, I would be very surprised if the South Side was in the top 1/4 of the city in terms of crime.

I've attempted to make adjustments before citywide for the number of employees in a neighborhood, say by weighting each worker as 1/3rd a resident (since they work for around eight hours). South Side would still end up with a higher crime rate than Friendship. Nightlife is of course harder to quantify, since we don't know the number of weekly visitors to East Carson. Still, areas with active business districts always attract crimes of opportunity to some degree, and a neighborhood without a well-traveled business district will tend to have less spillover crime than one with a heavily-used one.

Originally Posted by steindle

Also, it's not like Friendship is a walk in the park in terms of crime. Anecdotally (which I know is basically useless), I witnessed or was the victim of like half a dozen crimes in the single year I lived in Friendship. Car break-ins, simple assaults, an aggravated assault, spousal abuse, prostitution, fencing of stolen goods, open drug sales, multiple muggings (of friends -- thankfully not me) -- in the course of 12 months. That is not an exaggeration. Of course, that was also 2005.

I lived on South Negley Avenue (technically in East Liberty) for two years in 2006/2007. Never had any issues when I lived there, and I would walk to the Sharp Edge and Kelly's at odd hours (along with the Quiet Storm a few times a week). Maybe the area closer to Garfield was rougher?

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by jay5835

What is your Bloomfield then, James, just the part south of Liberty? Also, Hopes, do you agree with Jimbo or with the Blue Sign Squad about the boundaries? Since they're so vague, I've always thought of Friendship as (mostly) the detached houses and Bloomfield as (mostly) the rowhouses, regardless of which side of Liberty they're located.

I actually put the boundary of Bloomfield/Friendship in the blocks north of Friendship Park.

The last street in Bloomfield

One street away...Friendship.

There are a few Bloomfield-like patches in "Greater Friendship" like William Penn Place and some of S Evaline.

The little area of Bloomfield east of Gross but south of Liberty is really its own thing. It probably could have been viewed as an extension of Friendship, as it's got larger houses than "the warrens" segment of Bloomfield, but it's be remuddled into near oblivion.