Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The Pittsburgh/Philly thing is actually not unlike the Philly/NYC thing. Pittsburgh is much more aware of Philly than Philly is of Pittsburgh. Similarly, NYC casts a huge shadow on Philly, but New Yorkers don't really think a whole lot about Philly.
I think there is some degree of similarity, but IMO New York thinks a lot more about Philadelphia than Philadelphia thinks about Pittsburgh. Of course, New York thinks about itself first and foremost (and probably second, third, and fourthmost too) and for the most part doesn't care about almost anywhere else, they all pale in importance to New York! (P.S. I really like NYC, even if some members of its general population are a little full of itself at times.)
mainly because western PA is very, very provincial and inward-looking. (FWIW, I'm originally from eastern PA, more specifically the Lehigh Valley - the Allentown/Bethlehem/Easton area.) Even though I don't like Pittsburgh/western PA, no one can deny that it has a generally nice setting. It is pretty dramatic the first time you come through the Fort Pitt Tunnel on the Parkway West from the airport (or points west/southwest) and see downtown Pittsburgh right in front of you as you emerge from the tunnel.
Pittsburgh reminds me a lot of the San Francisco I remember growing up in the sixties. SF at the time was a working class, union, Irish & Italian Catholic town (the Haight Ashbury notwithstanding). It was very provincial and not open-minded. It had great scenic beauty. Even now with all the changes in the past decades, it's very provincial in a PC way. It's almost impossible to build anything innovative or deal with the homeless problem because of all the entrenched, well-meaning (but, in my opinion, mis-guided) advocacy groups.
I assume many American cities were like Pittsburgh & SF; strongholds of early 20th century European immigrants and their descendants. Many left their cities in the white flight of the 50s & 60s, but SF didn't experience that to the degree of other parts of the country and I think that has been what kept it vital while so many other great cities declined. It seems like Pittsburgh retained much of it's ethnic diversity, but not being from there, I really don't know. It just seemed that way when I visited.
Over time I've become convinced there is a distinct American region in between the East Coast and the Great Lakes. I'm never sure what to call it, but I would suggest it is more or less the northern parts of what is sometimes called Appalachia (the parts of Appalachia in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, and maybe a bit of Kentucky). And that is where Pittsburgh is located. Indeed, Pittsburgh is the de facto "capital city" of this region, and I have sometimes heard it referred to as the "Pittsburgh Tri-State" (although it arguably includes bits of up to six states).
Over time I've become convinced there is a distinct American region in between the East Coast and the Great Lakes. I'm never sure what to call it, but I would suggest it is more or less the northern parts of what is sometimes called Appalachia (the parts of Appalachia in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, and maybe a bit of Kentucky). And that is where Pittsburgh is located. Indeed, Pittsburgh is the de facto "capital city" of this region, and I have sometimes heard it referred to as the "Pittsburgh Tri-State" (although it arguably includes bits of up to six states).
I moved from the Chicago suburbs to Pittsburgh six months ago. Here are my perceptions, with the hope that they will be useful to anyone else thinking of making the same transition or trying to choose between the 2 cities.
1. If you are in a technical field, you'll probably make more money in Pittsburgh than in Chicago. Many of the local companies are hiring now at above national average rates, whereas Chicago technical and engineering jobs seem to pay at or below the national average, with no adjustment for the high cost of housing there. Housing in Pittsburgh is affordable.
2. Downtown Pittsburgh has a character that is all its own. This is due in part to the hilly terrain, distinct architecture and numerous bridges. I have been to many large cities and find most of them have the same look and feel, but Pittsburgh is different in a good way. The city is especially beautiful at night due to the lighting that is used on buildings, bridges and hillsides.
3. Pittsburgh culture is different than that of Midwestern places like Chicago or Indianapolis, where people don't seem to have any pride about the cities. People here are very proud of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania and 100% behind anything that is unique to this area. You'll find that Steelers fanaticism is a year round preoccupation. It can be annoying at times since it's so pervasive, but it is nice to see people continuously stand behind a symbol of their city rather than being fair-weather fans.
4. There is not a lot of what I would call diversity, i.e. a broad cross section of 1st generation immigrants from different countries. It is mainly white and black Americans, with most being 3rd or 4th + generation Americans. It seems to be the last frontier for Mexican immigrants. The few immigrants seem to come mainly from Europe, India, and Africa, but not Mexico as with the rest of the country.
5. There is a large middle class in Pittsburgh. It seemed that in Chicago, half lived in $600,000 houses and drove BMW's and the other half rode the bus and lived in slums. Pittsburgh is more equalized, the cars on the freeways are typically non-luxury, average cars like Accords, Explorers, etc. Housing is typically modest but nice, think of houses that would go for $300,000 in Chicago, but they sell for $200,000 here.
6. People associate more with the Eastern Seaboard states and speak of them more than they speak of the Midwest. Due to it being much closer to the Ohio cornfields than to Philadelphia/Baltimore/DC, I still consider Pittsburgh to be more Midwestern than Eastern. I've also noted that people here like to visit the Outer Banks in North Carolina rather than going to Florida, as is customary for many Midwestern vacationers.
7. The traffic is almost zero compared to any area in Chicagoland and the road infrastructure is very good. However, note that the airport is far outside the city and about 45 minutes from the eastern suburbs, so you might consider moving to the western side if you're a frequent flier.
8. Pittsburgh is Chicago's equal in most aspects, such as museum, plays, sports, etc.; however, if you need big dance clubs, Portillo's hot dogs, Giordano's pizza, or Lake Michigan, you'll find no real substitute here.
So far, I highly recommend Pittsburgh to anyone looking for an affordable place to live, with "real" people, and all the amenities of any other large American city..but with a character of its own. In a sea of cookie cutter McCities, Pittsburgh stands out. It's somewhat like Birmingham, England except smaller.
Fair enough in most aspects, but some of this just strikes me as off-base. The first is that there is no pride in cities like Chicago and Indianapolis. These are easily the two cleanest cities in the Midwest, certainly more so than Pittsburgh. In particular, there is tremendous pride in Chicago. It's a much cleaner and more aesthetically pleasing place than it was the 70s and 80s. Beautification projects are everywhere. More parks and green space has been created. There are planters in the medians all over the city. Whole neighborhoods are being rehabbed sometimes one house at a time, sometimes entire blocks at a time. New "Euro-style" bus stop shelters are cropping up all over the city. Every single Brown Line L station either has been or is getting overhauled. The subway stations are getting overhauled. Even the ground-level entrances to the subways are getting new contemporary signage and decorative archways. Downtown is so clean you could almost eat off the sidewalks.
As for the notion that there's no middle class in Chicago, that's nonsense. The middle class here probably numbers more than one million. How would you classify the people who live in, say, Montclaire, Irving Park, Portage Park, Clearing, Garfield Ridge, Ford City, Mount Greenwood, West Rogers Park, Dunning, et cetera? Just those neighborhoods alone represent several hundred thousand people. And they are by and large not rich folks living the high life, nor are they ghetto rats.
I'm not sure what the salaries are in the engineering field in the respective cities, but I can tell you that the average starting salaries in my chosen profession are easily 50% higher in Chicago than Pittsburgh.
Lastly, Pittsburgh may be Chicago's equal in the quality of museums, but there's much, much greater quantity and variety of theater in Chicago. Chicago's nightlife scene in general has a lot more quantity and variety. (Hell, there are even Pittsburgh bars in Chicago -- think Joe's on Weed Street. That's where I went to watch the Steelers/Jaksonville playoff game and it was wall-to-wall Yinzers.) For the most part I didn't languish for nightlife options when I lived in Pittsburgh because I'm not a big theater buff of nightclub type. I was more into the craft beer thing where Pittsburgh is at least Chicago's equal if not better. But I definitely wished Pittsburgh had Chicago's nearly unbeatable indie music scene. The other Pittsburgh shortcoming (in my eyes anyway) was the relative lack of culinary options.
In the end, I too would recommend Pittsburgh for most of the same reasons you recommend it, particularly the affordable cost of living and the "real" people.
Good to hear you like Pittsburgh, even if I don't. I lived in western PA when I was going to grad school (at IUP, about 50-60 miles NNE of Pittsburgh) and honestly I HATED it, mainly because western PA is very, very provincial and inward-looking. (FWIW, I'm originally from eastern PA, more specifically the Lehigh Valley - the Allentown/Bethlehem/Easton area.) Even though I don't like Pittsburgh/western PA, no one can deny that it has a generally nice setting. It is pretty dramatic the first time you come through the Fort Pitt Tunnel on the Parkway West from the airport (or points west/southwest) and see downtown Pittsburgh right in front of you as you emerge from the tunnel.
In terms of Pittsburgh's geographic location, I'd definitely group it with places like Cleveland and Buffalo, which from an easterner's point of view is a transition zone between the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic and the Midwest. (Actually, easterners barely know Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Buffalo exist, and would scoff at the idea that Cleveland is anything but the Midwest; that's mainly because those cities are so far away relative to the distance the Northeast Corridor cities are from one another.) Pittsburgh is also in Appalachia, which gives it a somewhat different vibe than even Cleveland or Buffalo as well. From the limited amount of time I've spent in places like Columbus, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis, Pittsburgh definitely feels different than those places; those other cities seem more bland and less unique. I KNOW from living in the Northeast Corridor (or at least the edge of it; the Lehigh Valley area growing up and the Harrisburg area currently) and spending a good bit of time in all the cities in the NYC-DC segment of the Northeast Corridor that Pittsburgh is NOT much like Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, or New York; excluding Baltimore all those places are much bigger, all have much more diversity (especially NYC and DC), and all are places where people aren't nearly as conservative financially.
I agree with the idea that Pittsburgh (and I'd guess Buffalo and even Cleveland) tend to look more eastward towards the Northeast Corridor and especially New York rather than westward towards Chicago for, lack of a better term, association. As someone with a big interest in public transit, what's interesting about Pittsburgh (and also both Cleveland and Buffalo) is that it has reasonable public transit use and a limited amount of rail transit. By contrast, places like Cincinnati and especially Columbus and Indianapolis appear to be transit wastelands, based on ridership numbers I've seen, where people look their noses down on public transit (something I think is generally true in the Midwest outside of Chicago). Of course, in the big Northeast cities using public transit is a way of life for a decent percentage of the population.
Even though Pittsburgh looks eastward, from living in western PA I think it also has an inferiority complex to Philadelphia and New York; much of that IMO is related to the fact Philadelphia and New York (and the East Coast cities in general) tend to ignore Pittsburgh. This lack of attention isn't due to dislike; I know from growing up in the Lehigh Valley people in eastern PA, including the Philadelphia area, generally have nothing bad to say about Pittsburgh (and I didn't until I lived in western PA!). This is an interesting contrast to how many people in the western half of Pennsylvania are biased against Philadelphia. Pittsburgh's lack of attention, as I noted above, to the fact that Pittsburgh is really far away from the East Coast cities, from the East Coast cities' point of view. From Pittsburgh's point of view, Philadelphia is in the same state and one of its closest "neighbor" cities, so I think there is a perception that Philly's/the East Coast's lack of interest in Pittsburgh is meant to be deragatory. Believe me, it isn't. When the biggest city in the country is less than 100 miles away and the nation's capital is less than 150 miles away, you tend to have a lot more interaction with those cities than you do with a much smaller city 300 miles away.
Okay, I really digressed there. Enough of this rambling post!
That was a very well thought out post. Props to you!
Western pennsylvania has its own unique feel, i think, because it is not heavily influenced by another major city, ie the eastern part of pa is heavily if not totally influenced by philly and new york, and it really has no more of a "country or down home" feel to it, and western pa is untouched for the most part, it's like the world has left them alone to do their own thing, keep their own traditions going.
I moved from the Chicago suburbs to Pittsburgh six months ago. Here are my perceptions, with the hope that they will be useful to anyone else thinking of making the same transition or trying to choose between the 2 cities.
1. If you are in a technical field, you'll probably make more money in Pittsburgh than in Chicago. Many of the local companies are hiring now at above national average rates, whereas Chicago technical and engineering jobs seem to pay at or below the national average, with no adjustment for the high cost of housing there. Housing in Pittsburgh is affordable.
2. Downtown Pittsburgh has a character that is all its own. This is due in part to the hilly terrain, distinct architecture and numerous bridges. I have been to many large cities and find most of them have the same look and feel, but Pittsburgh is different in a good way. The city is especially beautiful at night due to the lighting that is used on buildings, bridges and hillsides.
3. Pittsburgh culture is different than that of Midwestern places like Chicago or Indianapolis, where people don't seem to have any pride about the cities. People here are very proud of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania and 100% behind anything that is unique to this area. You'll find that Steelers fanaticism is a year round preoccupation. It can be annoying at times since it's so pervasive, but it is nice to see people continuously stand behind a symbol of their city rather than being fair-weather fans.
4. There is not a lot of what I would call diversity, i.e. a broad cross section of 1st generation immigrants from different countries. It is mainly white and black Americans, with most being 3rd or 4th + generation Americans. It seems to be the last frontier for Mexican immigrants. The few immigrants seem to come mainly from Europe, India, and Africa, but not Mexico as with the rest of the country.
5. There is a large middle class in Pittsburgh. It seemed that in Chicago, half lived in $600,000 houses and drove BMW's and the other half rode the bus and lived in slums. Pittsburgh is more equalized, the cars on the freeways are typically non-luxury, average cars like Accords, Explorers, etc. Housing is typically modest but nice, think of houses that would go for $300,000 in Chicago, but they sell for $200,000 here.
6. People associate more with the Eastern Seaboard states and speak of them more than they speak of the Midwest. Due to it being much closer to the Ohio cornfields than to Philadelphia/Baltimore/DC, I still consider Pittsburgh to be more Midwestern than Eastern. I've also noted that people here like to visit the Outer Banks in North Carolina rather than going to Florida, as is customary for many Midwestern vacationers.
7. The traffic is almost zero compared to any area in Chicagoland and the road infrastructure is very good. However, note that the airport is far outside the city and about 45 minutes from the eastern suburbs, so you might consider moving to the western side if you're a frequent flier.
8. Pittsburgh is Chicago's equal in most aspects, such as museum, plays, sports, etc.; however, if you need big dance clubs, Portillo's hot dogs, Giordano's pizza, or Lake Michigan, you'll find no real substitute here.
So far, I highly recommend Pittsburgh to anyone looking for an affordable place to live, with "real" people, and all the amenities of any other large American city..but with a character of its own. In a sea of cookie cutter McCities, Pittsburgh stands out. It's somewhat like Birmingham, England except smaller.
Thankyou, and lets keep the Burgh our little secret ar it will end up like Chicago.
Fair enough in most aspects, but some of this just strikes me as off-base. The first is that there is no pride in cities like Chicago and Indianapolis. These are easily the two cleanest cities in the Midwest, certainly more so than Pittsburgh. In particular, there is tremendous pride in Chicago. It's a much cleaner and more aesthetically pleasing place than it was the 70s and 80s. Beautification projects are everywhere. More parks and green space has been created. There are planters in the medians all over the city. Whole neighborhoods are being rehabbed sometimes one house at a time, sometimes entire blocks at a time. New "Euro-style" bus stop shelters are cropping up all over the city. Every single Brown Line L station either has been or is getting overhauled. The subway stations are getting overhauled. Even the ground-level entrances to the subways are getting new contemporary signage and decorative archways. Downtown is so clean you could almost eat off the sidewalks.
The type of pride the OP is talking about really has nothing to do with beautification projects and cleanliness.
It's entirely possible to be prideful and dirty.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
