What are Pittsburgh's peer cities? (Reading, Warren: top neighborhood, high school, live in)

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I'll need more time to look, but most of the housing seems to be 1.5 story cottages in the older neighborhoods. I quite like the looks of these however.

Well, yes, you do need to look around. Anyway, I was talking about neighborhoods.

[ForYourLungsOnly]

There are many neighborhoods in Midwest cities that certainly have a sense of place...see Chicago, Cincinnati, and St. Louis for starters.

[Herodotus]

Originally Posted by ForYourLungsOnly

There are many neighborhoods in Midwest cities that certainly have a sense of place...see Chicago, Cincinnati, and St. Louis for starters.

Those are the big 3. They far outdistance any other Midwest cities. The other cities in the Midwest are lucky to have one or two such neighborhoods (Columbus actually has 3). From Boston, south to Richmond, and west to Pittsburgh, pretty much every city is loaded with such areas, even the smaller places. Places like Reading put Indy to shame. I even find Hagerstown to have more charm.

I"ve seen many Indy vs Columbus threads, but I find Columbus to be far more interesting.

[ForYourLungsOnly]

Originally Posted by Herodotus

Those are the big 3. They far outdistance any other Midwest cities. The other cities in the Midwest are lucky to have one or two such neighborhoods (Columbus actually has 3). From Boston, south to Richmond, and west to Pittsburgh, pretty much every city is loaded with such areas, even the smaller places. Places like Reading put Indy to shame. I even find Hagerstown to have more charm.

I"ve seen many Indy vs Columbus threads, but I find Columbus to be far more interesting.

I still think you're not giving the Midwest enough credit. I'm no fan of Indy (nor Columbus for that matter), but the Midwest is full of neighborhoods with clear identities. I would say Minneapolis/St. Paul are more interesting than Columbus, for example, and MPS is an all around interesting and enjoyable place to live. Cleveland has its fair share of interesting enclaves, and I wouldn't put it "far behind" St. Louis or Cinci. I would take Madison, WI over Reading any day. I too enjoy the larger number of old, dense intact neighborhoods in the North East when compared to the Midwest, but to say the Midwest is lacking in this department isn't really true. Less than the North East, but not lacking overall. I'd say Cinci and arguably St. Louis are equivalent to Pittsburgh in both historical neighborhood enclaves and "sense of place". Somewhere like Chicago is on another level due to size and scale, and has many excellent neighborhoods with an obvious sense of place. Its not only big cities either.

Check out Galena, IL (population 3,429)
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https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...75a61c22cc.jpg

[gladhands]

Originally Posted by ForYourLungsOnly

I still think you're not giving the Midwest enough credit. I'm no fan of Indy (nor Columbus for that matter), but the Midwest is full of neighborhoods with clear identities. I would say Minneapolis/St. Paul are more interesting than Columbus, for example, and MPS is an all around interesting and enjoyable place to live. Cleveland has its fair share of interesting enclaves, and I wouldn't put it "far behind" St. Louis or Cinci. I would take Madison, WI over Reading any day. I too enjoy the larger number of old, dense intact neighborhoods in the North East when compared to the Midwest, but to say the Midwest is lacking in this department isn't really true. Less than the North East, but not lacking overall. I'd say Cinci and arguably St. Louis are equivalent to Pittsburgh in both historical neighborhood enclaves and "sense of place". Somewhere like Chicago is on another level due to size and scale, and has many excellent neighborhoods with an obvious sense of place. Its not only big cities either.

Check out Galena, IL (population 3,429)

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https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...75a61c22cc.jpg

Looks like any small town with a town square. That could be the town from Stranger Things. There's q difference between having a town square and having urban neighborhoods.

[ForYourLungsOnly]

Originally Posted by gladhands

Looks like any small town with a town square. That could be the town from Stranger Things. There's q difference between having a town square and having urban neighborhoods.

It was in response to his/her mentioning of "small towns". Galena is a small historic town with victorian neighborhoods on the Mississippi River. Would you say Butler is "more intact" or "more charming" ? Note that Butler's population is 10,000 more than this tiny town on the river. His point was that even small towns in the North East have more "charm" than bigger Midwestern cities. I would say that is a sweeping generalization, and incorrect. Gotta see the context of the post.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Katarina Witt

Well, yes, you do need to look around. Anyway, I was talking about neighborhoods.

In what way are the neighborhoods distinctive from each other exactly? They don't seem that distinctive in terms of topography or built form. Are there still distinct ethnic enclaves? Walkable business districts that community life centers around? I'm all ears.

Originally Posted by ForYourLungsOnly

Check out Galena, IL (population 3,429)

Galena is so distinctive because it is a really old small city. It was built out due to lead mining (hence the name) beginning in the 1820s, and basically peaked by the Civil War. The long period of decline was important, because it meant the historic downtown survived intact through to the 1980s, when it was reinvented as a tourist location - basically becoming the Jim Thorpe of Illinois. A lot of towns of similar size from the early 19th century had their historic cores heavily altered by later growth, if not totally destroyed.

Originally Posted by gladhands

Looks like any small town with a town square. That could be the town from Stranger Things. There's q difference between having a town square and having urban neighborhoods.

Galena actually does have some urban housing off of its business district. See here. Or here. It's admittedly not much however.

[ForYourLungsOnly]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Galena is so distinctive because it is a really old small city. It was built out due to lead mining (hence the name) beginning in the 1820s, and basically peaked by the Civil War. The long period of decline was important, because it meant the historic downtown survived intact through to the 1980s, when it was reinvented as a tourist location - basically becoming the Jim Thorpe of Illinois. A lot of towns of similar size from the early 19th century had their historic cores heavily altered by later growth, if not totally destroyed.

Ok? Same goes for the decline of many small manufacturing towns in the North East and Rust Belt. Too bad McKeesport didn't stay intact. People asking for a small intact town "with charm", I provide an example, and its written off.

I don't see how Pittsburgh has more intact or distinct neighborhoods than Cinci or St. Louis. Does Minneapolis/St. Paul lack neighborhoods that are distinct from each other, intact or vibrant?

I like Pittsburgh more than many Midwestern cities, but the bias in this thread is starting to come off as ignorant when you write off entire regions of the country as "bland" or without character just because Indy sucks.

Here..a neighborhood with no sense of place in the much forgotten about St. Paul
https://goo.gl/maps/xHieV86vfo42

How about Uptown, Minneapolis; certainly not well known, but I'm sure it has a sense of place. It isn't some flat open sea of parking lots with no character.
https://goo.gl/maps/bsdzqgTZy5o

[ForYourLungsOnly]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Galena actually does have some urban housing off of its business district. See here. Or here. It's admittedly not much however.

Perhaps its not much because it is a tiny city. Like...much smaller than even Butler.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by ForYourLungsOnly

Ok? Same goes for the decline of many small manufacturing towns in the North East and Rust Belt. Too bad McKeesport didn't stay intact. People asking for a small intact town "with charm", I provide an example, and its written off.

I never said that there were none in the Midwest. I only said Galena is an outlier for the area it's in. AFAIK for example, it's the only place in Illinois besides Chicago that still has rowhouses.

Originally Posted by ForYourLungsOnly

I don't see how Pittsburgh has more intact or distinct neighborhoods than Cinci or St. Louis.

Pittsburgh definitely has more than Cinci I think. Cincinnati is a slightly smaller city than Pittsburgh, and was hit much harder by urban renewal. Plus while Newport and Covington are great little walkable cities, they are across the state line in Kentucky. I don't know enough about Saint Louis to comment in that case.

Originally Posted by ForYourLungsOnly

Here..a neighborhood with no sense of place in the much forgotten about St. Paul
https://goo.gl/maps/xHieV86vfo42

I'm not saying it's not pretty. But once you get off the main drag of the business district, it's dominated by wood-frame detached single-family houses with scattered small apartment buildings.

To be clear, I wasn't implying that by someplace lacking a "sense of place" that it wasn't charming or urban. I meant that it was interchangeable in terms of its built form with a number of other cities, not to mention neighborhoods within its own city. Hell, I feel the same way about the "grand house belt" in the East End. Shadyside/Friendship/Highland Park are very generic parts of Pittsburgh which look pretty similar to lots of other cities. In contrast, there's nowhere else I could imagine Polish Hill.