Are all Western PA suburbs like this? (Pittsburgh, Penn: how much, landscaping)

[fat lou]

Originally Posted by Moby Hick

That's just not true. Squirrel Hill is certainly a well-off place, but you only see the houses and not the apartments or cut-up houses. Colfax has about 1/3 of its students getting free school lunches. Minadeo is higher, but draws more of its students from outside of the district.

Yeah, and those apartments are full of grad students and medical residents. Like I said.

"Colfax serves students living in parts of Squirrel Hill, East Hills, Homewood, Shadyside, and Point Breeze."

Who wants to take bets that most of those kids getting free lunch are from East Hills and Homewood?

[gladhands]

Originally Posted by fat lou

Yeah, and those apartments are full of grad students and medical residents. Like I said.

"Colfax serves students living in parts of Squirrel Hill, East Hills, Homewood, Shadyside, and Point Breeze."

Who wants to take bets that most of those kids getting free lunch are from East Hills and Homewood?

You think all those Hasidic families piled up in the apartment buildings in Squirrel Hill South are affluent?

[Lo-Fi]

Originally Posted by fat lou

Yeah, and those apartments are full of grad students and medical residents. Like I said.

"Colfax serves students living in parts of Squirrel Hill, East Hills, Homewood, Shadyside, and Point Breeze."

Who wants to take bets that most of those kids getting free lunch are from East Hills and Homewood?

I haven't been there for a while now, but certainly when I lived in Squirrel Hill, a fat chunk of the population was pretty run of the mill Pitt/CMU students. Especially South SQH, with the heaviest concentrations in the heart of the business district, between Murray and Shady, out along Beacon, and down toward Greenfield.

Has that demo shifted quite a lot?

[fat lou]

Originally Posted by gladhands

You think all those Hasidic families piled up in the apartment buildings in Squirrel Hill South are affluent?

All right guys, you're right. I agree with you. You're clearly superior to those elitist rich b@$tards in Fox Chapel and you're down with the poor because you live in.....Squirrel Hill. Whateva.

[ElijahAstin]

Originally Posted by gladhands

You think all those Hasidic families piled up in the apartment buildings in Squirrel Hill South are affluent?

Not saying everyone in Squirrel Hill is wealthy, but Hasidim form a fairly small percentage of the total population. Don't confuse Modern Orthodox (or even Ultra-Orthodox) with the Ultra-Ultra-Orthodox of Kiryas Joel and Borough Park fame.

[SorryIMovedBack]

Originally Posted by BlissFinderofGaia

Thanks for your feedback, caroline2. That is what I was afraid of. There's a lot great about this area and about the people but I'm having a hard time with the negatives as it is emotionally hard on me and my children. We moved from an area with genuinely nice and inclusive people. It provided a superior education, one well funded with updated schools, great playgrounds (and an abundance of great playgrounds in the entire community), and a progressive attitude in the school system. I truly miss how friendly everyone was there after coming here and seeing how people act in other areas of the country.

I think you expect too much of western PA. Historically, the west side of PA had steel mills, other heavy industry like foundries, railroad, and agriculture. Education wasn't required nor valued when a man could get a decent job and earn big bucks with only a high school education. Western PA has mill people, immigrant, and unskilled labor history to overcome. For the Baby Boomer gen college grads, the region as a whole could provide only an entry level opportunity, and then those college grads departed for better pay and career opportunities in larger metro areas, primarily Sun Belt.

Pittsburgh has transformed to some extent, but still has a rep for below average pay. There have been several people on this board who came and soon left because of the ceiling on opportunities here. Tech pays less than national wage. Ed and med are better. If you are making big bucks on 1 income, boo yah for you. Most people need 2. This area is heavily working class Catholic, so far as roots and also current situation go. Many of these working women you meet are 1st gen college grad and 1st gen to not call housewife mama their primary role. They are proud of their working woman status. As for volunteering to go putz with the kids in school, pfft on that. The school personnel are paid to do a job. They dang well better be doing it, because career women are NOT the volunteering homemaker type. Volunteer mom in school sounds 1950s to me. You may need a reality check on that situation.

Drinking: My mother says it goes with the ethnicities and Catholic working class roots. Says Protestant and Jewish culture isn't big into drinking. If you think you have boorish dolts there , come on up to small town western PA and I'll show ya some real dregs and simpletons. Drinking, drugs, screwing, following the high school sports teams are as good as it gets. Women can only go to church, do things with their own kids, or their mother. Men run with the men and leave wife and kids home to fend for themselves. That's the lifestyle in summary. Lol. Look up the old thread What's wrong with Pennsylvania women, hah.

Violence and fights in Pittsburgh area schools: Far far worse than anything I saw growing up in small town western PA. I dated a Pittsburgh native 6 years older than me. He's from educated parents , but gravitated to their yinzer roots more. He said fighting in schools was sport. We never had a fight club culture up here in small town. Think that's more of an urban thing down there in Pittsburgh area. Fights here are rare, and due to a genuine disagreement.

Insular and unfriendly ppl: Yup. In spades. Goes with the milltown culture, the number of couples still having 3-4 kids in this age, big extended Catholic families that are their own closed social network , the 40 years lack of transplants moving into the region due to lack of opportunity, etc. . I don't think you'll avoid that any way other than to work for a very large employer who heavily recruits well educated out of state ppl who all socialize with other cosmopolitan ppl from their workplace. The milltown and small town mentality isn't comfortable opening up to strangers, so they don't. Inferiority complex and lack of confidence has a lot to do with that. I can intimidate people here. After 10 years, I gave up trying to avoid doing that. I enjoy the genuinely rural ppl up here, but then they are the only ones that share my ethnic background and religion and see the value of educating women. They are also the more confident and friendly ppl here.

[DaisyDaisy]

Originally Posted by SorryIMovedBack

Pittsburgh has transformed to some extent, but still has a rep for below average pay. There have been several people on this board who came and soon left because of the ceiling on opportunities here. Tech pays less than national wage. Ed and med are better. If you are making big bucks on 1 income, boo yah for you. Most people need 2. This area is heavily working class Catholic, so far as roots and also current situation go. Many of these working women you meet are 1st gen college grad and 1st gen to not call housewife mama their primary role. They are proud of their working woman status. As for volunteering to go putz with the kids in school, pfft on that. The school personnel are paid to do a job. They dang well better be doing it, because career women are NOT the volunteering homemaker type. Volunteer mom in school sounds 1950s to me. You may need a reality check on that situation.

In what small, out of touch area do you hang out? I work and nearly all of the moms of my kids' friends work and they are very involved with the school. As a working parent, I'm also happy when a stay at home mom is able to do some of the things I can't due to work schedule. The mommy wars may exist to some extent in some areas (including what OP described) but your description doesn't fit nearly any local circumstance for which I'm aware, and I have friends with kids at PPS, Winchester Thurston, Fox Chapel, Avonworth, North Allegheny and Shaler.

Drinking: My mother says it goes with the ethnicities and Catholic working class roots. Says Protestant and Jewish culture isn't big into drinking. If you think you have boorish dolts there , come on up to small town western PA and I'll show ya some real dregs and simpletons. Drinking, drugs, screwing, following the high school sports teams are as good as it gets. Women can only go to church, do things with their own kids, or their mother. Men run with the men and leave wife and kids home to fend for themselves. That's the lifestyle in summary. Lol. Look up the old thread What's wrong with Pennsylvania women, hah.

Again, what one small town are you talking about? Do you interact with people outside of that town? Not my experience at all. I do agree that I've seen SOME of what you describe but it tends to be outside Allegheny county and in very rural areas where there are a lot of Trump signs.

[Craziaskowboi]

Oh great, who bumped this worthless discussion?

[alastad]

As someone who grew up in what my mother would describe as a "upper middle middle class" family in upper Munhall, who currently lives with an overweight man who, to put it politely, could make himself appear a whole lot more presentable to society half of the time, would always think to myself "well, maybe you wouldn't get treated so judgmentally if you presented yourself to others better" whenever that same man would complain to me about Pittsburghers being snobs ( he's originally from Brilliant, OH). I also noticed that the majority of people here who didn't treat him judgmentally were uhm, not the most savory characters themselves should we say, i.e., a lot of druggies, bums, you get the picture, but then we befriended some people who were normal and coincidentally they were all non native Pittsburghers ( two of them were from FL). After that I started noticing more complaints on here from transplants about the snobbery here and it got me wondering, "do we as Pittsburgh actually have a snobbery problem"? If you go to say, Rochester, NY, to name a random city, would more normal people there give someone like my roommate the time of day as opposed to here?

[okaydorothy]

I don't know if it is a snobbery problem. I think it is just that way here. Most people know someone from somewhere in Pittsburgh. Constantly I see it at work ; a new hire is talking about where she is from, all of a sudden there is a connection with family or friends, and she is welcomed into the fold.
Us non Pittsburghers have a hard time with that. Because we are not from here, we have zero connections, zero family that can be traced back to someone and so we are kept at bay.
We have to make an effort to get to know people, but it does not go the other way in return.