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I see Scottsdale (where I live now) made it. OF COURSE IT DID! I wonder where Pittsburgh fell on that poll? I didn't see it in the top 100, did anyone else?
Yeah, what does this have to do with Pittsburgh? Was it to prove that it didn't place or did I miss it on the list?
I'm not sure, but I just got this in my email from a good friend when I asked about Pittsburgh:
As someone who has been here for 35+ years I feel I can speak on a wide range of topics regarding this place.
1. Regarding Pittsburgh, one thing few people understand is that downtown Pittsburgh (aka The Golden Triangle) is actually quite tiny, in addition to being quite old. So your husband is right: maneuvering downtown streets is akin to a Manhattan rush hour & parking is both precious and pricey. But guess what? That's where most of the jobs are (what few there are), so get used to it.
2. Another glaring negative for this town is the absolute lack of any beltway system around the metro area. Long ago the Pittsburgh city fathers rejected the idea of a beltway because they wanted people to have to basically funnel into downtown and back out to get anywhere (thinking this would bring commerce.) Fortunately Allegheny County loses population every year, because if The 'Burgh ever got popular then the 1940's roads that we travel on would be gridlocked morning, noon, and night. Oh, and BTW: the 'everybody must come downtown' strategy never worked, and the downtown area remains mostly bereft of anything other than empty office space and the stray theater.
3. That the houses are 'mostly old' is an understatement. Consider yourself fortunate if your home was built after 1970 (Cranberry & Robinson Twp. aside) because most of this town is ancient. Many of the typical frame houses don't even have insulation (enjoy the $500+ heating bills in winter.) Remember, the Pittsburgh area is dotted with dead/dying mill-towns with streets lined with 80+ year old homes that are about an arm's-length apart from each other. Perhaps the plethora of old homes is good for you if you are a fan of the fixer-upper, which can be had in numerous neighborhoods for distinctly low prices. Though i will say: the South Hills is crawling with 1950's ranch homes, not sure how he missed them as they are practically ubiquitous south of the Parkway West all the way to the county line in every single town along the way.
4. Taxes are the devil. And by 'the devil' I mean the product of some of the most entrenched, old-style, corrupt, Tammany-Hall type slimeballs that a decaying rust-belt town can produce. Though I'm not sure what's worse: career politicians or the fools that re-elect them time & time again.
5. Young people have famously left Pittsburgh since the city began its steep decline circa 1970. Are you single? Well you probably will continue being single, good luck finding people your age if you are under 30. Apart from Southern Florida, Western PA has one of the highest concentration of seniors in the nation. Yet another reason why nothing ever changes in this town.
6. Rednecks? Check, plenty of them. Lots of folks with confederate flags on their pickups (boys, don't know how to break it to you but PA was NORTH of the Mason-Dixon during said conflict) but this makes perfect sense as Pittsburgh was THE industrial town of the early 20th century in America. Problem is that those mill jobs are LONG GONE yet the descendants of millworkers still dominate the area, working construction or in countless little hole-in-the-wall tool & die shops and so on. They are not interested in culture because they simply don't come from cultured stock. Ironically, even without the blue-collar jobs, Pittsburgh has remained a mostly blue-collar town.
7. The Steelers... where should I even begin? I'll cut to the chase: the amount of $$$ that the Rooneys rake in from the citizens of the area is borderline criminal. Unless you live here, you just do not understand the slavish devotion to their football team. From children to grandparents, it is a religion. And yet the political power wielded by the team results in practically NO MONEY being plowed back into the community. I would love to ask the people that make minimum-wage & have Steeler season-tickets exactly what the organization has done for this town & the residents, besides providing the bread & circuses that passes for entertainment in some peoples' miserable lives.
8. You probably will work downtown. And that's unfortunate because the infrastructure is circa vintage post-WWII. Case-in-point: the local govt wanted to get the Parkway West (major artery west of town) declared an interstate & the Federal Highway Administration laughed them out of the building after declaring the decrepit highway needed several million dollars worth of upgrades before it could even be considered for interstate status. Enjoy the gridlock (at least the North Hills has Rt279). Oh, and also enjoy the annoying drivers who consider Yield signs to be Stop signs.
9. The weather! I believe this point has been belabored to death, but it does bear repeating that a sunny day in Pittsburgh is like gold. Enjoy it while it lasts because it will be cloudy, cold, and drizzly for the next week.
In summation: yes the crime rate is low (and if you stay out of a handful of neighborhoods, almost non-existent), yes the home prices are favorable (if you don't mind the grime, grit and age), and yes the population mostly keeps to itself (glued to the TV every Sunday in the autumn), but make no mistake this city has been dying for an awful long time. And it's the same insular mentality that ensures it will continue to die. The politics are too entrenched to encourage real change, the people are too entrenched in the "yinzer" mentality to enact any real change (and the sleazy politicians that cater to these people know it), so people keep living the depressing life of a blue-collar hanger-on in a mill-town that's about 60 years past its prime. It's sad. I drive to work and pass through no less than 6 towns that range in status from dilapidated, to ghetto, to slum. None of the dozens of small towns that make up Allegheny County have ever really recovered from the steel industry collapse (though we aren't alone, ask Buffalo, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Detroit, etc) and there is no bright future on the horizon. I wish I had kinder words, i wish a brilliant entrepreneur mogul would land here and revitalize it all, but we have been fed a steady diet of such promises for decades with nothing to show for it except crumbling towns, crumbling infrastructure, and crumbled dreams. Pittsburgh, thy name is gloom.
p.s.
The museums are nice, maybe one day they can dome Allegheny County and turn it into 1 big museum of a past never to see the hope of daylight again.
Geez, she just sent me this too! What is it today? Must be the weather! Is it raining again in Pittsburgh? She always sends me stuff like this when shes bored.
Let me share with you the reality of living here. You can read all the good things other places... and there are plenty of good things like low crime rate and the associated demographics. I encourage you to read about Pittsburgh, it may just be for you! However, you should keep the following in mind before you consider a move here:
1. You will not be able to drive to work and park your car! You will be forced to use public transportation or to pay through the nose for parking (in cash at the cheap $5 lots). If you park at the stadiums you will have to find another place on game days. Your employer will offer no help here but will just expect you to do what people here have always done. You'll find that is the attitude. Not a very forward thinking city or people, they are stuck in the past. Forget about shopping downtown - there IS no downtown shopping and most of the new stuff you STILL have to pay! So much for window shopping!
2. There is no bypass around the city connecting the suburbs. In fact the "neighborhoods" are very badly connected. People here stay where they live and don't venture far from home very often. The roads are narrow, winding, hilly, un-lit, dangerous, very few if any turn lanes or shoulders, etc. There are many deer who routinely lose their lives because people can't see where they are going on these roads.
3. The houses are mostly very old. Unless you live in Robinson or Cranberry, your house will probably have been built in the 50's or earlier. These houses are all multilevel requiring constant climbing of stairs. Ranch housing is almost non-existent, and every house here has a basement, which tend to have moisture/mold problems. Outside of downtown and a few inner city neighborhoods, you won't find many sidewalks or streetlights (Again deer beware). Nobody has done anything to modernize anything outside of downtown.
4. You will pay 4% of your income in the city or 1% if in a suburb to your local municipality, "just because".
5. Droves of young talented people have left this city for decades. The people that have stayed have done so either because of family connections, or fear and anxiety of the outside world. It is extremely difficult in this situation to break into anyone's circle in order to have friends or some semblance of normal relationships with people. You will be constantly watched by people, but very few of them will befriend you. They will all be very polite, and give you directions or such, but don't ask more than that, you aren't getting into their clique!
6. I thought I was getting away from “rednecks” when I came here. It turns out that this is a very backwoods city. There are tons of deer hunters and pickup trucks. I’m just saying!
7. The Steelers are a religion here. Don't get caught at the grocery store during a game. The employees will scowl at you because you should be at home with your fat butt on a recliner with an iron city beer in one hand and a terrible towel in the other watching the game instead of making them work! I’ve decided that the reason for this is that because it is too cold and dreary to have any regular outdoor activities here, watching sports has become the pastime. As evidence is the devotion these people have to Pirates baseball and Penguins Hockey. There is no season here without an emphasis on black and gold sports.
8. You will work downtown. There are very few big businesses (Robinson excluded) that have nice suburban locations. Pittsburgh keeps the city center crime free by cramming all its citizens into the inner city during business hours, and then trying to keep some of them there with restaurants and theatre (very expensive). The problem here is the parking problem mentioned above, and the general feel of crowdedness. A better approach would have been to build a loop around the city and locate businesses around the loop rather than have the city collapse around its center each day.
9. Finally, the weather. Sure, this is the north, and it is cold most of the year. Additionally you need to realize that Pittsburgh is geographically in a big bowl. It is why when they made steel here the smoke couldn't escape and it literally coated the city in soot. The smoke and soot aren't a problem anymore, but the bowl still is. Weather patterns hold over the area and moisture collects and can't escape. The skies are gray and clouded from November till April (no exaggeration). Humidity is generally high making it hard to breath and irritating sinuses. If you think you may have anxiety or depression issues, especially if seasonal, you will want to think about this one really hard.
All that said, get yinz ohve here! If none of this is a problem, and you can find employment here, more power to ya. I am getting out as soon as I can though just like all the other young talented people that have come before me, but Pittsburgh has taught me a lot of life lessons that I'll take with me where ever I go, mostly how not to set up my life.
Sorry guys, but I just wanted to share another opinion of what others say about the city.
wasn't the 2nd one basically a re-wording of the first e-mail? Doesn't seem like anything negative that hasn't already been said about Pittsburgh metro
wasn't the 2nd one basically a re-wording of the first e-mail? Doesn't seem like anything negative that hasn't already been said about Pittsburgh metro
I didn't write it, it was sent to me. It was from the same person though.
I don't agree with everything. I am surprised Pittsburgh didn't make that top list though. It makes so many others! In my opinion. the weather is SO hot in Scottsdale/Phoenix that I wouldn't put it at the top of any list. I absolutely love it here, but man, it is HOT. That in itself, should take it off any list. The cold weather (cold -not grey!) is much easier to deal with than the heat. And this is coming from a person who loves warm beach weather!
I didn't write it, it was sent to me. It was from the same person though.
I don't agree with everything. I am surprised Pittsburgh didn't make that top list though. It makes so many others! In my opinion. the weather is SO hot in Scottsdale/Phoenix that I wouldn't put it at the top of any list. I absolutely love it here, but man, it is HOT. That in itself, should take it off any list. The cold weather (cold -not grey!) is much easier to deal with than the heat. And this is coming from a person who loves warm beach weather!
No, I know you didn't write it. I was just saying those are typical complaints of the area. I agree the weather in Arizona is sometimes borderline unbearable, at least for me. It seems like that kinda weather is what a lot of people are looking for (among other things) anymore. I don't tend to mind the grey weather (although sometimes it makes it hard to get motivated to get out of bed for work in the morning) but I know a lot of people really hate it. I'm Italian, so I'm tan all year round so I don't need the sun
Do you still live in Pittsburgh and Arizona as well?
I find it intersting that what "people are looking for" is why we are leaving the south. The heat really is unbearable (especially in this swamp). The temp according to my car was 98 at 5:30 this afternoon...98! My little girl came in screaming "It's the hottest day ever" and our response was "it has only begun". I think a lot of teh time it is a case of teh grass being greener. Having grown up in the South and dealt with it all of our lives, we really yearn for the snow and less sun. Whereas, I was talking to a guy from Chicago the other day and he's lovin' the heat down here. ~shrugs~
Oh, and it looks like we are bringing the heat with us. Next week is going to have a couple of 80+ days. It always happens to me. I went to London and they had record highs the whole time I was there and one Christmas in San Francisco, I brought 90 degree weather...in December. Guess I am just hot!
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