Where to live? Shadyside or South Side? (Pittsburgh, Gap: sale, coupon)

[charlotteSucks111]

ummm trust me, Denver is NOT twice the size of Pittsburgh haha that's absurd. Maybe if you count ONLY the legally delimited area of the city, but Pittsburgh is very large if you count the contiguous areas that actually makeup the city. Denver is a cute like step child to Pgh, come on?! Seriously, Denver? haha - to be fair though, Pgh is one of those places where the outline of the actual 'city' is unfairly limited. Take Houston, it just goes and goes and goes - if Pittsburgh grouped the same number of neighborhoods, you'd be astounded with the population.

[AaronPGH]

I wouldn't completely write off the South Side. Yes, it's a pain in the ass in some locations, but most people don't realize that there are two VERY different South Sides. The first South Side is the western portion, closer to Duquesne and downtown. This part has a mostly college crowd and rowdy bars everywhere. This is the area I would avoid. With that said, the eastern portion (where I live) is vastly different. The closer you move to the South Side Works, the more young professional you will find it to be as it's closer to Oakland, the Tech Center and the SSW corporations. For instance, my block is between 23rd and 24th streets. Every single house on my block is owner occupied, and the median age is probably around 30. There are three professional couples (each with dogs), two owned by young guys (myself included), and one older retired woman. It's extremely quiet and nothing like living further down the strip towards the bars. The nice part of this is that I reap all the benefits of southside (coffee shops, grocery, clothing stores at the works, banks, higher end restaurants), without the puke, noise and everything else. Also, being on this end gives you nearly instant access to the Birmingham Bridge (East End, Downtown), and Hot Metal (376), regardless of traffic conditions everywhere else in the city. If you want to go towards Century 3, you're there pretty quickly via Carson St. I guess what I'm saying is that it's an area that is extremely overlooked by people and shouldn't be.

Also, I have never had an issue hailing a cab down here. I've always gotten one within 5 minutes in evenings by walking to Carson St. Getting back is a little more difficult, but it's never been too big of a problem with a call if you're in a main area and you TELL them that you are headed back to the south side. Most of you may be unaware that Pittsburgh's cab companies were recently bought out by Veolia Transport Worldwide (you can see the effects of this with recently launched SuperShuttle). This is a very good thing for us. They just rolled out a satellite communication system for our taxis – one of only 11 cities in the nation. Hopefully that will speed things up.

As someone whose life partner is in Denver (I travel there almost every month and he comes here as well), I have to say that cab service here is much faster and efficient. Sure, it's not great, but it's certainly a lot better than most other mid-sized cities that I've been to.

[AaronPGH]

Also, about the more people living in Downtown Denver thing, you're forgetting that our downtown footprint is extremely small compared to denver, and bordered on three sides by rivers, disconnecting the closest neighborhoods from it.

When you expand the footprint of "Downtown Pittsburgh" to the same dimensions of Denver you capture most of the north side, some of the hill/Oakland, and portions of the South Side / Mount Washington.....easily pushing our number of "downtown" residents above Denver's.

[BrianTH]

For what it is worth, the Census defines something called "urbanized areas" which capture roughly what most people think of in terms of a major city and its suburbs. In 2000, the urbanized area of Denver had a population of 1,984,887, and the urbanized area of Pittsburgh has a population of 1,753,136.

[prefect]

Does anyone know a number for a jitney service near Robinson Twp, PA?

[drshang]

I had many friends who would take cabs late at night from one part of the city to another (Strip-Shadyside, Squirrel Hill-Strip, Shadyside-Southside) without any problems. I don't quite get the issues people are having with cabs. As Awsomo said, just call in advance and you don't have a real problem IMO.

[gaelgirl]

Shadyside.

[Herodotus]

Since the op is from Philly, I'll put it this way.
Southside is similar to non ghetto areas of inner city Philly. Very dense, rowhouses, no yards, stoops.
Shadyside would be suburban by Philly standards. Big houses, modest yards, leafy.

[raubre]

I wish there was a neighborhood that had great qualities of both neighborhoods. I liek South Side's restaraunts and concert venues, but I like Shadyside's shopping and gayborhood.

Oh I'm so torn..... I guess I like the Easten neighborhoods best (Shadyside, Sq Hill, Regent Sq, East Lib) and can still catch a show at Diesel, The Rex, Club Cafe or Station Square.

[Copanut]

Shadyside, dockers & polo shirts.

Southside, High heels and halters.