10 things I hate about Pittsburgh! (York, Columbia: 2013, buyer, delivery)

[LIRefugee]

Originally Posted by Adore837

it seems like there's nothing but theater and art around here and I'm not into any of that.

Just an aside, but I have to think that Pittsburgh is turning a major corner in terms of its reputation if a major complaint about it is that there is too much theater and art.

That's a far cry from this exchange in the 1941 film Sullivan's Travels:

[discussing a prior 'serious' film]
LeBrand: It died in Pittsburgh.
Hadrian: Like a dog!
John L. Sullivan: Aw, what do they know in Pittsburgh...
Hadrian: They know what they like.
John L. Sullivan: If they knew what they liked, they wouldn't live in Pittsburgh!

[Burghson86]

Originally Posted by courtsue09

1. The Steelers obsession
2. The shock from yinzers over not being a Steelers fan (I just don't care about sports)
3. Yinzers
4. Pittsburghese
5. I find it very confusing to drive in the city. But I rarely have to drive myself there.
6. The winter weather/dreary days
7. Road construction
8. Sometimes people just don't want to hear about sports every single day!
9. If you don't watch football you are an outcast
10. No direct route to the South Hills from The West.

Seems like you have some issues.

[SteelCityRising]

1.) Way too many people here smoke.

2.) There is a disgusting plethora of litter; the offenders from #1 are largely to blame by tossing their cigarette butts wherever they feel like.

3.) While I adore our four distinctive seasons I would prefer there to be fewer "gray" overcast days in the winter.

4.) As was already mentioned there is a strong apathy within the local African-American community to curtail their violent crime epidemic. How many times do you hear about someone being gunned down in Homewood or The Hill, and witnesses won't come forward? Pittsburgh would likely be the nation's safest large city if you took out black-on-black violent crime.

5.) Housing prices are steadily increasing. That's great if you've already bought into the housing market. If you're an entry-level homebuyer, though, your options become fewer and fewer with each passing year unless you want to live in a ghetto. You now need six-figures just to buy into neighborhoods like Bloomfield, which has an ugly-as-sin housing stock to begin with.

6.) This area has an undesirable SUV-to-hybrid ratio. I drove my hybrid around the city last winter while delivering food and had limited difficulty. If the woman who ran a red light and totaled my sedan hadn't been driving a massive Honda Pilot I probably wouldn't still be enduring neck pain right now.

7.) Public transportation is an absolute joke; it will be an anemic joke in September once all of PAT's cuts become effective.

8.) The obsession with the Steelers is annoying, to say the least, for those of us who despise football. If only the Pirates or Penguins received equal attention...

9.) Drunk driving should not be as prevalent as it is here in one of the nation's most walkable cities. If you want to drink, then walk to the nearest bar, arrange to have a designated driver cart you around, call a taxi, take the bus, etc. If you're from a place like Peters Township or Cranberry Township and CAN'T walk to a bar, take a taxi, or take a bus, then do us all a favor and abstain from drinking.

10.) Not enough Chick-Fil-A's!

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by Burghson86

Seems like you have some issues.

Not every thread on this sub-forum has to be "rah, rah Pittsburgh." For as much as I love this city there are still many aspects of life here that get under my skin on a daily basis. For every one considerate smoker who will actually ask me for permission before lighting up on a park bench near me I'll have to endure two more who will obliviously blow their foul exhaust in my face on Lothrop Street while I'm passing them to make a delivery to Presby while they yammer into their cell phones about how they couldn't use their Access Cards (that are supported by industrious people like me) to buy something frivolous (like cigarettes).

[bradjl2009]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

6.) This area has an undesirable SUV-to-hybrid ratio. I drove my hybrid around the city last winter while delivering food and had limited difficulty. If the woman who ran a red light and totaled my sedan hadn't been driving a massive Honda Pilot I probably wouldn't still be enduring neck pain right now.

Sorry families can't squeeze into a Toyota Prius or Civic hybrid.

[Srewolf]

Had to laugh...just posted for retirement suggestions stating I hated west PA because they have beautiful state parks full of trash...bait cups to diapers....environmental disregard in every respect....power plants/fracking/mining.....public transit poor...and not dog friendly....

Love Vancouver/victoria bc....pristine parks and coastland...dog friendly...great public transit...looking for a US, more affordable alternative

[Craziaskowboi]

Originally Posted by courtsue09

1. The Steelers obsession

See also: Boston Red Sox, SEC football. (Except they get idolized for their zeal, not demonized.)

Originally Posted by courtsue09

2. The shock from yinzers over not being a Steelers fan (I just don't care about sports)

The majority of people on this board don't either, but they don't hate Pittsburghers for it.

Originally Posted by courtsue09

3. Yinzers
4. Pittsburghese

It's a dialect. Big deal. Nobody hates Boston, New York or Chicago for having abrasive dialects.

Originally Posted by courtsue09

5. I find it very confusing to drive in the city. But I rarely have to drive myself there.

Actual practice eliminates the confusion.

Originally Posted by courtsue09

6. The winter weather/dreary days

It's summer now. Get outside and enjoy it. Or are you that afraid of the locals?

Originally Posted by courtsue09

7. Road construction

Not every city is blessed with the majority of its infrastructure being less than 30 years old.

Originally Posted by courtsue09

8. Sometimes people just don't want to hear about sports every single day!
9. If you don't watch football you are an outcast

Like I said, the majority of people on this message board don't watch football, but they've still managed to find their niches and not feel like outcasts.

Originally Posted by courtsue09

10. No direct route to the South Hills from The West.

The only legitimate complaint of the 10.

So where did you and your husband come from anyway?

[Bettafish]

too few asians. all you can see are students/scholars who will not stay.

[Burghson86]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

Not every thread on this sub-forum has to be "rah, rah Pittsburgh." For as much as I love this city there are still many aspects of life here that get under my skin on a daily basis. For every one considerate smoker who will actually ask me for permission before lighting up on a park bench near me I'll have to endure two more who will obliviously blow their foul exhaust in my face on Lothrop Street while I'm passing them to make a delivery to Presby while they yammer into their cell phones about how they couldn't use their Access Cards (that are supported by industrious people like me) to buy something frivolous (like cigarettes).

Yeah, that's not why I made the response I did. Six of the issues mentioned in the post I responded to were pretty much directly related to one another. Yinzers and sports accounted for over half of the complaints when they could have all been easily used for one..... Yinzers. I don't care if someone wants to bad mouth aspects of the city, but if you are going to reiterate the same thing over and over again I don't have a problem mentioning that you are doing so.

[Craziaskowboi]

Originally Posted by Bettafish

too few asians. all you can see are students/scholars who will not stay.

There are 41,238 Asians in the Pittsburgh MSA, with 34,090 of them in Allegheny County, according to the 2010 Census.

There are 11,955 undergraduate and graduate students at Carnegie Mellon University, with Asians and Pacific Islanders accounting for 17% of the student body, and non-U.S. citizens accounting for another 29%. Assuming that half non-U.S. citizens are Asian, that'd make 32% of the student body Asian, and assuming that there are 100 Pacific Islanders, that'd make a total of 3,726 Asians at Carnegie Mellon University.

There are 18,427 undergraduate students at the University of Pittsburgh, with Asians accounting for 4% of the student body as of 2007. Assuming that Asian undergraduate enrollment at the University of Pittsburgh increased to 6%, that'd amount to 1,106 Asians. There are also 10,339 graduate students at the University of Pittsburgh. I cannot find the racial composition of the graduate students, but assuming that one third of them are Asian, that'd amount to 3,446 graduate students.

Altogether, the number of Asian undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University that I got is 8,278, and since I liberally estimated the unknown percentages, the number is likely closer to 8,000. Duquesne University, Robert Morris University and all the smaller liberal arts colleges combined likely contribute no more than 1,000 Asian students to the local population. This means that less than 10,000 Asians in the Pittsburgh area are among this transient student population.

Subtracting less than 10,000 from 34,090 leaves you with about 25,000 Asians in Allegheny County that are not students, and, thus, more than likely permanent residents. And this doesn't account for the 7,148 Asians who live in the Pittsburgh area outside of Allegheny County. In other words, the impact of college students on the local Asian population is overstated, because no more than a quarter of all Asians in the Pittsburgh area are college students.

The Asian population in the Pittsburgh MSA increased by 57.3% between 2000 and 2010, which is greater than the rate of growth in the United States as a whole (43.3%). Assuming an equal rate of growth between 2010 and 2020, that'd amount to 64,868 Asians in the Pittsburgh MSA by 2020. Assuming a slower rate of growth -- say, 50.0% -- that'd amount to 61,857 Asians by 2020. For the Pittsburgh MSA to end up with fewer than 60,000 Asians by 2020, the Asian population growth would have to slow down to a rate of 45.5%.