10 things I hate about Pittsburgh! (Woodward: gated, estate, educational)

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

1.) We just had a very warm and dry September---the second-driest on record, as a matter of fact. Even now into mid-October the weather has been fairly mild. Summer was warm, and it was only oppressively hot on a select few days this year. Sunshine has been plentiful. Yes, it is rather depressing and dreary here with incessant cloud cover and biting wind chills from December through March. The same can be said for the entire northern 1/3 of the country (or the entire northern 2/3 of the country last winter).

2.) I'm preparing to open my own business here in the city. I've attended low-cost seminars at the University of Pittsburgh that are funded by the Small Business Association. I find that the tax structure/red tape here is no more oppressive that it is in many other areas.

3.) It's a generational/educational thing. I tend to resent the "old yinzers" so much because I rarely bump into a 50+-year-old native uneducated Pittsburgher who is upbeat, positive, and idealistic about this place whereas most of my educated contemporaries (Millennials, Generation Y) think this city is on a very sharp upswing. Most older people who grow up here do nothing but kvetch about how much greener the grass is elsewhere, as if they are totally oblivious to all of the construction cranes and money pouring into the city with each passing month.

4.) I'll give you this one. The obsession with sports here is incredibly annoying and nearly impossible to avoid if you don't like sports.

5.) Pennsylvania has high taxes. Allegheny County has high taxes. The city has high taxes. That doesn't necessarily translate into a low quality-of-life. Boston, for example, is tax-crazy, yet it's an amazing city. If you want a superior quality-of-life, then you need to pay for it. I'm actually a proponent of HIGHER taxes so we don't have to cross bridges that have been structurally deficient for decades or sit in incessant gridlock that is deplorable and embarrassing for a city of just 300,000.

6.) You should talk to a career coach if you can't find a job here to see what you've been doing wrong. I'm not exactly the most intelligent creature to grace God's green Earth, yet I had no trouble landing an entry-level position with PNC, which I hated due to the deplorable pay, unrealistic quotas, and pressure to work through lunches. All of the "Big Four"--PwC, Deloitte, KPMG, and Ernst & Young---have a presence Downtown, and all have been in growth mode. We have a more diversified economy now than we ever have had before, which is great since I see the "eds" bubble bursting here in about the next decade. There's already many colleges struggling to keep open (look at EDMC's constant layoffs---oh, and I had an interview with them, too, when I first moved here).

7.) I actually don't think we receive nearly enough snow for my personal preferences. We tend to get tons of "dustings" (1-3 inch) snow storms. We are usually just too far inland to get more than a gentle scrape from big Nor'easters, we're usually just too far south to be hit by Lake Effect squalls, and many east-to-west systems are moisture-starved by the time they reach us. You're seriously going to complain about raking leaves? I suggest you live in a place dominated by palm trees, then.




It's not just you. I've noticed the city becoming somewhat unfriendlier since I moved here in 2010, too. I moved here due to all of the "hype". "Pittsburgh is sooooo cheap! Pittsburgh is sooooo friendly! Pittsburgh is sooooo hip and happenin'." I've found much of the hype to be untrue. Pittsburgh is cheap if you're affluent and/or moved here from an area/city considered affluent by national norms. I've watched median rents for a 1-BR spike here consistently year after year since moving here while salaries have remained flat whereas we're now more expensive than may of our peer cities. In recent times I'll hold doors for people---lots of people in a row sometimes---and only be thanked by maybe one while the others just dawdle away on their Smartphones. The other day I greeted a woman as I walked into an elevator at the Clark Building Downtown, and instead of returning the greeting she whipped out her Smartphone. If I go running on the North Shore Trail maybe 50% of people will return my greeting (better than the 33% I experienced in NoVA, but still nothing to be anything but ashamed about). I'm guessing the people who think Pittsburgh is "OMG! Sooooo friendly!!!" don't get out much. I drive all over this city for 11-12 hours per day, six days per week, and interact with hundreds of people daily. The amount of passive-aggressive, undeservedly pompous, upper-middle-class white-collar white people, especially in the East End, is staggering. A lot of these people have never had to work a "hard" day in their lives and treat blue-collar workers as if they're "beneath" them. I thought we were a "blue-collar city"? Now suddenly it's okay to call blue-collar workers "the help" as we interrupt your yoga session?

1. OK, I made a pledge. I refuse to address the weather.
2. I'll take your word for it.
3. 50 year olds? What a bunch of kids! The behavior you describe is something they picked up from their 80-something parents.
4. Probably. When my nephew moved there from Denver, he said he thought Denver was sports-obsessed until he went to Pittsburgh.
5. Your property taxes, which go mainly to schools, are insanely high. I don't know why it costs so much to run the schools there.
6. Probably
7. No talk about weather

Now to your concluding paragraph-
I was going to say something similar to what I_Like_Spam said. It's the same in my job, dealing with the public. Parents of sick kids are a tough bunch of cookies. You tell them you think your kid should come in and be seen, they don't want to do that. You tell them you think their kid doesn't need to be seen, same thing. (This is only a small number, BTW, but you do wonder why people call for advice if they don't even want to consider it!) Yes, hype is usually untrue. I could have told you that when you were searching. Heck, growing up, dealing with teachers, "mean girls" in jr. high and the like, I never though Pgh was particularly friendly either!

[sealie]

Kat, re your #5, this is why.
Historic Woolslair K-5 target of proposed closing to help tackle Pittsburgh Public Schools budget deficit - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Check out the enrollment. The school is still open due to a mass protest by the parents. Multiply this times many schools and many districts and many municipalities. I find it strange, but it's the price paid for resistance to change.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by sealie

Kat, re your #5, this is why.
Historic Woolslair K-5 target of proposed closing to help tackle Pittsburgh Public Schools budget deficit - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Check out the enrollment. The school is still open due to a mass protest by the parents. Multiply this times many schools and many districts and many municipalities. I find it strange, but it's the price paid for resistance to change.

Interesting! I think your teachers are highly paid and you have a lot of administrators, too.

[UKyank]

Originally Posted by tyovan4

5. The media here fails in their journalistic duty to act as public watchdogs/advocates and ask hard questions of elected officials. They're more interested in towing the party line and covering for those in power. Mike Tomlin faces tougher questions from the Post-Gazette than Bill Peduto ever has, or ever will.

This is a huge problem for the city. Most recent prime example Peduto saying that property taxes need to be raised because the city has exhausted all other revenue sources yet next thing you see with the August Wilson Center boondoggle is the city finding millions to spend on it & when questioned where this is coming from the city declined to comment & every reporter in the room just goes 'ok'.

Investigative journalism of anything local just doesn't exist.

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by UKyank

This is a huge problem for the city. Most recent prime example Peduto saying that property taxes need to be raised because the city has exhausted all other revenue sources yet next thing you see with the August Wilson Center boondoggle is the city finding millions to spend on it & when questioned where this is coming from the city declined to comment & every reporter in the room just goes 'ok'.

Investigative journalism of anything local just doesn't exist.

It's okay though because he's putting in bike lanes and cracking down on those dadgum country music fans. No need to look over "there", just report what's going over here.

[doo dah]

I don't understand why people think that "the media" have some sort of higher calling to "act as public watchdogs" when really, their purpose is to make money for their owners, a lot like most other businesses?


Oh! Maybe there needs to be some sort of non-profit-motivated media!

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by doo dah

I don't understand why people think that "the media" have some sort of higher calling to "act as public watchdogs" when really, their purpose is to make money for their owners, a lot like most other businesses?


Oh! Maybe there needs to be some sort of non-profit-motivated media!

Lol. So weather, sports, country music fan garbage, bike lanes, and shootings are the only things they're supposed to report about? Why would investigative reporting result in being non-profit?

[Aqua Teen Carl]

Originally Posted by doo dah

I don't understand why people think that "the media" have some sort of higher calling to "act as public watchdogs" when really, their purpose is to make money for their owners, a lot like most other businesses?

Um.... do you not realize the value of having an impartial media in a free society? I don't even know where to begin on this comment...

Also, I have been doing yoga for 3 years. I ain't even mad.

[UKyank]

Originally Posted by doo dah

I don't understand why people think that "the media" have some sort of higher calling to "act as public watchdogs" when really, their purpose is to make money for their owners, a lot like most other businesses?


Oh! Maybe there needs to be some sort of non-profit-motivated media!

Because 'the press' historically has been considered the 'Forth Estate' to exist as a check on those in public office & provide a protection from excesses of power through open reporting. It a big reason for the freedom of the press protection offered by the 1st amendment.

[doo dah]

Originally Posted by Aqua Teen Carl

Um.... do you not realize the value of having an impartial media in a free society? I don't even know where to begin on this comment...

Also, I have been doing yoga for 3 years. I ain't even mad.

So, where has there been impartial media? Walter Cronkite? Dan Rather? Woodward and Bernstein? I expect there are folks who disagreed with the slant of their reporting.