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Could it be that this viewpoint is generally experienced more by people living in diverse/progressive areas like Oakland/Shadyside/Squirrel Hill/South Side Flats, etc. while the family/insular/friends for decades viewpoint is generally more true in places like the hilly parts of the Northside, neighborhoods behind Mt. Washington, West End, etc. mostly those with run-down row houses? I might've overly focused on the family/insular/friends for decades perspective because the latter are by far my favorite neighborhoods in the city due to their houses and street patterns so I naturally think of them primarily when I think of Pittsburgh.
Absolutely. And using that framing, I think the balance has been shifting in recent years toward the more progressive neighborhoods.
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Unlike every other American city I've been to, last I checked Pittsburgh does not have a complete transit system map
Yeah, that is ridiculous. They actually made a more or less standard system map in PDF form for the proposed system, so why they can't do the same for the existing system in the meantime is beyond me.
Yeah, that is ridiculous. They actually made a more or less standard system map in PDF form for the proposed system, so why they can't do the same for the existing system in the meantime is beyond me.
This is so incredibly annoying--why can a comprehensive, easy-to-read, and "anatomically correct" map be produced for Pittsburgh? The few crappy maps on the PAT website are not only partial (each focusing on a few bus routes or the T system or the busways) but ugly and almost incomprehesible. They are stylized in a way that does not reflect actual routes. I LOVE maps and would love to pour over a transit map of Pittsburgh to plan excursions, but it's just not possible. Bike.ATL has a good map (not crazy about the color scheme, however) that could serve as a model. Though any map with all bus routes, T routes, and bikepaths would perhaps be too dense in print form, it could easy be done using overlays on-line.
I've lived in St. Paul (basically Minneapolis) for two years now and came up from Iowa almost every other weekend for many years prior to living here to see friends and enjoy activities not available in Iowa. I've never lived in Pittsburgh, but it's my favorite city in the US due to its wacky streets, old row houses, and interesting geographic layout, and I visit the Burgh about once a year in order to explore and enjoy it. I'd like to think I could provide some comparative information on the two cities.
Based on quality of life, both cities are great but I think you'd be better off in Minneapolis. Minneapolis has far more cultural activities. For example, rockabilly is my favorite genre of music and I can regularly go to rockabilly shows in Minneapolis. Not sure about Pittsburgh, but I doubt they have much for music outside the popular genres. I can't speak for much else but I'd imagine this is true of most activities not just music. If you're single, dating is far better in Minneapolis - I hear there aren't many people to date in Pittsburgh if you're young, and probably even worse if you're outside of their long-established neighborhood social circles. I can't say much more from a people/activities standpoint because both my activities and social circles are unusual but I can say that there is much more diversity in terms of people, interests, and activities in Minneapolis - I have far more friends here in Minneapolis that I've met through my hobbies (one in particular) than I ever would in Pittsburgh even if I lived my life there.
However, if you have a family and don't plan on "going out" much, Pittsburgh may be a better bet due to the incredibly low cost of housing as well as it being a very safe city. Pittsburgh has one of the lowest prices for real estate of any major city in the country. Minneapolis is above average cost-wise, I believe it's significantly above average. Pittsburgh's housing stock varies depending on the neighborhood. Within a few miles of downtown, you find mostly row houses from the late 1800s which to me are very beautiful - I'm almost obsessed with them - but they generally look run down, even in the good neighborhoods. I've traveled all over the country and Minneapolis houses are VERY clean and well-kept-up when compared to almost any other city in the US. Even in the bad neighborhoods this is generally true. Pittsburgh has a lot of abandoned houses and dilapidation all over town so if you might find that depressing Pittsburgh isn't the place for you. In Minneapolis and St. Paul proper, you find mostly large, older homes with small yards. In the suburbs, you find mostly ranch-style houses from the 1950s and onward as well as McMansions. All of Minneapolis' suburbs are comparatively new and they generally look the same. Pittsburgh has a ton of older suburbs and the housing stock is more diverse.
I don't socialize with most "normal" people so it's hard for me to compare the two from that perspective, but I can tell you what I've heard. Minnesotans are nice on the outside but I've heard it's hard to make friends here because people will rarely want to get to know you beyond pleasantries. My personal experience has been that Minneapolis is a great place to make friends, but that's only because I share a lot in common with the people I've met through one hobby that's more popular here than elsewhere. I believe that the root cause of this is that the basic culture of Minnesota is such that, compared to other cities, people are more likely to think for themselves and pursue interests that genuinely interest them as opposed to wanting to be like everyone else and following the status quo. That's a lot of why I like it here. Pittsburgh has a lot of families that have been there for decades if not generations and they have their own social circles that are hard to get into and I doubt there's anywhere near as much diversity in the activites and interests of native Pittsburghers (Yinzers) as there is in Minneapolis. Yinzers are very friendly and would be wonderful people to have as neighbors, but I would probably find their life and interests very boring. A notable exception in Pittsburgh is Carnegie Mellon University - an excellent school - and the people it brings to town. Most of the people I've met from Pittsburgh have some connection to CMU.
Minneapolis has slightly higher crime than Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is an incredibly safe city with the exception of a select few terrible neighborhoods; and housing projects located in many parts of the city. The projects should be easy to avoid because they're generally located in out-of-the-way places. Minneapolis' bad neighborhoods aren't nearly as bad as Pittsburgh's but overall the crime is a little higher throughout the city. That's not to say it's a dangerous city - it's not. I've biked and driven through Minneapolis' worst neighborhood many times - I love exploring neighborhoods and American dangerous, poor neighborhoods fascinate me - but I've never felt threatened even over there. I do not think there is enough crime in either city for it to be a factor in your decision.
I drive around for fun and explore and analyze street patterns for fun. Your commute in Pittsburgh will most likely take longer and be more stressful than it will be in Minneapolis. Minneapolis has worse than average traffic delays for a city of its size. I think we need more freeway lanes. Over half the freeways are crawling along during rush hour. However, Pittsburgh is smaller than Minneapolis but it has even fewer lanes per capita and there are places where you have to switch over a few lanes really fast like the Fort Pitt bridge that I'm guessing cause backups. Also, depending on your direction of commute in the Burgh, you may be going for miles and miles on side streets with stoplights and traffic backups. There is no freeway going south of downtown, although the suburbs extend to the south for miles, and there is no beltway. In Minneapolis, most destinations are less than 10 minutes away from the freeway; most companies you'd work for are right off the freeway. Freeways are frequent in Minneapolis.
In Minneapolis, I don't even think about checking traffic before leaving to go somewhere outside of rush hour. Except during snowstorms and events like sports games, traffic practically never jams here outside of rush hour. Not the case in Pittsburgh. The "parkway" (as they call their freeways) can be jammed at any time of day, same for many side streets. Based on my experience driving all over the country, when you consider how many miles you're willing to commute, I'd say you should reduce it by a factor of 2 or 3 - no kidding - for Pittsburgh traffic vs. other cities like Minneapolis. "You can't get there from here," the locals say. In reality, you CAN get there from here, it'll just take you many times longer than the same distance will in most other cities. One notable exception is the Parkway North (I-279 going north of downtown Pittsburgh). I don't believe it gets jammed too often.
Minneapolis has a good bus system as long as your trip remains inside city limits and not the suburbs. They have simple routes that generally come frequently enough to be of use. Pittsburgh has a million bus routes that go every which way but with the notable exception of their great busways (like train lines basically, going east, west, and south of downtown) I think Pittsburgh's buses are notably inefficient. They have far too many bus routes - the bus routes are designed to take you right to your destination without having to walk - but the flipside to that is they don't have the ridership to have frequent service and your trip takes longer because the buses wind around. Most bus routes come every 45-75 minutes in Pittsburgh. Their system is extremely complex. And they have so many routes that they never bothered to pull together a map of the entire transit system! Although I hear that they're going to try to drastically simplify their bus system, which should allow for more frequent service and shorter commuting times.
As an eccentric well-educated young person with no family ties to the Burgh, I am far better off overall in Minneapolis than I would've been had I moved to Pittsburgh. I absolutely LOVE exploring Pittsburgh, and am about to start another thread on its wacky street patterns and awesome old houses and history, but culturally Minneapolis is far more desirable as a place to live for me and probably most of us.
I gotta echo the MUSIC SCENE of Minneapolis. I mean, I don't know what it's like it Pittsburgh...but when I lived in MPLS, and I was in my mid-20s...it was a great place to me for the music. So many indy bands and pop indy-like stuff like Prince, The Replacements, Husker Du, etc. The club FIRST AVENUE is a great venue for seeing bands as well...certainly one of the best in the music touring circuit from what I've heard. I got involved in marketing touring bands going through MPLS, as a part-time internship, so it really got me hooked and into stuff. I also saw great bands like Morphine, Bootsy Collins, Reverend Horton Heat, and a ton of other real good stuff in a very personable club. I also got to party with Jed Fair's Half Japanese band one night as well...as only about ten of us showed up to see him play! (Half Japanese is just a little indy band). Anyways, a lot of fond memories of the music scene in Minneapolis...I also was thanked by Bjork for putting up posters before her show as well
I can't comment on the rest...BUT...I would think Pittsburgh or any city would share similar characteristics of 'once you are into something you really like', you'd be connecting with all types of locals or fellow transplants and enjoying whatever it is you are into.
Just viewing the SAMPSONIA STREET on google maps...and someone told me about that community staging and preparing for google maps visit...tells me there are some very creative interesting people in Pittsburgh. It was also on that street that some Pittsburgh community members bought old houses and allowed international asylum seeking WRITERS a free place to write and live for 2-year-stints. One of the rowhouses is covered with Chinese writing from top to bottom. Kinda cool!
Also the fact that all of these old rowhouses and everything else in Pittsburgh haven't deteriorated to pure ghetto with gunshots being the norm (as what is often associated with other cities with a lot of rowhouses) seems to speak something to me as well - that there are people living and taking care of those neighborhoods just enough to not have them go into pure 'hell' decline.
While I've never been a resident of Pittsburgh, but I have of Minneapolis. I can't help but think that if a person was to spend enough time in Pittsburgh, just the same as Minneapolis, they'd find all of their niches and 'cool stuff' going on and everything else just the same.
Right on, great post also. Love the 'burgh!
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