Is Pittsburgh one of the most underrated cities? (Philadelphia, York: foreclosure, crime rates)

[greg42]

Originally Posted by bradjl2009

Where did you find these comments? These people should be very ashamed of their incredible ignorance to say such a thing after these children endured such hardship in Haiti. Those jagoffs could use a night in Haiti then come to Pittsburgh and see how much they *****.

I don't see much evidence that people are ashamed of their ignorance these days....

[reddesertfox]

I do not want to be negative,but truthful ...yes.Greater Pittsburgh is the very last and worst part of the USA.
1.Cloudy Weather 12 months a year.
2. Losing young educated minds for 30 years.
3. Large corporations have gone,almost all of them.
4. Undeserved Great Medical Center reputation,which was all based on liver transplants and the great Dr. Thomas Starzl.
5. Ugly,dirty boarded up main roads and buildings.
6. County and City are still corrupt and worse than Lagos,Nigeria.
If you want quality of life,unpolluted weather,a career and sunshine....leave.However,if you are a typical Pittsburgher-married-children-grandchildren-cousins married to cousins-friends who have never been out of Pgh.and consider Myrtle Beach S.C. the French Riviera then by all means stay.
7.Did I mention total cloud cover almost every day.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by reddesertfox

I do not want to be negative,but truthful ...yes.Greater Pittsburgh is the very last and worst part of the USA.
1.Cloudy Weather 12 months a year.
2. Losing young educated minds for 30 years.
3. Large corporations have gone,almost all of them.
4. Undeserved Great Medical Center reputation,which was all based on liver transplants and the great Dr. Thomas Starzl.
5. Ugly,dirty boarded up main roads and buildings.
6. County and City are still corrupt and worse than Lagos,Nigeria.
If you want quality of life,unpolluted weather,a career and sunshine....leave.However,if you are a typical Pittsburgher-married-children-grandchildren-cousins married to cousins-friends who have never been out of Pgh.and consider Myrtle Beach S.C. the French Riviera then by all means stay.
7.Did I mention total cloud cover almost every day.

By saying the word "truthful" you imply you are presenting us with facts when, in all actuality, you have provided your negative opinions about Metropolitan Pittsburgh. I'm not going to attempt to discourage you from speaking freely, but please don't imply that what you've listed above is the "truth", as if those of us who enjoy the area are lying.

My rebuttals?

1.) Pittsburgh has plenty of non-dreary weather. Earlier today I walked six miles from Polish Hill through the Strip District, Downtown, the North Shore, Herr's Island, and back, and I was able to wear my sunglasses. It felt nice. It was only in the upper-20s, but the sun and lack of wind made it tolerable.

2.) You lose some, and yet you also gain some. My impending partner moved here from Lancaster to earn his degrees in Mathematics and Statistics from UPitt, and he's chosen to stay. His roommate did the same. I have a degree in Accounting (and aspirations of pursuing a dual MPA/JD at UPitt in the coming years), and I'm planting my roots here after tiring of the lack of a sense of "place" in Northern Virginia. A good friend of mine let me know on Facebook last night that he, too, is tiring of the Metro DC rat-race and plans to transfer to Pittsburgh in Spring 2011. I have other friends, too, that came to Pittsburgh for school and either stayed or decided to leave and are trying to come back. If all of those bright young minds who leave Pittsburgh tell others about their hometown, then that's wonderful free publicity for the city.

3.) That's is just blatantly inaccurate. Perhaps many major blue-collar operations are gone, but in the 21st Century most employers require a college degree, and those who haven't adapted to the times are being left behind in the dust. Off the top of my head I can name the following generally well-paying employers who have a good presence in the area, and I'm sure I'm missing many more:

Alcoa
American Eagle Outfitters
Bank of NY Mellon
Citizens' Bank
CMU
Del Monte Foods
Deloitte
Dick's
EQT
Federated
First Niagara Bank
Google
Heinz
PNC
UPitt
UPMC
USX
Westinghouse

4.) Also just your opinion. I've heard great things about UPMC.

5.) The only part I'll give you here is "dirty." Pittsburgh IS an absolutely filthy city with cinders, cigarette butts, cracked sidewalks, weeds, litter, etc. lining many, many roadways, clogging catch basins, and adorning hillsides and ravines. Nevertheless that doesn't deter me from loving this place; it just makes me think a lot of pigs live here. As far as the vacancies are concerned perhaps if fewer people abandoned the place selfishly in favor of the suburban townships the city would be more populated today?

6.) I'm not even justifying this one with a response.

7.) (Face palm!)

[SCIKasey]

As someone who has lived in NYC for the past ten years, I'm really loving Pittsburgh. I'm originally from here (my fiancee is not - he likes it more than I do). I agree, sometimes the weather just sucks. But have you ever gone through a NYC snowstorm? AWFUL? Or the fact that when it rains really hard the subways flood and five million people try to cram on the buses? That are air conditioned in the middle of winter and you're freezing, soaking wet and have to sit on an air conditioned bus for the next hour to get to 79th street? Unless you live in San Diego, the weather pretty much sucks everywhere.

But I think that it just depends on what you're looking for. I love New York, and go back often. The Megabus is a pain, but it's $1. In fact, it's fairly easy to travel to most cities from Pittsburgh, by several means of transportation. But the reason I moved here was because it's like a land of opportunity. My fiancee and I are opening an improv theater. We could have NEVER done that in New York - it's just too expensive. We're buying a house - In NYC, we were looking at a 1 bedroom walk up in East Harlem, it was $170,000. And it was crappy. Here, we can buy a fixer upper in great shape for less than a car. And in the six months that we've been back, we've met a lot of talented, young artists that have no interest in leaving. There are problems, just like every other big city. There are absentee landlords, unsupervised teenagers, and there's a huge problem with non profits here.
@reddesertfox - you want to talk about dirty politicians? Try living in Harlem. It's insane. From the people in office, to the boards, to the churches. It's disgusting.
I know that I'm not a "typical" Pittsburgher, but more and more I'm meeting people who are just like me. Creative, optimistic and ready to do the work.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by reddesertfox

I do not want to be negative,but truthful ...yes.Greater Pittsburgh is the very last and worst part of the USA.
1.Cloudy Weather 12 months a year.
2. Losing young educated minds for 30 years.
3. Large corporations have gone,almost all of them.
4. Undeserved Great Medical Center reputation,which was all based on liver transplants and the great Dr. Thomas Starzl.
5. Ugly,dirty boarded up main roads and buildings.
6. County and City are still corrupt and worse than Lagos,Nigeria.
If you want quality of life,unpolluted weather,a career and sunshine....leave.However,if you are a typical Pittsburgher-married-children-grandchildren-cousins married to cousins-friends who have never been out of Pgh.and consider Myrtle Beach S.C. the French Riviera then by all means stay.
7.Did I mention total cloud cover almost every day.

While I think some of these points are accurate, and #6 is funny, if a tiny bit exaggerated, I have to disagree with #4. Pitt was well known as a medical center long before Starzl had his fit of pique with the U of CO and folded up his tent and move his operations to Pittsburgh. The polio vaccine was developed there, for Pity's sake, back in the early 50s. That was huge, just huge.

[Copanut]

Originally Posted by Katiana

The polio vaccine was developed there, for Pity's sake, back in the early 50s. That was huge, just huge.

Little off topic, Hi Yac, but I recall vividly walking out to the Catholic church in our town to get those sugar cube vaccines. Don't think that would ever happen again these days, too many lawyers.

[MathmanMathman]

There must be some sort of term used in psychology to explain this sort of behavior below. If not, a term must be invented. And what causes it?

Originally Posted by reddesertfox

I do not want to be negative,but truthful ...yes.Greater Pittsburgh is the very last and worst part of the USA.

So you start with not wanting to be negative but truthful and proceed to declare Pittsburgh to be the worst part of the US with what I think are spurious statements.

1.Cloudy Weather 12 months a year.

That suggests that Pittsburgh is perpetually under cloud cover. According to NOAA, Pittsburgh has 45% sunny days annually. Granted that it is a bit more likely to be cloudy than sunny, however; there are other places that have more cloud cover and a lot of places are around the 50% mark.

2. Losing young educated minds for 30 years.

There is some merit to that statement but I think it is more an issue of holding the graduating college students. But is Pittsburgh the worst in this regard?

3. Large corporations have gone,almost all of them.

Some marquee companies have left but it's not the pits yet. Here is a list of companies in Pittsburgh to make you feel better.

List of corporations in Pittsburgh - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

4. Undeserved Great Medical Center reputation,which was all based on liver transplants and the great Dr. Thomas Starzl.

UPMC is not good?

5. Ugly,dirty boarded up main roads and buildings.

Need we dig up those Detroit videos again?

6. County and City are still corrupt and worse than Lagos,Nigeria.

Chicago is famous for its "politics". Repeat after me "Blagojevich"

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by MathmanMathman

There must be some sort of term used in psychology to explain this sort of behavior. If not, a term must be invented. And what causes it?


So you start of not wanting to be negative but truthful and proceed to declare Pittsburgh to be the worst with what I think are spurious statements.
1.Cloudy Weather 12 months a year.
That suggests that Pittsburgh is perpetually under cloud cover. According to NOAA, Pittsburgh has 45% sunny days annually. Granted that it is a bit more likely to be cloudy than sunny, however; there are other places that have more cloud cover and a lot of places are around the 50% mark.

Yes, there are some places in the US that are cloudier than Pittsburgh. Here they are:

Anchorage, AK (41% possible sunshine)
Juneau, AK (30%)
Nome, AK (42%)
Hilo, HI (41%)
Mt. Washington, NH (33%)
Seattle (43%)
Quillayute, WA (33%)

If you look at cities that have 50% sunshine, that is 10% (roughly) more than Pittsburgh. Cities with 46-50% sunshine are:

Cincinatti (Airport) (50%)
Binghamton, NY (49%)
Buffalo, NY (48%)
Cleveland (49%)
Columbus, OH (50%)

Even Duluth, MN has 15% more sunshine than Pgh (52%)

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/...ccd/pctpos.txt

The headers didn't copy but they are the % of sunshine each month in the vairous cities. The data is from the NWS.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/...ccd/pctpos.txt

There is some merit to that statement but I think it is more an issue of holding the graduating college students. But is Pittsburgh the worst in this regard?

I'm not sure that is the issue.

Some marquee companies have left but it's not the pits yet. Here is a list of companies in Pittsburgh to make you feel better.

List of corporations in Pittsburgh - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

UPMC is not good?

Need we dig up those Detroit videos again?

Again, not the issue.[b]

6. County and City are still corrupt and worse than Lagos,Nigeria.
If you want quality of life,unpolluted weather,a career and sunshine....leave.However,if you are a typical Pittsburgher-married-children-grandchildren-cousins married to cousins-friends who have never been out of Pgh.and consider Myrtle Beach S.C. the French Riviera then by all means stay.
chicago is famous for its "politics".Again, not the issue

**********************************************

[jay5835]

Originally Posted by RestonRunner86

degrees in Mathematics and Statistics from UPitt

a dual MPA/JD at UPitt

Heinz
PNC
UPitt
UPMC
USX
Westinghouse

It's just called Pitt, RR (UPitt is the web address).

[Tiger Beer]

Originally Posted by SCIKasey

Unless you live in San Diego, the weather pretty much sucks everywhere.

Excellent point. I never get the weather complaints either. I lived in Oregon for awhile, and it was 1000 times better than Michigan. Yet, you'll hear a lot more complaints about Oregon - I think it comes down to a person's references.

Pittsburgh being further south than Michigan, plus no lake effect with the snow like up there...makes it better.

It's all about your references. All that being said, I've heard plenty complain about the weather in Florida or Texas or just about every single place a person can live except for Southern California on the coast.

Originally Posted by SCIKasey

There are problems, just like every other big city. There are absentee landlords, unsupervised teenagers, and there's a huge problem with non profits here.

WHat are the problems with non profits in Pittsburgh? I haven't heard that one yet.