I do not want to die here
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5/19/2008
I read Chris' review & agreed so fervently with it that i felt i had to chime in and back up pretty much everything he says. As someone who has been here for 25+ years I feel I can speak on a wide range of topics regarding the town.
1. Regarding Pittsburgh, one thing few people understand is that downtown Pittsburgh (aka The Golden Triangle) is actually quite tiny, in addition to being quite old. So Chris is right: maneuvering downtown streets is akin to a Manhattan rush hour & parking is both precious and pricey. But guess what? That's where most of the jobs are (what few there are), so get used to it.
2. Another glaring negative for this town is the absolute lack of any beltway system around the metro area. Long ago the Pittsburgh city fathers rejected the idea of a beltway because they wanted people to have to basically funnel into downtown and back out to get anywhere (thinking this would bring commerce.) Fortunately Allegheny County loses population every year, because if The 'Burgh ever got popular then the 1940's roads that we travel on would be gridlocked morning, noon, and night. Oh, and BTW: the 'everybody must come downtown' strategy never worked, and the downtown area remains mostly bereft of anything other than empty office space and the stray theater.
3. That the houses are 'mostly old' is an understatement. Consider yourself fortunate if your home was built after 1970 (Cranberry & Robinson Twp. aside) because most of this town is ancient. Many of the typical frame houses don't even have insulation (enjoy the $500+ heating bills in winter.) Remember, the Pittsburgh area is dotted with dead/dying mill-towns with streets lined with 80+ year old homes that are about an arm's-length apart from each other. Perhaps the plethora of old homes is good for you if you are a fan of the fixer-upper, which can be had in numerous neighborhoods for distinctly low prices. Though i will say Chris is wrong in 1 regard: the South Hills is crawling with 1950's ranch homes, not sure how he missed them as they are practically ubiquitous south of the Parkway West all the way to the county line in every single town along the way.
4. Taxes are the devil. And by 'the devil' I mean the product of some of the most entrenched, old-style, corrupt, Tammany-Hall type slimeballs that a decaying rust-belt town can produce. Though I'm not sure what's worse: career politicians or the fools that re-elect them time & time again.
5. Young people have famously left Pittsburgh since the city began its steep decline circa 1970. Are you single? Well you probably will continue being single, good luck finding people your age if you are under 30. Apart from Southern Florida, Western PA has one of the highest concentration of seniors in the nation. Yet another reason why nothing ever changes in this town.
6. Rednecks? Check, plenty of them. Lots of folks with confederate flags on their pickups (boys, don't know how to break it to you but PA was NORTH of the Mason-Dixon during said conflict) but this makes perfect sense as Pittsburgh was THE industrial town of the early 20th century in America. Problem is that those mill jobs are LONG GONE yet the descendants of millworkers still dominate the area, working construction or in countless little hole-in-the-wall tool & die shops and so on. They are not interested in culture because they simply don't come from cultured stock. Ironically, even without the blue-collar jobs, Pittsburgh has remained a mostly blue-collar town.
7. The Steelers... where should I even begin? I'll cut to the chase: the amount of $$$ that the Rooneys rake in from the citizens of the area is borderline criminal. Unless you live here, you just do not understand the slavish devotion to their football team. From children to grandparents, it is a religion. And yet the political power wielded by the team results in practically NO MONEY being plowed back into the community (don't even ask Ravenstahl to even approach them to pay taxes). I would love to ask the people that make minimum-wage & have Steeler season-tickets exactly what the organization has done for this town & the residents, besides providing the bread & circuses that passes for entertainment in some peoples' miserable lives.
8. You probably will work downtown. And that's unfortunate because the infrastructure is circa vintage post-WWII. Case-in-point: the local govt wanted to get the Parkway West (major artery west of town) declared an interstate & the Federal Highway Administration laughed them out of the building after declaring the decrepit throughway needed several million dollars worth of upgrades before it could even be considered for interstate status. Enjoy the gridlock (at least the North Hills has Rt279). Oh, and also enjoy the annoying drivers who consider Yield signs to be Stop signs.
9. The weather! I believe this point has been belabored to death, but it does bear repeating that a sunny day in Pittsburgh is like gold. Enjoy it while it lasts because it will be cloudy, cold, and drizzly for the next week.
In summation: yes the crime rate is low (and if you stay out of a handful of neighborhoods, almost non-existent), yes the home prices are favorable (if you don't mind the age), and yes the population mostly keeps to itself (glued to the TV every Sunday in the autumn), but make no mistake this city has been dying for an awful long time. And it's the same insular mentality that ensures it will continue to die. The politics are too entrenched to encourage real change, the people are too entrenched in the "yinzer" mentality to enact any real change (and the sleazy politicians that cater to these people know it), so people keep living the depressing life of a blue-collar hanger-on in a mill-town that's about 60 years past its prime. It's sad. I drive to work and pass through no less than 6 towns that range in status from dilapidated, to ghetto, to slum. None of the dozens of small towns that make up Allegheny County have ever really recovered from the steel industry collapse (though we aren't alone, ask Buffalo, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Detroit, etc) and there is no bright future on the horizon. I wish I had kinder words, i wish a brilliant entrepreneur mogul would land here and revitalize it all, but we have been fed a steady diet of such promises for decades with nothing to show for it except crumbling towns, crumbling infrastructure, and crumbled dreams. Pittsburgh, thy name is gloom.
p.s.
The museums are nice, maybe one day they can dome Allegheny County and turn it into 1 big museum of a past never to see the hope of daylight again.
Ron | Baldwin, PA