Quote:
Originally Posted by bunt_q
Pittsburgh must be the most schizophrenic city in America!  I try and draw comparisons/contrasts between the city and its suburbs, I'm told that's irrelevant, and I'm told to shut up. Now somebody else tries to draw together suburbs and city into the metro area for purposes of discussion - that's wrong too, it's all about the city. So which is it folks? The only consistency I can see is that we're only supposed to look at Pittsburgh-proper, and we're supposed to completely deny the existence of suburbs, except when using the suburbs makes the city's numbers look better (but then deny those suburbs are anything but part of the city, except make clear that they're not).
Ahhhhh! 
As an aside, it took me some considerable effort to figure out local government in PA (fortunately, the state had a nifty guide to it). Townships, counties, cities, all overlapping, all with different responsibilities, and a fairly active state government overlapping them all. Seriously complicated. (I got sick of not knowing who worked for whom when I was introduced to people during visits - who does roads, who does sewer, etc.) But in the end, every metropolitan area has similar headaches and differences with transportation, education, etc. etc. between dozens of municipalities. I'm not sure it makes much of a difference if there are 50 or 500... |
Actually, I think it's true, to some extent, that Pittsburgh's a bit schizophrenic!
It seems many Pittsburgh metro residents only want to see the bad that exists in the CITY of Pittsburgh, while the Pittsburgh CITY residents pretty much point out all the negatives of the suburban areas. The weird thing is that some of the most depressed parts of the Pittsburgh metro area are some of the "edge cities" that were formerly huge industrial centers, specifically those along the Monongahela. Many of them are now little more than shells of their former selves.
That being said, there are more redeveloped/reinvigorated neighborhoods than just within Pittsburgh proper. Mt. Lebanon, Dormont, Castle Shannon for instance, all of them have very, very nice downtown districts that are very walkable. And these places aren't more than a few miles from the city proper. Even some of the more far-flung places that are considered suburbs, such as Greensburg and Washington, have very robust downtown cores, appearing to be far larger in population than they really are.
I think some of the general disconnect between Pittsburgh and its suburbs is because of the topography around here. The rivers, hills, ravines, etc., end up serving as large psychological barriers to having a cohesive metropolitan area. Hell, even within the Pittsburgh itself the topography serves to disconnect one part of town from the other, both physically, and, more importantly, psychologically. I'm sure there are many people that live in the city proper who have never been to many other parts of town, not crossing bridges or going through tunnels because of their own "safety zone", so to speak...
Aaron (Glowrock)
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