Pittsburgh Is New “In” City Of 2012

[ue]

I thought Pittsburgh has been "in" since circa 2009.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by glowrock

For the most part, many of them are VERY heavily used, MonkeyRonin. There are probably in the range of 100 trains per day that use the main rail line perhaps 1/4 mile from my townhouse. Unfortunately, I haven't noticed too many "dead" areas of old railway, they seem to be used quite a bit.

Thats a shame. Because then all that is left are typically narrow, one-way streets that don't form a consistent street grid (due to the topography), which make the addition of surface LRT ROWs difficult.

[TarHeelJ]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

I guess having some of the nation's must urban cities (something that also extends to the smaller centres - which is quite rare in the US) isn't something that resonates with you?

Not that you have to like it of course, but Pennsylvania should certainly have at least some redeeming qualities for anyone on this site.

Most any city has at least some redeeming qualities for anyone on or not on this site.

[TarHeelJ]

Originally Posted by ue

I thought Pittsburgh has been "in" since circa 2009.

Usually by the time the experts proclaim something to be "in"...it's already on it's way "out".

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Thats a shame. Because then all that is left are typically narrow, one-way streets that don't form a consistent street grid (due to the topography), which make the addition of surface LRT ROWs difficult.

Exactly. What many people don't realize is how extremely complex, varied, and hilly the topography of Pittsburgh truly is. It's very, very difficult to build anything along current ROWs, since they are generally extremely narrow already, not to mention extremely crowded with cars and buses. It's why the busway was built in the first place. Perhaps the busway can eventually become LRT, but I see no real reason to make the switch given the current economic conditions.

Perhaps there are a few rail corridors that might work, but they probably wouldn't be the ones that pass nearest the most convenient and preferable locations for stations.

Aaron (Glowrock)

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by glowrock

Exactly. What many people don't realize is how extremely complex, varied, and hilly the topography of Pittsburgh truly is.

That topography also makes average sprawl look way, way worse than it does in other places. A 50-acre parking lot the flat grasslands east of Denver is one thing. But when you have to disassemble a mountain and clear cut a forest to do it.. yikes.

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

That topography also makes average sprawl look way, way worse than it does in other places. A 50-acre parking lot the flat grasslands east of Denver is one thing. But when you have to disassemble a mountain and clear cut a forest to do it.. yikes.

True, but it seems the only places that bear any resemblance to what you just mentioned are a few of the larger big-box centers in Ross and Robinson Townships. Ross Park Mall would kind of be like that, perhaps Settler's Ridge Center in Robinson, maybe... Not many other locations have had the tops of hills flattened for standard sprawly developments...

Let's face it, there's really not THAT MUCH "average sprawl" in the Pittsburgh area, at least not in comparison with the majority of other American cities...

Aaron (Glowrock)

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by glowrock

True, but it seems the only places that bear any resemblance to what you just mentioned are a few of the larger big-box centers in Ross and Robinson Townships. Ross Park Mall would kind of be like that, perhaps Settler's Ridge Center in Robinson, maybe... Not many other locations have had the tops of hills flattened for standard sprawly developments...

Let's face it, there's really not THAT MUCH "average sprawl" in the Pittsburgh area, at least not in comparison with the majority of other American cities...

Aaron (Glowrock)

I dunno, we drive in on I-79 from I-80... Looks just like everywhere else to me.

EDIT: I'm going to have to look at new urbanized area densities when I can. I've always been under the impression that the suburbs back east are much more spread out. Even PA, with its well preserved old towns, still seems like one continuous sprawl from town to town to town. Like Europe, with Flying J's instead of farms in between (western PA, at least). The trees just hide it. Hmm... Numbers to follow!

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

I dunno, we drive in on I-79 from I-80... Looks just like everywhere else to me.

EDIT: I'm going to have to look at new urbanized area densities when I can. I've always been under the impression that the suburbs back east are much more spread out. Even PA, with its well preserved old towns, still seems like one continuous sprawl from town to town to town. Like Europe, with Flying J's instead of farms in between (western PA, at least). The trees just hide it. Hmm... Numbers to follow!

Yeah, the area along 79 through Cranberry/Wexford is one of the few more traditional "sprawlburbia" areas of Pittsburgh, Brent... But even out there, there's a bit more rhyme and reason to the sprawl expanse than in many other areas. One other part of the metro area with a good amount of standard sprawl is Monroeville on the east side of town.

But again, for the most part, there aren't too many large sprawly expanses in the Pittsburgh metro area. Just a few, certainly less than many cities of similar size.

Aaron (Glowrock)

[Centropolis]

The sprawl gets uglier and more "macro" as you move west down the I70-ish corridor. PGH doesn't hold a candle to western metro St Louis, KC, or Denver.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by ue

I thought Pittsburgh has been "in" since circa 2009.

This is fairly true.

Speaking as a life long Pittsburgher (metro, not city ;p ), I can say that Pittsburgh has been beautifying and been underrated for at least a decade or two now. I could never understand why it wasn't more popular than it "should be, IMO". I realize after many discussions on this site and elsewhere that old stereotypes really do DIE HARD. It doesn't help at all that are popular fooseball team is called The Steelers and our nickname is still The Steel City, even though that industry is but a fraction of our regional economy nowadays compared to the massively overpowering force that it used to be several decades ago. (Keep in mind our metro lost somwhere in the neighborhood of 200,000+ jobs just in the early 1980s - devastating, but ultimately forced a rebirth).

A few high-profile events and news stories have put Pittsburgh into the national news which I guess serves as "coming out" events on the national/international level which is what many small/mid sized cities dream of.
First we were named the "Most liveable city in the US" i think twice in the last few years. We were named one of a handful of "up & coming North American high tech cities of the next generation" by i think Site Selection magazine. Also, USA Today ran an article about teh 10 most beautiful spots in the US with Pittsburgh's Mt Washington, overlooking downtown making the list. Then two of our professional sports teams brought attention: Steelers winning two superbowls close together and the Penguins winning the Stanley cup once, the same year as one of our Superbowl wins (First time any cities have ever won those two trophies in the same year). And of course, probably most importantly the G20 came to Pittsburgh two years ago, the 20 top heads of states of the world descended on Pittsburgh as president Obama selected Pittsburgh for its percieved rebirth. Also, Pgh was just named the new in-city by the Washington Post this week which apparently catches some peoples attention. Also the NY Times has run several articles on Pittsburghs rebirth in the last couple years.

So although Pittsburgh has many problems to overcome and much more modernizing and growing to do, it is being praised for how much has been accomplished already and for how the city seems to be positioning itself for the 21st century which is a focus on education and technology which parallels the global economy transitioning from the industrial age to the information age.

[novawolverine]

I agree that Pittsburgh has been on the upswing for a while. By the time cities receive their props in the mainstream, the trend has been taking place for at least a few years.

[Expat]

Originally Posted by novawolverine

I agree that Pittsburgh has been on the upswing for a while. By the time cities receive their props in the mainstream, the trend has been taking place for at least a few years.

Probably true. Pittsburgh has it.

[Austinlee]

Front page of Yahoo from two days ago

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

The sprawl gets uglier and more "macro" as you move west down the I70-ish corridor. PGH doesn't hold a candle to western metro St Louis, KC, or Denver.

This is actually very not true, and a common misperception. By and large, the suburbs get denser as you go west.

If they are perceived as more "macro" it can be due to a couple things. (1) There's less older development in the core of western cities to "balance" them psychologically, and we tend to judge a city by its core (rightfully so). (2) I think this is often given too little credit - they are just more visible out west. It's hard to grasp the full scope of a place in trees and hills like most eastern cities have around them. And (3) the newer master-planned stuff you have seen and think of as "macro" is more prevalent in newer cities (west and south), and where it happens out east, they're still somewhat smaller single projects (less land) and so far out, it's easy to miss them. In part, (3) is why the sprawl is worse by-the-numbers in the east - because it's less coordinated. But it's still there.

Lucky us, we have census data to sort this out. I'll stick with Colorado and PA, because I'm familiar with Denver, Aaron knows Pitt, and the two are pretty similar population-wise. Oh, and it's a Pitt thread.

Here are the census urbanized area maps for each, if you've never seen them:
Pitt: http://www2.census.gov/geo/maps/urba...ua69697_00.pdf
Denver: http://www2.census.gov/geo/maps/urba...ua23527_00.pdf

(Could look at the same for others if you wanted... Philly, Boulder, etc. since the best data is compiled by state.) Unfortunately, this level of detail still isn't out for 2010 census data. But we'll go with the most recent we have.

Let's compare state level data.

The easiest comparison is in the census urban/rural data. Within the urban data, they classify people as "in central place" or "not in a central place". That alone is fairly revealing, because many urbanized areas in PA are outside of central places- not something you see out west. (Ignore raw numbers - I am excluding other classifications that are pointless for this discussion, so it isn't going to add up.)

PA population "in urbanized area": 8,210,985
- In central place: 2,732,769 (33.3%)
- Not in central place: 5,478,216 (66.7%) (convenient numbers, eh?)

CO population "in urbanized area": 3,212,849
- In central place: 2,284,260 (71.1%)
- Not in central place: 928,589 (28.9%)

But here's the fun part - population densities (per square mile) within those:

PA in central place: 7,835 ppsm
PA not in central place: 1,765 ppsm

CO in central place: 4,086 ppsm
CO not in central place: 2,060 ppsm

That's very revealing, and matches what we'd expect I think. You see similar patters east-to-west all over the country. Western cities are much more compact, but at a lower, more uniform density. Eastern cities pack people in in the center, but then spread far and wide at drastically lower densities. Pitt does this too.

If I go now and look at this by MSAs, it gets more odd, because of the way MSAs are defined. There is a large number of "rural" population within MSAs, which is actually listed when you dive into the breakdowns, so you can pull it out. Within MSAs you have this hierarchy:

MSA:
>In central city
>Not in central city
-->Urban
---->In urbanized area
---->In urban cluster
-->Rural

If we just compare the "In central city" population density numbers versus the remaining "urban" numbers outside the central city, it looks like this:

PA in central city: 7,562 ppsm (25.8% of total PA metropolitan population)
PA urban (but not in central city): 1,747 ppsm (57.7% of total CO metropolitan population)
(the remaining 16+% of PA population inside MSAs doesn't meet urbanized density standards, and so is listed as rural)

CO in central city: 2,618 ppsm (41% of total CO metropolitan population)
CO urban (but not in central city): 2,630 ppsm (51.5% of total CO metropolitan population)

Same pattern. This shouldn't come as a surprise to us. Those folks out east who live in cities live in much denser cities than urban-dwellers out west. But in percentage terms, fewer folks out east actually live in those areas, and the rest are spread out farther and at lower densities. (MSAs still get distorted a little by land inside county boundaries, but this is pretty decent for analysis purposes.)

Even Pittsburgh, Aaron. You just don't see it, probably... it's so spread out, it doesn't look spread out, it looks almost rural. (That's been my observation in PA - the line between suburb and small town and rural is almost impossible to make out.)

So moral of the story, get some of those folks back into the core, Pittsburgh!

(I also looked at some individual townships, and it's the same thing. Pitt is nice and dense, but by the time you hit Penn Hills, McCandless Township, Monroeville, Ross Township, etc., you're into 1,500 - 2,200 ppsm. Whereas even our dreaded Aurora outside Denver manages to hang in at 2,800 ppsm, and Lakewood, Thornton, Arvada and the like are 3,100-3,600 ppsm. For the curious PA folks, Pittsburgh itself was around 6,000 ppsm, so in the state-level numbers the census churns out you get a sizable boost from Philly.)

[mhays]

I haven't seen much of suburban Pittsburgh, but I agree that hills make for a different dynamic. It's extremely hilly, not with big, orderly, shallow hills but with countless ravines and extremely steep slopes. It's like Seattle but much more so. The result is a lot of hillsides and ravines that aren't built on...I don't have numbers, but it could mean 20% or 30% of the land overall in sizeable swaths. You can build responsible densities on any given site, but still have average densities far lower.

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by mhays

I haven't seen much of suburban Pittsburgh, but I agree that hills make for a different dynamic. It's extremely hilly, not with big, orderly, shallow hills but with countless ravines and extremely steep slopes. It's like Seattle but much more so. The result is a lot of hillsides and ravines that aren't built on...I don't have numbers, but it could mean 20% or 30% of the land overall in sizeable swaths. You can build responsible densities on any given site, but still have average densities far lower.

Very true, mhays. As for the urban/core/rural numbers, it's true that Pennsylvania has the vast majority of its population outside the core cities. Pennsylvania, if I'm not mistaken, has the largest number of people classified as living in rural areas in the nation, so that's certainly going to be the case. Outside of Philly, Pittsburgh, and a few other areas (Lehigh Valley, etc...), the overwhelming majority of PA is very rural in character.

As for Pittsburgh, what I think differentiates it from many other cities outside of the Northeast is how relatively dense the satellite cities are, the places that have, for all intents and purposes, become part of the Pittsburgh metro while still retaining a character all their own. Washington PA falls into that category, along with places like Dormont, Mt. Lebanon, etc... Even Canonsburg (where I work) is a very dense place, at least outside of the huge office park I work in (SouthPointe)... The city itself is only, I believe, about 2 square miles, having something like 9k people in it. Not too bad, really.

I've never said there isn't sprawl here, for that would obviously be completely false. But I do believe it's a heck of a lot more limited, in general, than in many other places.

Aaron (Glowrock)

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by glowrock

Even Canonsburg (where I work) is a very dense place, at least outside of the huge office park I work in (SouthPointe)...

I've never said there isn't sprawl here, for that would obviously be completely false. But I do believe it's a heck of a lot more limited, in general, than in many other places.

Aaron (Glowrock)

Canonsburg borough is about 3,700 ppsm. About the same, on the whole, as Lakewood, CO

What I'm saying is that you're wrong, it's not any more limited. In fact, it's worse. The numbers don't lie. It's just incredibly deceptive.

It's probably all those nice big yards everybody has once you get outside the immediate old core.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not knocking the cities AT ALL. I am only knocking the perception that because the city (and town) cores are older, denser, and nicer, there is less sprawl, because that perception - especially in western PA - is just flat wrong.

[Expat]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

Canonsburg borough is about 3,700 ppsm. About the same, on the whole, as Lakewood, CO

What I'm saying is that you're wrong, it's not any more limited. In fact, it's worse. The numbers don't lie. It's just incredibly deceptive.

It's probably all those nice big yards everybody has once you get outside the immediate old core.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not knocking the cities AT ALL. I am only knocking the perception that because the city (and town) cores are older, denser, and nicer, there is less sprawl, because that perception - especially in western PA - is just flat wrong.

Uh, ok, whatever. Pittburgh has sprawl. Point made.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by Expat

Uh, ok, whatever. Pittburgh has sprawl. Point made.

Just poking Aaron, bringing him back to earth, there's no need to be a little b*tch about it. I'd develop a crush on Pitt too after a few years in Houston.