pittsburg is such a great city.....not!!!!!

i've lived in the american south, on a north atlantic island, and on the adriatic. i've traveled far and wide. and pittsburgh will always be an inestimably special place to me: cozy, diverse, sometimes difficult, but often rewarding. how could a city sprouting up out of the wilderness, on those great rivers, with so many beautiful neighborhoods and so many great public buildings ... "suck balls"? it doesn't, not at all.

are you from philly? :]

or did you get hurt in pittsburgh? :[

i love my city. you can go rot.

i moved a lot when i was young(dads job) ive lived all over the place in this country-i now live in northern california and will most likely die out here-i lived in pittsboogers for a year and a half when i was in high school-trust me on this one-compared to the rest of the country pittsburger really sucks-i mean really sucks bad--out of everywhere ive lived it was by far the worst place of all-its like the armpit of america-nothing really compares to the western part of the usa-the attitude , the weather, etc, etc, etc-i just find it funny to poke at and pester people from pittsburn or really anywhere like that where people think that thier stupid little city is so great-im only half serious here people-relax-who cares what i think anyway-


I once saw a forklift lift a crate of forks. And it was way to literal for me. -mitch hedberg

I'm from "nowhere" as well (military brat), and I agree with him completely.

Pittsburgh isn't "charming" or "quaint" or "cosy"... it's stinking s**thole.

Compare:

Pittsburgh, PA is the 22nd most populous area in the US.
Portland, OR is the 23rd largest.

In Pittsburgh, if you want to get from point A to point B using public transportation, the ride (one way, staying inside one zone) will cost $2.00. The usual wait time for a bus is 10+ minutes, as the buses rarely follow the schedules closely (as such, if you do not wish to miss your bus, you should show up 10 minutes before the scheduled arrival time).

In Portland, if you want to get from point A to point B using public transportation, the ride will cost you $2.05. For that $2.05, you can ride all you want in one zone, on any form of transportation (rail or bus), for two hours. You can ride all day, all zones for $4.75. All forms of transportation show up close to the scheduled times, and the light rail will inform you of any delays (depending on the stop).

In Pittsburgh, if you choose biking as your main form of transportation: pray. When the weather is snowy or icy, you may as well not try. Nobody shovels or treats their walks and the roads are just too precarious to attempt. Pittsburgh drivers do not know the law pertaining to cyclists and will either buzz you, pass on a double-yellow, turn in front of you, or yell at you for just being on the road: all of which is technically illegal, but the city cops don't enforce the traffic laws. Seeing drivers run red lights, turn on 'no turn on red' intersections, and turn without signalling are all commonplace. This is not surprising, since, to get licensed in the state of Pennsylvania, you need only answer 13 of 15 questions correctly and pass a standard, 10 minute on-the-road test. Also, on any given stretch of well-traveled road, you can find at least one dangerous pothole.

In Portland, if you choose to bike, despite the fantastic public transportation, you will have bike lanes and drivers who will respect your right to the road (for the most part). The weather, even in winter, is usually pleasant, if rainy. It rarely snows. Portland cops enforce the traffic laws, even for cyclists. Oregon is well-known for having some of the most difficult driver's tests in the US. In fact, even as a pedestrian, if you approach a crosswalk, traffic will stop automatically until you get across. I'm serious. I've tried waving them on... they don't go until you're across. Finally, the entire time I was in Portland, I didn't see a single pothole.... but maybe I wasn't looking hard enough.

Can anyone give me a good reason why Portland works and Pittsburgh doesn't?

I pop into IMDB boards every once in awhile to see what is going on. See the opinions of others and you know all that other crap.

Boforte was obviously slighted somehow in Da Burgh.

Look, Pittsburgh is a much different city then pretty much anywhere else in the country. I have been on three different continents so spare me the "never been out of Pittsburgh" rhetoric.

Pittsburgh is an old city having existed before the revolutionary war. They have one of the more vibrant art scenes in the north east.

I spent several weeks in midtown Manhattan visiting Columbia University for a conference and working on a photo shoot involving a protest by a service industry union. A friend of mine pointed me in the direction of Manhattan's artistic hot spots of Tribeca and Greenwich village and honestly, I was rather underwhelmed. The area is practically unlivable for artists who are more and more moving to the other side of the bridges or just packing up and moving to different cities.

I am not saying Pittsburgh is better than NYC, not by a long shot but unlike NYC, Pittsburgh takes extremely good care of it's artistic community with subsidized housing for artists and more endowments and available grants than any city I have been to in that region. As opposed to NYC which has witnessed an artistic exodus because of gentrification projects.

To go about and just ridicule a city because 'it smells' or 'is ugly' is immature if not stupid. Whenever someone complains about Da Burgh being ugly or stinky I point to some of the other cities I have been to like Detroit or Philadelphia which are far dirtier then anything I ever saw in Pittsburgh.

People can rattle off ugly neighborhoods in any city in the world. Have you ever visited San Fransisco's ugly brother Oakland? How about any number of cities in the mid west.

Lets talk about the mid west for a second. Have you ever seen a city with geographical features of any kind? Try Louisville or Indianapolis.

I am done. This conversation is too stupid to keep up.

God please protect me from your followers

Politics brings out the idiot in everyone.

It's a great place if you don't have ambition or want to die poor. Well, it's an ever better place if you're rich and don't have to worry about finding the one job that's out there.

-

"It's dead, baby. Gimme a sec." - Frank Ackerman

Living in a place for a year and a half in high school is hardly a basis for a real judgement, and, depending on your age, it may have been when Pittsburgh was in much worse decline than it is now.

Pittsburgh is an insular city, yes - people go back for generations - it is its charm and its curse. However, where else do you get the city with an entrance through the Ft. Pitt tunnel? Where else do you get both world class and avant garde theatre? An amazing symphony orchestra? Decent Opera? Good jazz?

When I moved here in 2000 from Virginia (and before that, the mid-south) I HATED this city - the people who you could not get to know, the weather, the economy, the government corruption - but if you take the time to appreciate what it does have, the rest follows.

There are some good folks here, some great food, and yes, beautiful architecture.

The biggest problem Pittsburgh has is the class differential. We are fighting a class war here, and unfortunately, gentrification is winning out over development of strong, integrated neighborhoods and communities.

I'm glad Chabon wrote his love letter to Pittsburgh, cloud factory and all.

i take it you have never been to pittsburgh, it has an h at the end first of all, second of all it doesn't stink, the smell of the old mills has been gone for about 20 years. and f.y.i-every town has nicknames for their sports figures, it is actually the media who generally coins them.