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Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001
Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville and St. Louis all have these weird "not exactly Midwest, but not exactly Southern or Atlantic" vibes. Cincinnati and St. Louis are clearly the most "Midwestern" of the four, but they're all probably best left in a category called "WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY!?"
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I think the terms "midwest" and "midwestern" are really pretty useless as geographical, cultural, built-environment descriptors.
Attempting to take such a vast, widely-differing swath of the country and then select a single word to describe it is utterly foolish. Any time I hear someone use the term in such a generality, I realize that they know very little about our country and the regions / cities which comprise it.
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Originally Posted by iheartthed
The river cities feel like relatives to me. I would personally place Pittsburgh in that river city bucket with Cincinnati, St. Louis, Memphis, New Orleans, and maybe even Minneapolis/St. Paul. Cincinnati, St. Louis, Memphis, and Pittsburgh seem like the most closely related of that river city group. Despite Cincy and Cleveland being in the same state, Cincy and Pittsburgh seem more related to me.
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Not sure about the Minneapolis-St. Paul part of this though. It doesn't necessarily feel too much like the others in terms of city layout and built environment to me. It feels very, very northern more than anything else.
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Originally Posted by edale
St. Louis, to me, feels quintessentially Midwestern. It's literally like the center of the country. And I remember feeling like it was the center of gravity for a pretty large rural area when I visited. The arch had lots of 'fresh off the farm' types lingering about. It's a beautiful city with great architecture and some very cool neighborhoods, but it felt about as midwestern as it gets to me. Maybe with some Southern influences.
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Exactly. And just because it may resemble Baltimore, that in no way, shape, or form means that it's somehow not as "midwestern" as other cities may be.
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Originally Posted by AaronPGH
Unpopular opinion, but I think the northern entrance into Pittsburgh from 279 is nearly as dramatic as the tunnel. The reveal of downtown as you come around the hill is almost as sudden, and from this angle you get the entire skyline view looing like a towering wall in front of you. It makes the city look much larger – the US Steel building looks more like a supertall. And if you get it at golden hour, coming up over the Veterans bridge is absolutely magic.
Obviously still love the tunnel burst as well.
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Yeah, the skyline view is actually better coming in from the north. The drama associated with driving through forested hills, then into a long tunnel, which emerges onto a bridge and opens up to a vast valley confluence of 2 rivers and an unexpected skyline is the the real selling point for coming in from the south.
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Originally Posted by eschaton
When I first interviewed for a job out here, I was coming down 279 at night, and turned around a bend around a mile out, and BAM - the skyline appeared. Shocked the hell out of me, particularly because there's basically no visible city prior to that (even along the sides of the highway).
The view coming out of the Liberty Tubes/crossing the Liberty Bridge is also pretty dramatic. Really, only East has shitty approaching views - which is ironic, since that's the direction most of the city is in.
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Coming in on 28 from the northeast is pretty good too. I actually think some of the best skyline views of Pittsburgh are from the hilltops in Etna/Shaler/O'Hara areas... you can actually see the skylines of East Liberty, Oakland, and downtown from the same point, all from just above the Allegheny Valley. It's likely the best unknown view of Pittsburgh there is.
Other good approach view are coming in from the west when you round the hill from the West End or from the northwest coming in on 65.