PHILADELPHIA | Lowrise/General Developments Thread II

[EastSideHBG]

Originally Posted by mcgrath618

If Pittsburgh had better public transit I'd consider living there. It's such a cool idea of a city (but a little poorly executed, imo). Some improvements to the light rail, more Amtrak (and some commuter rail), and some better pedestrian experiences could go a long way.

Originally Posted by Gatorade_Jim

Pittsburgh is such an interesting city to me. I went to law school in St Louis and Pittsburgh is so similar. I always assumed it was similar to Philadelphia but it's a completely different city. Very much a midwestern city.

Pittsburgh is unique and neat but isolated and overall a little behind the times, you can really start to feel it after spending some time there. And oddly it's a city that doesn't get mentioned much during the climate change discussions but its DT is going to have some things to address as the years go on.

[Redddog]

Originally Posted by Knight Hospitaller

... Nowhere else have I been so easily identified as an outsider, with many specifically identifying me as a Philadelphian.

You sound awesome. lolol.

[wpipkins2]

Originally Posted by nemesisinphilly

Strange that Pittsburgh was one of the few major cities to lose population in the 2020 census. They've now lost population in 7 consecutive censuses. I would have expected with the tech boom going on there that there would be a population bump.

Pittsburgh's bright spot is the city itself. The problem is the massive industrial suburban boom towns that surround Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh does not have a severe blight problem since most of the inner city blight is outside of the city in those desolate former industrial centers.

The cities population stabilized and the population loss is the city is largely due to the Western Pennsylvania penitentiary closing. The Monongahela, Beaver, and Allegheny industrial river valleys are in free fall and will never regain population. Those areas are disconnected from the city and have limited public transportation and infrastructure.

[wpipkins2]

Originally Posted by EastSideHBG

Pittsburgh is unique and neat but isolated and overall a little behind the times, you can really start to feel it after spending some time there. And oddly it's a city that doesn't get mentioned much during the climate change discussions but its DT is going to have some things to address as the years go on.

Name the things. I am curious to know.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by skyhigh07

I think you’re focusing too much on Delco and disregarding everything else I said. If you look at ethnic maps of the US, PA is more ethnically German while New York State and New England tend to have English, Irish, Italian majorities.

Also, I’m not sure what you’re talking about - the Main Line etc was notoriously an upper class Protestant enclave (Philadelphia Story) with a few exceptions.

I know exactly what I'm talking about. Pennsylvania is more Catholic and Jewish than every state in the Midwest, and especially so in the SE portion of the state. Even it's Protestantism is more liberal than Midwestern Protestants, as we are mostly main line protestants (no pun intended) i.e. Episcopalian, Lutheran, Methodist. We for the most part, and ESPECIALLY in the Philadelphia suburbs, have very little evangelical protestanism. Thank god.

If you want to make claims about the rest of the state vis a vis the Midwest by all means, but you said you would make the same claim about the suburbs of Philly, which is 1000% not true.

[skyhigh07]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

I know exactly what I'm talking about. Pennsylvania is more Catholic and Jewish than every state in the Midwest, and especially so in the SE portion of the state. Even it's Protestantism is more liberal than Midwestern Protestants, as we are mostly main line protestants (no pun intended) i.e. Episcopalian, Lutheran, Methodist. We for the most part, and ESPECIALLY in the Philadelphia suburbs, have very little evangelical protestanism. Thank god.

If you want to make claims about the rest of the state vis a vis the Midwest by all means, but you said you would make the same claim about the suburbs of Philly, which is 1000% not true.

You’re making a lot of strawmans here. I never even up brought religious or political comparisons from state to state. I just said that most of PA is predominantly German and many parts have a Midwest vibe. Not sure how this turned weirdly political lol

[EastSideHBG]

Originally Posted by wpipkins2

Name the things. I am curious to know.

Sinking and flooding for downtown. This is informative if you'd like to see some of the stats and impacts:

https://riskfactor.com/neighborhood/...932_fsid/flood

Here's the flooding recently, you can see how low Point State Park is now:

• Video Link

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by Redddog

Now you're stretching it. lol

Am I though?

There are a few data points that make Pittsburgh more similar to Austin, Nashville, Portland, and Minneapolis than Philadelphia.

1. College Attainment (above 50%)
2. Race (mostly white; very few immigrants)
3. Income ($64K)
4. Unemployment Rate (3.4%)

I guess I pose the question because there's an unstated narrative among a cohort of tastemakers and urbanists who (IMO) annoint the "cool" cities who'd I argue show bias for white urban places. These are places that check all the boxes on the urbanity list and leave out all the messy history that come with the most diverse older cities. Is a coincidence that the "coolest" cities in the last decade are among the whitest cities in the country? Isn't this just because there's a cohort of folks who show bias for these places because they're easy and comfortable for THEM? I guess I say it because Nashville and Austin have gotten obscenely expensive. At some point, they will stop attracting people at the same rate for the same reasons that other metros fell out of favor. Again, costs.

So what cities would be there to follow suit? I would argue Pittsburgh is a realistic contender.

[Radio5]

Originally Posted by EastSideHBG

Pittsburgh is unique and neat but isolated and overall a little behind the times, you can really start to feel it after spending some time there. And oddly it's a city that doesn't get mentioned much during the climate change discussions but its DT is going to have some things to address as the years go on.

What I always find odd is how Pittsburgh is cooler in the "hip scene". It has hipper hotels and fashion brands(not talking about Luxury) The ACE Hotel was there, Buck Mason is there. As a transplant, I don't get it.

[Radio5]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

Am I though?

There are a few data points that make Pittsburgh more similar to Austin, Nashville, Portland, and Minneapolis than Philadelphia.

1. College Attainment (above 50%)
2. Race (mostly white; very few immigrants)
3. Income ($64K)
4. Unemployment Rate (3.4%)

I guess I pose the question because there's an unstated narrative among a cohort of tastemakers and urbanists who (IMO) annoint the "cool" cities who'd I argue show bias for white urban places. These are places that check all the boxes on the urbanity list and leave out all the messy history that come with the most diverse older cities. Is a coincidence that the "coolest" cities in the last decade are among the whitest cities in the country? Isn't this just because there's a cohort of folks who show bias for these places because they're easy and comfortable for THEM? I guess I say it because Nashville and Austin have gotten obscenely expensive. At some point, they will stop attracting people at the same rate for the same reasons that other metros fell out of favor. Again, costs.

So what cities would be there to follow suit? I would argue Pittsburgh is a realistic contender.

I think you hit the nail on the head. Never thought about that before and answers my question above.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by skyhigh07

You’re making a lot of strawmans here. I never even up brought religious or political comparisons from state to state. I just said that most of PA is predominantly German and many parts have a Midwest vibe. Not sure how this turned weirdly political lol

It's not political. Religion is very tied to culture and our subset of religious backgrounds of the natives in SE PA make it distinctly unlike most of the Midwest. No one is making it "weird" you're just wrong.

[skyhigh07]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

It's not political. Religion is very tied to culture and our subset of religious backgrounds of the natives in SE PA make it distinctly unlike most of the Midwest. No one is making it "weird" you're just wrong.

You literally brought politics into it remember? lol. You had to back peddle and admit the Main Line is actually historically Protestant but then you had to rationalize your concession by saying “well it’s more liberal than Midwestern Protestants”. You do realize there are a ton of liberal Protestants in midsize Midwestern cities right? In fact, they make up the majority of the city I’m from. The Midwest isn’t a bunch of farm towns and then Chicago! lol

And I’m sure you’ve immersed yourself in Midwestern culture and took the summer off to visit the Prairie towns and cities of the Midwest last year to really be an expert on this lol

[UrbanRevival]

Originally Posted by skyhigh07

I’ve always felt PA and even Philly to some degree have a more Midwestern vibe than most places on the East Coast. You can really see it in the the burbs and rural collar counties. Hard to explain but people in Delco, Lancaster County etc seem closer to Midwesterners than New Yorkers or New Englanders. Might have something up do with PA and the Midwest being more Germanic.

Not to prolong this debate, but I'd have to strongly bristle at this, as well. The German ancestry commonality is a "surface level" type of synopsis; in fact, PA Germans are very distinctive from German immigrants in other parts of the US based on their historical settlement and religious differences:

https://www.thecollector.com/history...ylvania-dutch/

Also, I've spent plenty of time around Midwesterners in college; it was fascinating how different their personalities were from PA folks like myself. If I had to put into a nutshell, PA'ns are overall MUCH more cranky, loud and neurotic--and I mean that in the most lovable way. Conversely, I've always felt much more "at home" around NYers and New Englanders. Personality-wise, there's no comparison. This chart/map sums it up well:

https://time.com/7612/americas-mood-...s-of-attitude/

It's even irksome when outsiders call Pittsburgh "Midwestern;" it's further east than much of Florida! It's part of the Rust Belt overlay, of course, which extends between the Eastern Midwest to Upstate NY. However, Pennsylvania, from the NJ to the OH border, is thoroughly Eastern in character.

[skyhigh07]

Originally Posted by UrbanRevival

Not to prolong this debate, but I'd have to strongly bristle at this, as well. The German ancestry commonality is a "surface level" type of synopsis; in fact, PA Germans are very distinctive from German immigrants in other parts of the US based on their historical settlement and religious differences:

https://www.thecollector.com/history...ylvania-dutch/

Also, I've spent plenty of time around Midwesterners in college; it was fascinating how different their personalities were from PA folks like myself. If I had to put into a nutshell, PA'ns are overall MUCH more cranky, loud and neurotic--and I mean that in the most lovable way. Conversely, I've always felt much more "at home" around NYers and New Englanders. Personality-wise, there's no comparison. This chart/map sums it up well:

https://time.com/7612/americas-mood-...s-of-attitude/

It's even irksome when outsiders call Pittsburgh "Midwestern;" it's further east than much of Florida! It's part of the Rust Belt overlay, of course, which extends between the Eastern Midwest to Upstate NY. However, Pennsylvania, from the NJ to the OH border, is thoroughly Eastern in character.

Curious what part of PA you’re from. Like I said, I spent some time in Lancaster County last year. I found them to be very polite and service oriented but perhaps not overly personable - similar to midwesterners. Again, as I mentioned before, I’m qualifying Philly being Midwestern (far from it) but compared to NYC and Boston, I’d say it’s the most of the three.

If you haven’t lived extensively in the Midwest, Philly and NYC, it is probably difficult to see - understandably so.

Again, my initial point was that PA and the Midwest are primarily Germanic - that’s just a measurable, concrete fact. Thus, you’re going to have some similarities even if it’s that they may tend to look more German or something compared to other parts of the country. This is the land of the pretzel after all! That’s all I’m saying folks! lol

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by skyhigh07

You literally brought politics into it remember? lol. You had to back peddle and admit the Main Line is actually historically Protestant but then you had to rationalize your concession by saying “well it’s more liberal than Midwestern Protestants”. You do realize there are a ton of liberal Protestants in midsize Midwestern cities right? In fact, they make up the majority of the city I’m from. The Midwest isn’t a bunch of farm towns and then Chicago! lol

And I’m sure you’ve immersed yourself in Midwestern culture and took the summer off to visit the Prairie towns and cities of the Midwest last year to really be an expert on this lol

I didn't backpedal anything. You are saying it's political. I'm saying it's tied to religion. You must conflate religion with politics. And you're not wrong, but I didn't say it. You did.

Anyways. Glad we agree. The midwest and SE PA are nothing alike, possibly excepting Lancaster!

You're right. There are liberal protestants in cities all over the Midwest. Mostly the upper midwest (Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota) and those are the only tolerable places in the Midwest outside of Chicago. Bless their hearts!

[skyhigh07]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

I didn't backpedal anything. You are saying it's political. I'm saying it's tied to religion. You must conflate religion with politics. And you're not wrong, but I didn't say it. You did.

Anyways. Glad we agree. The midwest and SE PA are nothing alike, possibly excepting Lancaster!

You're right. There are liberal protestants in cities all over the Midwest. Mostly the upper midwest (Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota) and those are the only tolerable places in the Midwest outside of Chicago. Bless their hearts!

You first said the Main Line and burbs were historically Jewish and Catholic lol

Again, with the political condescension schtick

[skyhigh07]

Here’s an example we all know: Taylor Swift is from Reading, PA. She doesn’t exactly have a Joisy, Manhattan or Long Island vibe lol. That’s my point. Case closed.

I don’t really care where everyone thinks Philly ends and the rest of PA begins. I’m done.

[Mayormccheese]

Weird, the Smaller Boyd’s building being demo’d

https://www.ocfrealty.com/naked-phil...nhouse-square/

[Mayormccheese]

Originally Posted by skyhigh07

I’ve always felt PA and even Philly to some degree have a more Midwestern vibe than most places on the East Coast. You can really see it in the the burbs and rural collar counties. Hard to explain but people in Delco, Lancaster County etc seem closer to Midwesterners than New Yorkers or New Englanders. Might have something up do with PA and the Midwest being more Germanic.

I disagree people from delco are more like midwesterners than new englanders. If you changed good will hunting to be at UPenn and made Matt Damon from Delco you literally change nothing from the story but the accents.

[skyhigh07]

Originally Posted by Mayormccheese

I disagree people from delco are more like midwesterners than new englanders. If you changed good will hunting to be at UPenn and made Matt Damon from Delco you literally change nothing from the story but the accents.

I mean you wouldn’t changed much about the story if they were from Chicago either. You know what, I’m just going to delete Delco.

Okay now say that Taylor Swift seems like she’d be from Joisy or Long Island instead of Kansas. This is my point lol