Evergrey

The hill is still falling apart. This is a classic example of fragmented regionalism. A tiny municipality (700 people) wants to expand their tax base by bringing in a Wal-Mart... this hillside disaster happens... and roads and railroads critical to the entire REGION are affected.

well, if there's any state government more dysfunctional than Ohio... it's Pennsylvania... here's a neat little statistical article that could probably be applied to Ohio as well http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07049/762785-147.stm Stats guru shows why state transit support is difficult Sunday, February 18, 2007 By Joe Grata, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette While the troubled Port Authority's long-term hopes of R 'n R (relief and reform) rest on the shoulders of state lawmakers, a University of Pittsburgh numbers guru has shown why it is so difficult to get legislation passed that benefits public transit. Christopher Briem, of Bloomfield, a full-time researcher at the University Center for Social and Urban Research, did unique work off the clock. He took the 203 House legislative districts and figured out which ones have the most transit users.

That last comment was uncalled for! btw, there IS history behind the name Pittsburgh Pirates (previously called the Pittsburgh Innocents/Infants). The difference is that Pirates sounds bad-ass while Mud Hens elicits a chuckle and a WTF? here's some wiki-knowledge: "When the renegade Players League dissolved after the 1890 season, most of the league's player contracts were assigned to National League and American Association clubs, mostly to their previous clubs provided they had been "reserved" by their former teams' owners. Highly-regarded second baseman Lou Bierbauer, who had previously played with the Philadelphia Athletics of the Association, was awarded to the Pittsburgh team on the grounds that the A's had not reserved him. This led to loud complaints by the Athletics that the Pittsburgh club were "pirates". This incident (which is discussed at some length in The Beer and Whisky League, by David Nemec, 1994) quickly accelerated into a schism between the leagues that contributed to the demise of the A.A. The colorful epithet stuck with the Pittsburghers, and eventually became the club's official nickname. It was first acknowledged on the team's jerseys in 1912, but even by the 1903 World Series, "Pirates" was in common usage. (Years later, the "Mr. Yuk" poison warning was developed due to the traditional skull-and-crossbones being associated with the Pirates baseball team.)"

I've always been curious about Ironton.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_most_pedestrian_commuters List of U.S. cities with most pedestrian commuters From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search The following is a list of United States cities of 100,000+ inhabitants with the 50 highest rates of pedestrian commuting, according to data from the 2000 Census. The Census measured the percentage of commuters who walk to work, as opposed to taking public transit, driving an automobile, bicycle, boat, or some other means. College towns and cities with military bases often rank high on this list, as students and faculty of universities often live very close to their place of employment if on-campus or close to campus. Military employees are often housed at or very near their place of employment. 1. Cambridge, Massachusetts 25.76% 2. Ann Arbor, Michigan 16.52% 3. Berkeley, California 15.99% 4. New Haven, Connecticut 14.0% 5. Columbia, South Carolina 13.78% 6. Provo, Utah 13.39% 7. Boston, Massachusetts 13.36% 8. Providence, Rhode Island 12.56% 9. Washington, D.C. 12.27% 10. Madison, Wisconsin 10.99% 11. New York, New York 10.72% 12. Syracuse, New York 10.31% 13. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 10.02% 14. San Francisco, California 9.82% 15. Wichita Falls, Texas 9.29% 16. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 9.22% 17. Jersey City, New Jersey 8.17% 18. Newark, New Jersey 8.03% 19. Seattle, Washington 7.72% 20. Allentown, Pennsylvania 7.55% 21. Baltimore, Maryland 7.28% 22. Worcester, Massachusetts 7.11% 23. Norfolk, Virginia 7.05% 24. Minneapolis, Minnesota 6.85% 25. Honolulu, Hawaii 6.8% 26. Erie, Pennsylvania 6.7% 27. Rochester, New York 6.65% 28. Eugene, Oregon 6.43% 29. Paterson, New Jersey 5.97% 30. Hartford, Connecticut 5.89% 31. Chicago, Illinois 5.8% 32. Arlington, Virginia 5.77% 33. Cincinnati, Ohio 5.61% 34. St. Paul, Minnesota 5.58% 35. Pasadena, California 5.51% 36. Portland, Oregon 5.47% 37. Buffalo, New York 5.43% 38. Dayton, Ohio 5.37% 39. New Orleans, Louisiana 5.35% 40. Augusta, Georgia 5.13% 41. Salt Lake City, Utah 5.07% 42. Irvine, California 5.06% 43. Elizabeth, New Jersey 5.0% 44. Paradise, Nevada 4.8% 45. Milwaukee, Wisconsin 4.79% 46. Columbus, Georgia 4.78% 47. Lowell, Massachusetts 4.63% 48. East Los Angeles, California 4.61% 49. Richmond, Virginia 4.54% 50. Denver, Colorado 4.51% ok... I bolded Pittsburgh, all Ohio cities and the "Large" cities (plus Portland, OR) that made that PBS list. Most of the cities at the top are college towns. The top "real" cities on that list are Boston, Washington, NYC, Pittsburgh and San Francisco. Cincinnati and Dayton both have over 5%... Cleveland, Columbus, Youngstown, Toledo, etc. didn't make the Top 50. This statistic represents more of a functional walkability as opposed to "greenways!" and pretty wilderness parks like most of the "Best Walking Cities" lists. It's walking as a central function of your life... vs. walking as a Sunday afternoon diversion.

btw, somebody break out that list of highest percentage of population walking to work from the Census... I know Pittsburgh ranked higher than Seattle and Minneapolis.

walking is slow and tiring... why would anybody want to walk? My city didn't make that PBS list (although one of our suburbs did... a place where nobody can actually walk to work)... but i can walk across the street to the Starbucks and W.G. Grinders... I can walk across the street to the gas station... I can walk to Whole Foods, Giant Eagle Market District, Foodland, two Italian grocers, a dozen bars, Crazy Mocha CoffeeShop, video rental, University of Pittsburgh, 20 Italian restaurants, dentist, hospital, pharmacy, etc.

"Ohhhh Camilia, don't you leave me sitting here in Atlanta... IN ATLANTA!" - Philadelphia blue-eyed soul duo Hall & Oates, 1975 Hilarious comments all around... especially Mylanta lol This city is the physical manifestation of everything I hate in modern urban America... but nice shots, Chris!

Toledo's MSA is about the same size as Youngstown's MSA.

UncleRando: What is the purpose of AAA if that's not where the major league talent is? And since when did Toledo have a metro of 2 million!?

looks like Toledo

I'm not suprised the Toledo Mud Hens is "the most recognized name in minor sports"... because it is an incredibly stupid name... but what I do find suprising is that Sports Illustrated and Newsweek would have printed that little factoid MANY times. I'm also suprised that Dayton can only support Single-A ball. Even Altoona, PA has Double-A... and that's a metro of 130,000!

Pittsburgh's problem with keeping the Penguins has nothing to do with their popularity... but I don't expect you to know the specifics of the situation and don't really feel like getting into it right now (they do have 95% percent capacity at the oldest and crappiest arena in the NHL this season and the 2nd highest local TV ratings in the US after Buffalo)

Walnut is about half corporate/trendy and half local yokel... and most of the restaurants/bars are local... except for a Max & Erma's... it's a good mix. The Ellsworth and Highland business districts are almost completely local and a bit funkier... but Walnut has the ultimate pedestrian scale to it.

I agree... 8/10 ... solid effort!

please treat us to some more "neighborhoods in snow" shots... like Tremont and Edgewater!

Cityscapes look AMAZING in ultra-cold temperatures.

fantastic! that was a neighborhood built for days like this!

Took a walk over to neighboring neighborhood Shadyside today. We got blasted with a mix of snow and rain yesterday... and some more snow today... I don't know... 7 inches or so? Shadyside is a large beautiful neighborhood just a few blocks away from my place in Bloomfield. Figured it was the perfect neighborhood to photograph after a snowstorm. Entering Shadyside from Bloomfield... The Centre-Baum corridor forms the border between the two neighborhoods and is dominated by many large apartment buildings like this one... The Coronado. RamsayHank posted a much better photo of this church a couple weeks ago looking down at the BRT and the train tracks This is a wood block street... which you can't see obviously looking down the Walnut St. business district tree branches and powerlines were weighed down by a coating of ice back to Walnut St. ... my favourite little watering hole record village has the lamest selection Prantl's and Pamela's are two Shadyside institutions The University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning looms in the distance wonderful crepes gazing at the skyline of East Liberty... the office tower has been vacant for decades... but is finally going condo rare rowhouses Highland Ave. business district one of the city's top restaurants The bridge to East Liberty This Borders is part of a new retail development in East Liberty along the border of Shadyside... seperated by the BRT. The bizarre green dome belongs to the Motor Garden across the street... regional HQ of AAA. work continues Ellsworth St. business district gasp! mmm... tapas! :( considering the paucity of rows in Shadyside... it's somewhat suprising to find a row THIS LONG *test to see if ColDayMan is still looking* the urban cupcake phenomenon two well-known Shadyside establishments a gay video lounge (i dont know what a video lounge is) goodnight

I just find it interesting that you're so obsessed with writing a small essay on how Pittsburgh can't compare to NYC, Paris, Munich, Northern Virginia and CLEVELAND whenever my city is mentioned on this forum. Now try and make a real contribution to the forum sometime instead of torturing the rest of us with your personal traumatic legacy of a Parma upbringing.

Thanks for your input, AmrapinVA. I could say that I think your statements are idiotic... but it won't change your mind... so I'll refrain from doing that. Glad you liked my thread.

While Dayton might be big enough to support an NBA team... why would Dayton get an NBA team before Cincy?

I assume you are are referring to Riverparc... which is being developed by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust in an under-developed section of Downtown. It will feature 700 residential units and loads of other amenities... and is designed to meet LEED "green" standards. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06192/704890-53.stm

Well, I do think Pittsburgh (and Cincinnati for that matter) have much more neighborhood diversity structurally than Great Lakes cities like Cleveland. Topography certainly helped in creating very strong self-sufficient neighborhoods. As for the population... I wish Pittsburgh would follow Cincy's example and challenge those Census Estimates... major cities tend to be undercounted and the methodology for estimates are developed in a way that penalizes our older core cities. Pittsburgh certainly does feel much larger than its population, however (though certain areas are really "in the woods")... it has a very small area... about 55 sq. miles... which is about 2/3s the size of Cleveland's area... but if you add in the populations of every municipality that borders the city proper... you get a population of 900,000... which is a bit more of an accurate reflection. Pittsburgh is also one of the Top 5 "daytime population surge" cities (along with cities like Boston and DC)... which means a lot of people come to the city to work. ... And yeah... a much more developed rapid transit system would make sense for a city like Pittsburgh... but you must remember... WE LIVE IN AMERICA. PAT can't support its current operations as it is... despite serving a higher percentage of commuters than any other core county besides counties in DC, Portland, SF Bay Area, NYC, Chicago, Boston and Philly... it is threatening to reduce 25% of its bus hours due to massive debts due to a lack of permenant funding from America's "largest and most expensive full-time legislature", mounting legacy expenditures and its own blunders. PAT is, however, extending the light rail to the North Side... a 1.2 mile extension that will tunnel under the Allegheny River at a cost of $393 million. While I'm glad to see any extension of the rail network... this is a misguided move... PAT should've went East to Oakland first. But the Federal Government apparently thought this was a good project and is paying for 80% of it... so it must go forward. Unfortunately, PAT had a lack of vision for its rail network. It opened the system as it exists now in the 80s... and pretty much sat on it... opening a small section in the south a couple years ago and beginning preliminary studies on the North Side link in 1999. It is only now beginning discussions of an Eastern line. However, considering the 1.2 mile segment to the North Side will take 4 years to complete... I wouldn't get your hopes up on riding the rail from Downtown to Oakland any time soon. the percentage of workers who commute via public transit in America's top 100 counties– Census 2000 NY, New York County 59.6% NY, Kings County 57.4% NY, Bronx County 53.7% NY, Queens County 47.4% NJ, Hudson County 33.6% DC, District of Columbia 33.2% CA, San Francisco County 31.1% MA, Suffolk County 30.9% PA, Philadelphia County 25.4% NY, Westchester County 20.4% NJ, Essex County 18.6% IL, Cook County 17.3% NY, Nassau County 15.7% MD, Montgomery County 12.6% MA, Norfolk County 12.3% MD, Prince George's County 11.9% OR, Multnomah County 11.1% NJ, Bergen County 11.0% CA, Alameda County 10.6% PA, Allegheny County 10.5% ... WI, Milwaukee County 6.9% OH, Cuyahoga County 6.2% OH, Hamilton County 5.0% NY, Erie County (Buffalo) 4.1% OH, Franklin County 3.1% highest daytime population surge amongst cities over 250,000 (really a function of being an artifically small city proper in a large metro... and having a very healthy downtown/inner city economic base) Washington, DC 71.8% Atlanta, GA 62.4% Tampa, FL 47.5% (small city in a big metro... but still wasn't expecting this) Pittsburgh, PA 41.3% Boston, MA 41.1% ... Columbus, OH 11.6% Cleveland, OH 24% Cincinnati, OH 31% Detroit, MI -0.1%

I spent 14 months in Wooster... I moved from there in December and returned to my home state to begin grad school in urban studies. Uncle Rando: There is a bus stop right in front of my place... the bus comes 3 times an hour. I use it sometimes if I'm running short on time. A 20-30 minute walk is nothing... I quite enjoy it and usually choose to walk... even when it was 0 degrees the other day. Most Pittsburgh neighborhoods are extremely walkable and visually stimulating. I don't think this pattern would change if there was a streetcar in front of my house. wimwar: Yes, I've seen that statue... it's on Liberty Ave. downtown.