Offered a job in Pittsburgh

[Anonymous]

^^ then don't go? Can you not find a job in DC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. interviewed with two jobs. turned down the first due to very low pay. might get the second. been driving around looking at housing in point breeze and squirrel hill. this city is so small and so white! i miss the chocolate city already!

Chocolate city equals crime city!

[Anonymous]

OP here. So second job will also be low pay- about a 40% pay cut. Pittsburgh is cheaper but not that much cheaper. It is easier to manage though and there the family pull. I can deal with the weather and lack of diversity for a year but not sure I can deal with not seeing my friends and being broke. Would you make this kind of sacrifice for aging parents?

[Anonymous]

No, I wouldn't make that sacrifice for ageing parents. But then I wouldn't expect my children to take a 40 percent pay cut and live in shittsville to come look after me either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. interviewed with two jobs. turned down the first due to very low pay. might get the second. been driving around looking at housing in point breeze and squirrel hill. this city is so small and so white! i miss the chocolate city already!

Chocolate city equals crime city!

Might want to watch that turn if phrase, there.

[Anonymous]

Op, I live in Pittsburgh and love it. I thought of you recently bc I saw something on Facebook about a group called pittsburgh brown mamas or something similar. It was on the kidsburgh fb page. You may want to connect with them to get more info about lifestyle. I would not come for a 40% pay cut. One of the reasons we enjoy living here so much is that we did not take a pay cut to move.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would you take it? I'm not white and I'm single.

I lived there for 4 years and LOVED it. Great parks and festivals (esp in the summer). Wonderful food and bar scene. You have the benefit of several large universities in the area (providing opps for sports events, theater, etc.) The people are very nice. And, there are some great old neighborhoods. Cost of living is doable.

That said, the winters there are fairly miserable in that they are gray, cold, and they linger longer than you would expect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. So second job will also be low pay- about a 40% pay cut. Pittsburgh is cheaper but not that much cheaper. It is easier to manage though and there the family pull. I can deal with the weather and lack of diversity for a year but not sure I can deal with not seeing my friends and being broke. Would you make this kind of sacrifice for aging parents?

How much cheaper can you get your housing/can you make money renting out your DC place? Would it be easy to get back in your field here if you hate it? The parents/adventure would be a big sway for me. I'm about to do this (headed to Dallas) I figure a year flys by.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely. I just spent the weekend there and I would kill for a job. So beautiful and so cheap. I lived there for a couple years as a kid, and it was perfect for kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am also writing from Pittsburgh. From here. Have lived all over east coast including DC, but came back to Pittsburgh (my home town).

Here are some pros:
- Cheap living, which has SO very many benefits compared to DC.
- EASY to live here. Easy to get around, enough to do with kids. I actually go do all the things like museums that are too far away to take advantage of in DC.
- Very authentic place with real soul. I personally found DC to be sterile and boring. Pittsburgh is gritty and has "real" working class people, which I like.
- A great place to have kids. You can have a yard and a big beautiful house. Lots of parks. Lots of green.
- Professionally if you can get a good job (see below) it is the best of both worlds. I have an international job in a city that has small town convenience. I am very rich relative to most Pittsburghers and live very well.
- People are friendly.
- There is tons of culture for a city this size. Great food scene. Very intellectual and international, at least in the east end, thanks especially to CMU, Pitt/UPMC.
- Pittsburgh is getting a ton of press right now as a city on the upswing for many of the above reasons.

Here are some cons:
- I wouldn't want to live here in the suburbs. I love being a Pittsburgher in the city, but IMO if you are an 'east coast person' the suburbs would be tough (I grew up in them).
- I think it would hard to be black here. While there is a significant black population in the city, Pittsburgh can be a segregated town, not black-white segregation, but across different ethnic lines. This is positive and negative. It is positive in that Pittsburgh is a city of neighborhoods....real neighborhoods with walkable commercial areas that are years and years old with real stores and real history (in contrast, DC for me was pretty artificial with most of the neighborhoods being either literally fake (think Rockville town center) or recently gentrified fake (a la Capital Hill). You get to know people in your neighborhood and see them. I live where some of my grandparents and parents and great grandparents lived. Community is a very real thing. It is awesome for me. On the other hand, the neighborhoods historically were ethnically-centric. There were, and to some extent still are, neighborhoods that are polish, Italian, jewish, black, Slavic, irish. And my impression is that like other cities with this kind of history, it can be a racist town. I don't know what non-white you are. As others have said, if you are Indian or Asian, you will find no issue in the East End thanks to the influence of CMU and UPMC/Pitt. I think it would be harder to be black in Pittsburgh. Also, there are almost no Latinos, although that is changing.
- It can be hard to get a job in Pittsburgh relative to DC. If you have a great job, that is great. But if you need a new job, the opportunities are just much less than DC.
- Weather kind of sucks here. It just does. It is one of the grayest cities in the US (top 4). But if you don't like DC summers, the good news is our summer are pleasant.
- There is a bit of a culture of people associating with friends from growing up. That goes back to the city of neighborhoods thing.

School wise, if you are going to be in the East End, you'll really want to make sure you are in Colfax/Alderdice boundaries, or plan to send your kid to private school or a less quality magnet/public school. The schools leave a lot to be desired. For older kids though I hear great things about Obama and CAPA.

Capitol Hill is hardly "recently gentrified". It seems like you don't know much about DC if you don't think it has any "real history"...

Other than having lived there over 6 years....

In fairness, there is a genuine and rich black culture in DC. The point I was trying to make is in Pittsburgh the same communities have lived in neighborhoods for a hundred years. How many people in Capitol Hill today lived there 25 or even 10 years ago, let alone can trace their families back there? There is a great community there but it is not the community that existed a generation ago.

In Pittsburgh, I literally live around the corner from houses that my great-grandmother on my dad's side, my grandmother on my mom's side, my father in law and mother in law lived in (and their parents) (and I could keep going). The house we bought belonged to close friends of my grandparents. When people ask me where I live, I say "the so-and-so's house" and that means something to them. That is Pittsburgh for you...at least the city neighborhoods. And yes, I don't think DC has that, except perhaps in the black community. Feel free to tell my I am wrong, but that was my experience in DC. DC is great but it is not a place with roots (again other than the black community).

Yes, you are wrong.
-Grew up on the Hill and still live there with my spouse and kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am not white & thought places like Mt. Lebanon, Wexford, Squirrel Hill, Shady Side, & Friendship were diverse enough for me. There are other neighborhoods that I did not even list that are diverse. Its a charming city.

I grew up in Pittsburgh. If you equate diversity simplistically with race, there is that but not as much as Washington. But there's much more white and blue collar mixing compared with here and a very diverse ethnic tableau that has enriched the life (and food offerings) of the area. BTW in my parents' day, a "mixed" marriage meant an Irish and an Italian Catholic couple!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. interviewed with two jobs. turned down the first due to very low pay. might get the second. been driving around looking at housing in point breeze and squirrel hill. this city is so small and so white! i miss the chocolate city already!

Chocolate city equals crime city!

To me it connotes the "DC = Dysfunctional City' of the Barry era, not to mention the cozy crony political culture that unfortunately has lasted longer. So glad that Washington is a more diverse, open and vibrant place today. While it still is not at a Portland, OR level of governance, DC has been much better run since Barry left, especially once Tony Williams (best mayor ever) was elected. And when DC's mayor-for-life became the mayor-for-eternal life, there was a symbolic turning of the page. Hopefully his crooked son's attempt to succeed the crooked papa was a one trick pony.

[Anonymous]

Everybody wears yellow and black there all the time. You have to be willing to talk about the Steelers constantly. Although OP it sounds like you're from Pittsburgh since your parents are there? That would lure me. I've visited because my husband is from there. It is so provincial. I didn't find that people were friendly at all to outsiders and they smoke constantly. Every place smells of smoke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everybody wears yellow and black there all the time. You have to be willing to talk about the Steelers constantly. Although OP it sounds like you're from Pittsburgh since your parents are there? That would lure me. I've visited because my husband is from there. It is so provincial. I didn't find that people were friendly at all to outsiders and they smoke constantly. Every place smells of smoke.

Or you can follow the Buccos, aka the Pahrits.