Anonymous wrote:No. Life is short. Don't waste some of your best years in Pittsburgh.

As opposed to DC?

I am African-American. I grew up in Pittsburgh and still live there, now in the suburbs. I am UMC. It is extremely hard to find and connect with other UMC singles or families. It is not a good place for blacks. Google "African-Americans in Pittsburgh".

I spent 5 years in Pittsburgh and loved it. I had friends that were black and Latino. It's definitely not as diverse as here but I never sensed any racial tensions. I thought It was a great place to spend a few years. That said, I wouldn't want to move there permanently because of the weather.
Good luck with your decision!

I just posted. One other thing. You said you are single. I wouldn't want to be single here if I was looking to meet someone. Sorry but my single friends here seem to struggle to meet someone after a certain age (30? 35?).

All said, I would come visit before you decide. You might be surprised at how great Pittsburgh is. But it is not perfect.

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.

Colfax is a good school. There is an elementary in Regent Square - the environmental charter school - that is more well-regarded but really difficult to get into (just because of numbers), and I'm not sure whether it truly is better or just benefits from a charter school halo effect.

Highland Park is safe. Stay north of Bryant and east of Negley, the farther east you go the more desirable it gets.

So much of this comes down to the professional opportunity Pittsburgh presents and what you'd be leaving behind in DC. It won't be as diverse as DC by any stretch, but Pittsburgh has a strong and growing black middle/professional class. It can definitely work.

Oops I meant highland park not point breeze

Anonymous wrote:Hi OP, I am writing from Squrrel Hill (shalom! Haha) which I highly recommend as a (relatively) diverse community of educated folk who work at Pitt, CMU, Google... Squirrel Hill has nice parks, a great library, the JCC (they take all comers, and it's a great place for your dc to take swimming lessons, do after care, etc). Put your kid in some activities and you will meet other parents, that will be your starter social circle.

Having said that, other neighborhoods you might want to look at are Highland Park and Penn Hills. Highland Park is Pittsburgh Public Schools. I really don't know anything about the schools in Penn Hills but that is a close-in suburb favored by the black middle class.

Pittsburgh has an IB academy (Obama Academy) but it is 6th grade and up. I would take Edgewood off your list because it is not Pittsburgh Public Schools, and I don't think there is anything to recommend Edgewood Schools.

You should be able to find a small home or townhouse to rent for $1500/month. If you are only going to be here 5 years I'm not sure I'd buy unless you are getting some kind of relo assistance.

Unless you are going to buy a single family home, I wouldn't live in Shadyside. It's a nice place for shopping or going out to eat but the rentals are mainly students.

Good luck with your decision. Let me know if you have other questions. Have you visited?

Thanks for this. Yes I have visited but didn't know some of your points. What are your thoughts on Colfax? Is point based safe?

Anonymous wrote:Shadyside is awesome - very Old Town with good food, great stores, walkable culture. You should be able to find something you like at $1500/month.

I am so jealous. Great neighborhoods, diverse culture. You will meet anyone you want to meet there.

It is NOT like Baltimore at all. Pittsburgh is safe and beautiful and racially diverse in a great way, NOT LIKE BALTIMORE AT ALL.

I wrote what I meant about "like Baltimore", and I wasn't referring to safety or diversity, but thanks for the hometown dig.

I meant that it is the kind of place where people stay in their hometown areas, so the people I know that moved there had a hard time feeling at home since there were a lot of people with strong roots who had already formed social connections through generations living in the same place. Baltimore and Pittsburgh are both steel cities, so they do share cultural similarities. It wasn't meant as an insult.

Hi OP, I am writing from Squrrel Hill (shalom! Haha) which I highly recommend as a (relatively) diverse community of educated folk who work at Pitt, CMU, Google... Squirrel Hill has nice parks, a great library, the JCC (they take all comers, and it's a great place for your dc to take swimming lessons, do after care, etc). Put your kid in some activities and you will meet other parents, that will be your starter social circle.

Having said that, other neighborhoods you might want to look at are Highland Park and Penn Hills. Highland Park is Pittsburgh Public Schools. I really don't know anything about the schools in Penn Hills but that is a close-in suburb favored by the black middle class.

Pittsburgh has an IB academy (Obama Academy) but it is 6th grade and up. I would take Edgewood off your list because it is not Pittsburgh Public Schools, and I don't think there is anything to recommend Edgewood Schools.

You should be able to find a small home or townhouse to rent for $1500/month. If you are only going to be here 5 years I'm not sure I'd buy unless you are getting some kind of relo assistance.

Unless you are going to buy a single family home, I wouldn't live in Shadyside. It's a nice place for shopping or going out to eat but the rentals are mainly students.

Good luck with your decision. Let me know if you have other questions. Have you visited?

FYI, Portland Oregon is the whitest city, not Pittsburgh.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:i'm black. i'm looking at living in shadyside or squirrel hill, possibly edgewood, regent square or point breeze.

Squirrel Hill has some blocks that are entirely Orthodox Jewish families and they tend to be less...neighborly toward outsiders. Shadyside is nice.

Nice passive aggressive point there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

The job would have to be excellent. pittsburgh winters are brutal and depressing.

Actually, this year Pittsburgh got less snow than DC did.

Pittsburgh is not in the snow belt.

It might get less snow total but it snows all.the.time. Like, it seemed like it snowed half an inch a day, every day, all winter. It is also very hilly which makes winter driving a problem at times. I lived at the bottom of a big hill for a couple of years when I lived there, and my husband had to come up with all sorts of creative ways to get home from work to avoid driving on that hill in the ice.

Lived in Pittsburgh 2004-2009 and met my husband there. I have a soft spot in my heart for Pittsburgh. It’s cheap and quirky, and it’s gotten much more “conventionally hip” in recent years. That said, I moved for a reason. Public transit is terrible, doesn’t have all the amenities of a bigger city, does not have an east coast feel.

Sure there are non-white people associated with CMU, but Pittsburgh is still pretty freaking white. I remember reading soon after I moved away that the Pittsburgh metro area is the whitest large metro area in the country. The city is obviously going to be less white than the burbs, but still.

Weather wise, it’s consistently about 10 degrees cooler there than here. An extra month of winter. The sky is gray all the time. You always need to bring an umbrella. In the winter it is constantly snowing a small amount. Back when I lived there the city was broke and no one took care of the roads, but not sure if that is still the case.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:i'm black. i'm looking at living in shadyside or squirrel hill, possibly edgewood, regent square or point breeze.

Squirrel Hill has some blocks that are entirely Orthodox Jewish families and they tend to be less...neighborly toward outsiders. Shadyside is nice.

WOW. And Pittsburgh has a problem with diversity? Pot, meet kettle.