Reply #78: Pittsburgh is awesome!!

[dropkickpa]

Not that I'm biased or anything ;-)

Seriously, I love it here. I moved here in 1988 with my family and my parents have refused to budge ever since (after moving every 2-3 years for the first 17 years of their marriage). It really is true, people here are friendly as hell (I regularly have long conversations with all kinds of people, complete strangers).

And don't believe the hype about how hard it is to get places. If you have even a mediocre sense of direction you'll be fine in no time, just don't look at the city with a "grid" mentality (impossible with the regions topography, ). If you think some streets are steep, just imagine if they tried to make it a grid. Even NYC was not on a grid system until the commisioners plan of 1811, which completely reconfigured Manhattan. Pittsburgh is not a planned city and hasn't undergone the massive razing and reconfiguring that many other US cities have done to their older sections. I don't even own a car but I am the one people go to for directions all the time, so it can't possibly be that hard.

Winter here is milder than Milwaukee and Chicago (although many pghers seem to think we live in the arctic, even though winters have been getting progressively milder over the last 20 years :rofl:).

There is still a LOT of that good working-class sensibility here, strong support for labor and small family owned businesses. There is very little pretentiousness.

Neighborhood "cliqueishness" isn't like high-school cliques. It's more of a pride thing. Pittsburgh has an extremely rich and varied history, and family is a big part of that. It's funny, I'll tell someone what neighborhood I am from and most times they say "I knew so-and-so family from there twenty years ago. Do you know them?" and, funny thing, I often do if they still live here (this is a very small neighberhood).

The pay range of the job you posted is more than enough to live comfortably on here.

There's museums, art galleries, the library system is FANTASTIC, a zillion colleges, amusement parks, wilderness, amazing architecture, a thriving music scene, great food (if you like pierogi's you're in luck, just about every place has them on the menu), a fun zoo that ISN'T like hiking through the serengeti, just too much to list. You don't pay taxes on clothing or food, even "expensive" restaurants are pretty darn affordable compared to other cities.