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I've long found a third drawback, which may be linked to the access to capital issue, is Pittsburgh's geographical isolation compared to the Bay Area and other

I've long found a third drawback, which may be linked to the access to capital issue, is Pittsburgh's geographical isolation compared to the Bay Area and other tech hot spots. There's no major international air hub (anymore) and flights even to nearby cities such as NY, DC, and Philly are relatively pricey with limited schedules. There's no meaningful international service either anymore. This is in comparison to SFO, which has direct international service to many cities in Asia and Europe and fancy flat-bed planes (on the hour) to NYC... Austin has direct service to London and Frankfurt and flights every 30 minutes to mega hubs in Dallas and Houston, and well, New York is New York. Even by car, the closest nearest city at a two hours without traffic is ... Cleveland, and while Philly, DC, and NYC are drivable, you're looking at 4-5 hours without traffic to Philly or DC and 6-7 hours to NYC if you're lucky. And it's not the easiest of drives either with the winding and truck-filled PA Turnpike. Even within the metro area, there isn't much outside the downtown core. A few nice suburbs to the north, south, and east, but there isn't anything to the scale of the Bay Area, even with it's housing crunch, nor the Pacific Northwest, nor even Austin / San-Antonio. In short, it's hard to get to and out of, and while there's an exciting transformation going on, at the end of the day unless someone revives PIT as a major transit hub, it's still going to be a relatively isolated post-industrial mid-western rust-belt city.

Hydraulix989 9y ago
I totally agree. I wrote to the mayor about this, and we could definitely use more help raising awareness to the city about this very pressing issue (@billpeduto on Twitter if you're also affected)... I've never had an SFO<->PIT flight without layovers. Also, we ask everyone here to please continue to refrain from using the pejorative "rust-belt" to describe our beloved hometown and emerging tech center. It is a very unwelcoming word. Thank you!
- dasil003 9y ago
  I'm doing that this week and I had to choose a 6:30am flight to get a layover less than 6 hours and a price less than $1000.
- rbsmith 9y ago
  > I've never had an SFO<->PIT flight without layovers. About 10 years ago, I did a round trip a month, each under $300 and all flights non-stop. Then USAirways hub status left, and the pain set in.
- iak8god 9y ago
  > we ask everyone here to please continue to refrain from using the pejorative "rust-belt" Who is "we"? I spent the first few decades of my life in a great lakes rust belt city and this is the first time I've heard of anyone considering it a pejorative.
  - Hydraulix989 9y ago
    People actually from Pittsburgh do (I'm a fourth generation native, my great grandfather farmed tomatoes for H.J. Heinz -- look on a ketchup bottle): "Shame. It’s pretty thick in these parts, and it’s linked to the region’s nickname, 'The Rust Belt.' After all, rust connotes disuse, or of being left behind." [1] Hope that helps you see our point of view a bit more. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richey-piiparinen/rust-belt-detroit_b_3569821.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richey-piiparinen/rust-belt-de...
    - iak8god 9y ago
      Interesting. I've always viewed it as a slightly clever term connoting the region's heavy reliance on the steel industry in the past and the undeniable economic/demographic decline that followed. I obviously don't know about Pittsburgh, but it is absolutely not viewed as a perjorative in some other cities typically considered part of the rust belt.
    - iak8god 9y ago
      An addendum to my sibling comment here: A cusory web search turns up indie bookstores, restaurants, literary publishers, community groups of various sorts, etc in Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit that embrace the term "rust belt". I didn't easily find similar results for Pittsburgh, so maybe yinz do have a different take on it. But please don't assume others intend "rust belt" as a pejorative, and please consider recognizing that as it's not widely used pejoratively, you may have limited success convincing others to stop using it.
      - Hydraulix989 9y ago
        I've only ever heard Californians and New Yorkers use the word pejoratively, like in OP's context.
- sliken 9y ago
  You must not look very hard. I fly annually SFO <-> PIT direct, including another one in a week.
- pjlegato 9y ago
  I'm from Pittsburgh, too. Not only do I find the term "rust belt" perfectly acceptable, I find your scolding strangers on the internet about its use to be pompously absurd. You are not "our" spokesman invested with some kind of moral authority to publicly sermonize about "our" identity. Please refrain from doing so on "our" behalf, and speak only for yourself.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
mcgrath_sh 9y ago
With the increase in speed limit on the turnpike, DC has become just under 4 hours for me. From my house in the city to the Silver Spring metro stop is 3h 55m on the GPS. Toronto is a 6 hour drive, Charlotte or Chicago are also only a 7 hour drive. I know many people prefer to fly, but between getting to the airport, getting there in enough time (1.5 hours or so), probable delays, actually flying, getting out of the other airport, and getting to your preferred destination, you are looking at a time frame that is either less than, equal to, or within a 2 hour time frame of what it takes to fly. Criticism of international flights is completely valid, but between MegaBus and driving, I feel like a lot of cities are relatively easy to get to. As for international flights, I know a lot of friends who will take a MegaBus to NYC, Toronto, DC, or Philly and just fly round trip out of there. There are a lot of overnight or close to overnight MegaBus routes to those places.
- rrdharan 9y ago
  Agree if you are just concerned about travel time but there's also the opportunity to get work done, sleep, or watch a movie on a plane. I generally avoid driving these days just because I find myself increasingly dreading the level of concentration and focus required to drive safely for more than two or three hours at a stretch.
  - mcgrath_sh 9y ago
    That is completely fair. The equation also drastically changes when you are looking at traveling alone and traveling with more than one person. Even with just my husband and I, the cost in both time and money to fly to Philly, NYC, DC, and Ohio is simply not worth it. Instead, we plunk down the money for a new audiobook and split the driving.
  - gorkonsine 9y ago
    Unless you have a private jet, or perhaps you only fly first-class, I'm not sure how you actually sleep or get any work done on one. As someone who's over 6 feet, I'm so cramped in a modern plane that that alone makes it pretty hard to get a computer out and do anything useful with it; add to that people reclining their seats (now I can't use my laptop at all), kids kicking the back of my seat, people crawling over me to go to the bathroom if I'm not in the window seat, and worse, on a short flight, the fact that you're not even allowed to have your laptop out for a large portion of the flight--by the time you're finally allowed to get it out because the plane has reached altitude and you get started with something, now the plane is coming in for a landing and you have to put it away again. Substitute "on a plane" for "on a train" and you'd be correct. Trains are great for bringing a laptop and getting work done while you travel: the seats have reasonably generous space, there's power outlets (many planes still don't have these in economy), and you're allowed to get your laptop out as soon as you sit down, well before the train even leaves the station, and you don't have to put it away until you're ready to get up and walk off the train.
tomjakubowski 9y ago
I realize this is off-topic, but I'm somewhat surprised by the consistent use of the Austin metro as an example of a "tech hub" in comments here, when a metro area in its own state (Dallas) had raised more in venture capital as recently as 2016. [1] Austin is certainly shifting their economy to be tech-dominant, but it's still a small economy relative to other US cities. What makes Austin a more important tech hub than, say: Dallas-Fort Worth, Raleigh-Durham, or Chicago? [1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/global-startup-cities-venture-capital/429255/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/globa...
- lod723 9y ago
  Just speculating, but maybe it's because Google, Facebook, and Amazon have a tech presence in Austin and not in the other 3 metros you mentioned?
  - thesmallestcat 9y ago
    Google has sales and engineering in Chicago, engineering in Chapel Hill, and sales in Dallas. I think there may be some engineering in Dallas too. There are enough good people out there unwilling to relocate that you can find a Google presence in most tech corridors.
    - nunez 9y ago
      Google doesn't have an office in Dallas anymore
- DrScump 9y ago
  Wasn't Dell based in nearby Round Rock?
- dmode 9y ago
  Austin is overhyped. There are cities in East Bay that nobody knows of (e.g., Emeryville) that have raised more money than Austin.
- dmode 9y ago

Hydraulix989 9y ago

I totally agree. I wrote to the mayor about this, and we could definitely use more help raising awareness to the city about this very pressing issue (@billpeduto on Twitter if you're also affected)... I've never had an SFO<->PIT flight without layovers. Also, we ask everyone here to please continue to refrain from using the pejorative "rust-belt" to describe our beloved hometown and emerging tech center. It is a very unwelcoming word. Thank you!

dasil003 9y ago
I'm doing that this week and I had to choose a 6:30am flight to get a layover less than 6 hours and a price less than $1000.
rbsmith 9y ago
> I've never had an SFO<->PIT flight without layovers. About 10 years ago, I did a round trip a month, each under $300 and all flights non-stop. Then USAirways hub status left, and the pain set in.
iak8god 9y ago
> we ask everyone here to please continue to refrain from using the pejorative "rust-belt" Who is "we"? I spent the first few decades of my life in a great lakes rust belt city and this is the first time I've heard of anyone considering it a pejorative.
- Hydraulix989 9y ago
  People actually from Pittsburgh do (I'm a fourth generation native, my great grandfather farmed tomatoes for H.J. Heinz -- look on a ketchup bottle): "Shame. It’s pretty thick in these parts, and it’s linked to the region’s nickname, 'The Rust Belt.' After all, rust connotes disuse, or of being left behind." [1] Hope that helps you see our point of view a bit more. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richey-piiparinen/rust-belt-detroit_b_3569821.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richey-piiparinen/rust-belt-de...
  - iak8god 9y ago
    Interesting. I've always viewed it as a slightly clever term connoting the region's heavy reliance on the steel industry in the past and the undeniable economic/demographic decline that followed. I obviously don't know about Pittsburgh, but it is absolutely not viewed as a perjorative in some other cities typically considered part of the rust belt.
  - iak8god 9y ago
    An addendum to my sibling comment here: A cusory web search turns up indie bookstores, restaurants, literary publishers, community groups of various sorts, etc in Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit that embrace the term "rust belt". I didn't easily find similar results for Pittsburgh, so maybe yinz do have a different take on it. But please don't assume others intend "rust belt" as a pejorative, and please consider recognizing that as it's not widely used pejoratively, you may have limited success convincing others to stop using it.
    - Hydraulix989 9y ago
      I've only ever heard Californians and New Yorkers use the word pejoratively, like in OP's context.
sliken 9y ago
You must not look very hard. I fly annually SFO <-> PIT direct, including another one in a week.
pjlegato 9y ago
I'm from Pittsburgh, too. Not only do I find the term "rust belt" perfectly acceptable, I find your scolding strangers on the internet about its use to be pompously absurd. You are not "our" spokesman invested with some kind of moral authority to publicly sermonize about "our" identity. Please refrain from doing so on "our" behalf, and speak only for yourself.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

mcgrath_sh 9y ago

With the increase in speed limit on the turnpike, DC has become just under 4 hours for me. From my house in the city to the Silver Spring metro stop is 3h 55m on the GPS. Toronto is a 6 hour drive, Charlotte or Chicago are also only a 7 hour drive. I know many people prefer to fly, but between getting to the airport, getting there in enough time (1.5 hours or so), probable delays, actually flying, getting out of the other airport, and getting to your preferred destination, you are looking at a time frame that is either less than, equal to, or within a 2 hour time frame of what it takes to fly. Criticism of international flights is completely valid, but between MegaBus and driving, I feel like a lot of cities are relatively easy to get to. As for international flights, I know a lot of friends who will take a MegaBus to NYC, Toronto, DC, or Philly and just fly round trip out of there. There are a lot of overnight or close to overnight MegaBus routes to those places.

rrdharan 9y ago
Agree if you are just concerned about travel time but there's also the opportunity to get work done, sleep, or watch a movie on a plane. I generally avoid driving these days just because I find myself increasingly dreading the level of concentration and focus required to drive safely for more than two or three hours at a stretch.
- mcgrath_sh 9y ago
  That is completely fair. The equation also drastically changes when you are looking at traveling alone and traveling with more than one person. Even with just my husband and I, the cost in both time and money to fly to Philly, NYC, DC, and Ohio is simply not worth it. Instead, we plunk down the money for a new audiobook and split the driving.
- gorkonsine 9y ago
  Unless you have a private jet, or perhaps you only fly first-class, I'm not sure how you actually sleep or get any work done on one. As someone who's over 6 feet, I'm so cramped in a modern plane that that alone makes it pretty hard to get a computer out and do anything useful with it; add to that people reclining their seats (now I can't use my laptop at all), kids kicking the back of my seat, people crawling over me to go to the bathroom if I'm not in the window seat, and worse, on a short flight, the fact that you're not even allowed to have your laptop out for a large portion of the flight--by the time you're finally allowed to get it out because the plane has reached altitude and you get started with something, now the plane is coming in for a landing and you have to put it away again. Substitute "on a plane" for "on a train" and you'd be correct. Trains are great for bringing a laptop and getting work done while you travel: the seats have reasonably generous space, there's power outlets (many planes still don't have these in economy), and you're allowed to get your laptop out as soon as you sit down, well before the train even leaves the station, and you don't have to put it away until you're ready to get up and walk off the train.

tomjakubowski 9y ago

I realize this is off-topic, but I'm somewhat surprised by the consistent use of the Austin metro as an example of a "tech hub" in comments here, when a metro area in its own state (Dallas) had raised more in venture capital as recently as 2016. [1] Austin is certainly shifting their economy to be tech-dominant, but it's still a small economy relative to other US cities. What makes Austin a more important tech hub than, say: Dallas-Fort Worth, Raleigh-Durham, or Chicago? [1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/global-startup-cities-venture-capital/429255/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/globa...

lod723 9y ago
Just speculating, but maybe it's because Google, Facebook, and Amazon have a tech presence in Austin and not in the other 3 metros you mentioned?
- thesmallestcat 9y ago
  Google has sales and engineering in Chicago, engineering in Chapel Hill, and sales in Dallas. I think there may be some engineering in Dallas too. There are enough good people out there unwilling to relocate that you can find a Google presence in most tech corridors.
  - nunez 9y ago
    Google doesn't have an office in Dallas anymore
DrScump 9y ago
Wasn't Dell based in nearby Round Rock?
dmode 9y ago
Austin is overhyped. There are cities in East Bay that nobody knows of (e.g., Emeryville) that have raised more money than Austin.
dmode 9y ago