6 ms·

Pittsburgh is a great town. It looks a bit like it was on the barely winning side of a fist fight, but it has lots going for it: - Two big, well funded, well r

by bane 9y ago

Pittsburgh is a great town. It looks a bit like it was on the barely winning side of a fist fight, but it has lots going for it: - Two big, well funded, well respected schools cranking out talent. CMU is one of the top schools in the world for CS. - Cheap rent - If you want to buy a house, some really beautiful neighborhoods - SEI - lots of cyber security talent - Great food and activities, it's not hard to find plenty of things to do, some innovative areas that are turning around dead warehouse and industrial areas - Some parts of the city are really beautiful and nice places to be, lots of great parks and so on But there's some realities that I don't think limit what can come from the city, but rather shape what kinds of businesses should set up shop there. - Geographic isolation - Parts of the city can be pretty rough still, rougher than what you might find elsewhere - hard to bring in quality talent if they aren't being sourced from the schools - Non-tech talent comes from completely different industries So I think that if you can shape a business that targets a large domestic market and solves real problems, even non-sexy B2B ones, you can probably grow a thriving business there. You probably won't end up hitting it big on social media, but many B2B problems are billion dollar businesses.

stcredzero 9y ago
Pittsburgh is a great town. It looks a bit like it was on the barely winning side of a fist fight I was born in Pittsburgh, and I have some experience with towns in the region and other rust belt river towns. Maybe I'm biased, but I'd say that Pittsburgh, in its good parts, looks better than most in the region. Also, I'm old enough to know the benefits of the Clean Air Act on that town. Once, you could literally smell when you were getting into Pittsburgh, and the sulfur from coal burning literally made it smell like excrement! (Not exactly, but it was a smell in the same family of smells, due to the sulfur.) Today, there's not a trace of this!
- graphitezepp 9y ago
  Pittsburgh still is measured to have bad air quality compared to other cities, but it's certainly not bad enough that you actually notice it.
- 5555624 9y ago
  I'll never forget, as a kid, seeing a news report on KDKA, showing a white cat with long fur. The only way to see that the fur was white, was to spread the fur and look at the base of the hairs, as the rest of the fur was an orange-pink color. This was down near J&L. (Yeah, I'm old.)
- bane 9y ago
  The internet is full of jaw dropping photos of Pittsburgh pre-EPA and CAA. https://www.google.com/search?q=pittsburgh+pollution+photos&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjrxvDpiaDVAhUi04MKHd04DN4Q_AUICygC&biw=1536&bih=774 https://www.google.com/search?q=pittsburgh+pollution+photos&...
- Hydraulix989 9y ago
  Yes, this is why the mayor of Pittsburgh made a big public pushback on Trump's "Pittsburgh, not Paris" speech -- Pittsburgh is an example of a city that recognized the importance of breathing quality air and so was able to clean itself up from Beijing-level air quality to the modern-day green city it is today. Short YouTube video: https://youtu.be/tbFJMgfMCAs?t=1m12s https://youtu.be/tbFJMgfMCAs?t=1m12s
shas3 9y ago
There's a very similarly sized city on the west coast with similar population, etc.: Portland. It is a good illustration of what can help or harm cities. Portland lacks anchors like the one put down in Pittsburgh by robber barons. Later philanthropists like Vollum of Tektronix in Portland weren't nearly as effective as Carnegie. Silicon Forest turned out to be a bit of a volatile dud compared to Silicon Valley. Pittsburgh, on the other hand, has great universities in CMU and U Pitt. Portland's equivalents PDX State, erstwhile Oregon Graduate Institute, and OHSU never reached the heights of CMU or UPitt as they lacked the deep and broad foundation of Pittsburgh's universities. I like both cities, but just on the basis of Shadyside-Oakland-Lawrenceville-etc. and the intellectual atmosphere there, I love Pittsburgh much more. Disappointingly, in Portland there's no intellectual atmosphere of any sort.
z1mm32m4n 9y ago
> Some parts of the city are really beautiful and nice places to be, lots of great parks and so on It's hard to understate this point. Compared with San Francisco, Pittsburgh is much more visibly green. There are trees everywhere, grassy areas abound, and the city itself is nestled in green hills. San Francisco is full of concrete. The Bay Area is still really brown from the recent droughts. There are certainly people who can overlook this and live perfectly contently. But in Pittsburgh, I don't have to give up the greenery for a city life.
- graphitezepp 9y ago
  There is a remaining conception of Pittsburgh as a dirty industrial wasteland. Today one good look at the city from a high vantage point on a sunny day kills this conception instantly.
  - getemback 9y ago
    Good luck finding a sunny day because Pittsburgh enjoys the fewest hours of annual sunlight of any major city, and continues to have air quality as bad as any other US city, being in the top ten worst according to the Lung Association.
    - jjawssd 9y ago
      What causes the poor air quality? There are no obvious pollution sources other than cars.
      - getemback 9y ago
        There are still major steel works in the area, some of which are operating with grandfathered emissions limits. Also Pittsburgh receives the wind-blown emissions of practically every coal-fired power plant in the nation.
    - rytill 9y ago
      I don't feel like there's any major lack of sunlight and I've lived in Pittsburgh for years. Source?
BoysenberryPi 9y ago
Given that Pittsburgh has a lot of security talent, do you think it is a good idea for someone out of state to apply for security jobs there?
- bane 9y ago
  Start with SEI https://www.sei.cmu.edu/careers/ https://www.sei.cmu.edu/careers/ They'll be very representative of the top of the hiring pool with deep connections to D.C.
closeparen 9y ago
Won't cheap rent go away as soon as any substantial number of programmers move in?
- bane 9y ago
  Top of the line houses in absolutely beautiful parts of Pitt aren't even breaking $1mil. Plus there isn't the local NIMBY allergy there. Pittsburgh wants housing development.
- smoorman1024 9y ago
  The population of Pittsburgh City proper peaked in the 1950's. It then depopulated significantly as people left the region and the city center. There is an abundance of extra housing at a reasonable rate close to the city center because of this excess supply. It used to house 650k people and currently only holds 300k. It won't last forever but by no means is it on the verge of becoming an expensive city. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+pittsburgh http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+pittsburg...

by bane 9y ago

stcredzero 9y ago

Pittsburgh is a great town. It looks a bit like it was on the barely winning side of a fist fight I was born in Pittsburgh, and I have some experience with towns in the region and other rust belt river towns. Maybe I'm biased, but I'd say that Pittsburgh, in its good parts, looks better than most in the region. Also, I'm old enough to know the benefits of the Clean Air Act on that town. Once, you could literally smell when you were getting into Pittsburgh, and the sulfur from coal burning literally made it smell like excrement! (Not exactly, but it was a smell in the same family of smells, due to the sulfur.) Today, there's not a trace of this!

graphitezepp 9y ago
Pittsburgh still is measured to have bad air quality compared to other cities, but it's certainly not bad enough that you actually notice it.
5555624 9y ago
I'll never forget, as a kid, seeing a news report on KDKA, showing a white cat with long fur. The only way to see that the fur was white, was to spread the fur and look at the base of the hairs, as the rest of the fur was an orange-pink color. This was down near J&L. (Yeah, I'm old.)
bane 9y ago
The internet is full of jaw dropping photos of Pittsburgh pre-EPA and CAA. https://www.google.com/search?q=pittsburgh+pollution+photos&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjrxvDpiaDVAhUi04MKHd04DN4Q_AUICygC&biw=1536&bih=774 https://www.google.com/search?q=pittsburgh+pollution+photos&...
Hydraulix989 9y ago
Yes, this is why the mayor of Pittsburgh made a big public pushback on Trump's "Pittsburgh, not Paris" speech -- Pittsburgh is an example of a city that recognized the importance of breathing quality air and so was able to clean itself up from Beijing-level air quality to the modern-day green city it is today. Short YouTube video: https://youtu.be/tbFJMgfMCAs?t=1m12s https://youtu.be/tbFJMgfMCAs?t=1m12s

shas3 9y ago

There's a very similarly sized city on the west coast with similar population, etc.: Portland. It is a good illustration of what can help or harm cities. Portland lacks anchors like the one put down in Pittsburgh by robber barons. Later philanthropists like Vollum of Tektronix in Portland weren't nearly as effective as Carnegie. Silicon Forest turned out to be a bit of a volatile dud compared to Silicon Valley. Pittsburgh, on the other hand, has great universities in CMU and U Pitt. Portland's equivalents PDX State, erstwhile Oregon Graduate Institute, and OHSU never reached the heights of CMU or UPitt as they lacked the deep and broad foundation of Pittsburgh's universities. I like both cities, but just on the basis of Shadyside-Oakland-Lawrenceville-etc. and the intellectual atmosphere there, I love Pittsburgh much more. Disappointingly, in Portland there's no intellectual atmosphere of any sort.

z1mm32m4n 9y ago

> Some parts of the city are really beautiful and nice places to be, lots of great parks and so on It's hard to understate this point. Compared with San Francisco, Pittsburgh is much more visibly green. There are trees everywhere, grassy areas abound, and the city itself is nestled in green hills. San Francisco is full of concrete. The Bay Area is still really brown from the recent droughts. There are certainly people who can overlook this and live perfectly contently. But in Pittsburgh, I don't have to give up the greenery for a city life.

graphitezepp 9y ago
There is a remaining conception of Pittsburgh as a dirty industrial wasteland. Today one good look at the city from a high vantage point on a sunny day kills this conception instantly.
- getemback 9y ago
  Good luck finding a sunny day because Pittsburgh enjoys the fewest hours of annual sunlight of any major city, and continues to have air quality as bad as any other US city, being in the top ten worst according to the Lung Association.
  - jjawssd 9y ago
    What causes the poor air quality? There are no obvious pollution sources other than cars.
    - getemback 9y ago
      There are still major steel works in the area, some of which are operating with grandfathered emissions limits. Also Pittsburgh receives the wind-blown emissions of practically every coal-fired power plant in the nation.
  - rytill 9y ago
    I don't feel like there's any major lack of sunlight and I've lived in Pittsburgh for years. Source?

BoysenberryPi 9y ago

Given that Pittsburgh has a lot of security talent, do you think it is a good idea for someone out of state to apply for security jobs there?

bane 9y ago
Start with SEI https://www.sei.cmu.edu/careers/ https://www.sei.cmu.edu/careers/ They'll be very representative of the top of the hiring pool with deep connections to D.C.

closeparen 9y ago

Won't cheap rent go away as soon as any substantial number of programmers move in?

bane 9y ago
Top of the line houses in absolutely beautiful parts of Pitt aren't even breaking $1mil. Plus there isn't the local NIMBY allergy there. Pittsburgh wants housing development.
smoorman1024 9y ago
The population of Pittsburgh City proper peaked in the 1950's. It then depopulated significantly as people left the region and the city center. There is an abundance of extra housing at a reasonable rate close to the city center because of this excess supply. It used to house 650k people and currently only holds 300k. It won't last forever but by no means is it on the verge of becoming an expensive city. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+pittsburgh http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+pittsburg...