Pittsburgh has always been a great city to be "from" and only recently has become a good city to be "in". My hometown (grew up in Hazelwood/Greenfield) is stil

Pittsburgh has always been a great city to be "from" and only recently has become a good city to be "in". My hometown (grew up in Hazelwood/Greenfield) is still a city very much in transition. If you stay in your designated neighborhoods like Oakland, Shadyside, Squirrel Hill, etc. you'll be blissful in your little bubble of it being a great town on the upswing. Get ten minutes out of town in almost any direction (sans the southern 376 corridor to the airport) and you'll feel like you are on a different planet. Sometimes even taking the wrong street will have you wind up in areas that are dilapidated, poverty stricken, and villainous. The Consol Energy Center is a stone's throw from one of the historically worst neighborhoods in the country. Knowing that, Pittsburgh has radically changed in a very short amount of time. Medical was always big there; but the dotcom boom incubated a wonderful technology center that surrounds Carnegie Mellon and the other fine schools in the area. I wouldn't hesitate for a second moving back to Pittsburgh...just so long as I get to live in a place of my own choosing and not my old neighborhood :)