Pitt has never crossed my mind. I've never visited, I mean its soooo far on the other side of the state, then I took a look at these pics and was impressed.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=577055

So the question I have is: How similiar are we? How different. Are we really that different or is it night and day?

Some of the arhitecture looks very familiar in style and they have screwed their waterfront as well by cutting it off with a highway. So at least in that sense we're similiar.

Thanks for the pic's. Pitt caught my eye as well but, to date, I've spent 5 hours there. a one hour stint at the bus station and a 4 stint at the train station (I did get to walk over to some place that had sandwiches with fries in them). I had a couple of beers at a nice old bar then caught my train. at night the area between the station and downtown reminded me of market east. Lots of nice buildings, some new construction. I'd like to go back. any city with a neighborhood called "mexican war streets" is worth visiting.

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why do people in Pitt call "soda", "pop"?

http://popvssoda.com:2998/

Pittsburgh is in the Midwest, culturally speaking. Midwesterners drink "pop," not "soda." Edited to add: After looking at a map of preferred terms by county linked from that page, I see that what I believed all along about the two big cities of my native state is really true: St. Louis is a Northeastern city and Kansas City a Midwestern one. The map you linked demonstrates that Americans are a highly mobile people, though: in the urban parts of every region, you will find people who use all three principal terms for a generic carbonated soft drink (the third is "Coke," used as a generic in the company's home region, the South).

Speaking of the Midwest: Pittsburg - with no h - is a small city in southeastern Kansas. The former steel center in southwestern Pennsylvania is Pittsburgh - with an h.

I've only been through Pittsburgh, not to it. But from what I understand, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are about as alike as Kansas City and St. Louis.

Crunching the numbers: Pittsburgh has been hit harder by deindustrialization than Philadelphia has been. The city is down from its population peak by half, and I think the metropolitan region as a whole even lost population from 1990 to 2000, one of only two top 100 metros to do so (the other is Buffalo, NY).

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Sandy Smith, Exile on Market Street, Philadelphia
"Jazz and blogging are both intimate, improvisational, and individual -- but also inherently collective. And the audience talks over both." --Andrew Sullivan, "Why I Blog," The Atlantic, November 2008

I've spent a fair amount of time in Pitt. It is not at all like Philadelphia. In fact, western PA and eastern PA might as well be different states. Pittsburgh is a "rust-belt" city through and through. It has much more in common with Cleveland, Detroit (my hometown), Columbus, etc.

That said, with the hills and the rivers it makes for some striking photography. The city, in general, has very nice architecture.

Very low cost of living, even in comparison to other rust belt cities.

FYI, I use rust belt and not midwest because the cities I mentioned above are more like each other than they are to Chicago, Madison, St. Louis, Kansas City - traditional midwest cities.

I grew up using "pop" but have since been trained to say "soda".

I generally find that I can map Missouri onto Pennsylvania both geographically and culturally and have the parallels work almost every time. There is one big difference, though: There is only one way to pronounce "Pennsylvania." The pronunciation of "Missouri" itself is a subject of cross-state contention. I grew up in Western Missouri but use the Eastern Missouri pronunciation (Missou-REE; Missou-RUH dominates in the state's western half).

Same here.

Though if I have parsed your handle correctly, you lived in New Orleans for a while. I recall from the summer I spent there that the generic term for a carbonated soft drink there was "cold drink."

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Sandy Smith, Exile on Market Street, Philadelphia
"Jazz and blogging are both intimate, improvisational, and individual -- but also inherently collective. And the audience talks over both." --Andrew Sullivan, "Why I Blog," The Atlantic, November 2008

Thank you... for beating me to the punch about the "h".

"Pop"/ "Soda". Gum Bands/ Rubber Bands. Tennis shoes/ Sneakers. Are all lingo regionalisms... which in many ways are slowly fading. But in Pitt they hold on... and My family has used the word "Yinz" in conversation still to this day.

But my favorite Odd Lingo from Pitt area is this...
Honky.

As was described by my family... it referred (used as a slur) to the Hungarian/Slovak/Ukrainian immigrant population of the Steel-mill towns within the region. Which seems to have gone as far back as the late 1890's till 1920's... some how by the 1960's it gained wide spread use as a Slur by AA's for all white people.

As to the OT...

There is a world of Difference between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Historically speaking, it was the frontier... of Wm. Penn's great experiment. The fork of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers were the gateway and much fought-over access to Ohio River valley and the West.

As the War of Independence ended, the region became a bastion of the those seeking to "begin again" protecting their faith, family and way of life. ( Whiskey Rebellion, anyone). Then after the War of 1812... Pittsburgh truly became a Industrial town... producing Iron, Brass & Glass.

The Civil War and Rail Roads... Carnegie, Frick, Mellon to name a few all profited in Pittsburgh. Steel and Rail Roads were KING. Which required Workers to man the Steel "Pits of Hell".

Most of Pitt's Glory as Industrial Urban leader lasted till the 1950's. Tho' the economy was good, Really Hideous "Urban Renewal" projects resulted in what could only spell doom for the city.

By the 1970's and the 80's the closure and selling off to foreign investors of the Steel Companies were the end of Pittsburgh's glory days.
Pitt, hangs in there tho' with it's Educational, Cultural, Medical Care and Banking institutions. It has an "up in coming scene" (which we joke, can 25years really be "up in coming")... But I do hear from my Family out there it's getting better as to crime and living conditions.

But is it Philadelphia... No.

The Weather is a heck of a lot better out here.

All of Pennsylvania was an industrial giant (although none matched Pitt which shipped more tonnage at the turn of the 20th c than Boston, NY, and Philadelphia combined). Philadelphia tended to be known for high quality goods. Indeed, Philadelphia cream cheese was named so by a NY entrepreneur simply because Philadelphia was associated with high quality products.

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I'm from Pittsburgh and went to college there. Its so different I wouldn't even know where to begin. But the major difference is Pittsburgh isn't a whole county like Philadelphia. Pittsburgh resides in Allegheny County which has about 1.5 million people. There is talk of Pittsburgh "annexing" (for lack of a better word) the rest of Allegheny County, but there are a lot of affluent suburbs w/ great school districts residing in the county who are preventing it b/c they don't want their schools to be taken over by the Pittsburgh School District, pay city taxes, lose political control over their own neighborhood, etc. Can't say I blame them.

How's the crime there?

When I worked for the prison system we'd get a lot of tiny, really skinny, and very depressed looking white criminals from out there. They seemed like hillbillies, but were basically quiet guys.

The blacks had this giggly quality and tended to be into wearing these pigtails either just two or a variety sprouting from their heads. Most were insanely dangerous and had been involved with gangs imitating those from LA.

Was all of that common or was I just seeing strange pockets of weirdness. A good friend of mine was there about a year ago and she thought it was nice, which shocked me.