You won’t have trouble finding Pittsburghers to talk up the city.
As for neighborhoods, might I suggest that somebody with your username might consider Neville Island or perhaps somewhere along North or South Neville Street
And I’d add more Catholic for the same reasons. Of course, as others have said, there is a strong Jewish neighborhood called Squirrel Hill, from where your husband could easily bicycle to work.
Oh, you don’t have to track them. They’re all the local news can talk about, no matter what the season. It’s impossible to avoid. On any given day last fall I could probably tell you what Big Ben had for lunch.
DC’s roads make sense compared to Pittsburgh. The generally accepted moto is, “You can’t get there from here.”
My mother and brother are both in the IT field, and neither are at a loss for jobs. I wouldn’t say it’s a tech mecca, but it’s not bad.
Marylanders are our neighbors - many people from the 'burgh vacation down that way. Californians are a different breed - they’re usually disappointed with our lack of fresh, cheap, readily available produce.
Many of my coworkers are from all over the world, and I’ve yet to encounter one who didn’t like Pittsburgh. My Chineese and European coworkers like the Strip District in particular.
One thing that hasn’t been mentioned is that Pittsburgh has a relatively low cost of living compared to comparably sized cities. Housing costs are quite reasonable compared to many other cities. The drawback is that Allegheny County gouges you with taxes.
I moved here from Sacramento about a year ago.
Caveat: I do not live in Pittsburgh. I live in a small town north-east of Pitt called Vandergrift.
As an AS400 operator, I was worried, but I found a job pretty quick, once I got a car. And there are other jobs out there.
A great deal of Western PA seems to be shifting from Industrial to Service economies, so an IT person should be able to find steady work.
On a side note, what are the odds of getting a Pittsburgh Dope get together?
note-- I can’t host. I’m terrible at it. Ask Snooopy or the others that attended my Sacramen-Dope. Bleh.
I’m glad you brought that up. 
If you can’t get a Pittsburg dope together, think about driving two hours to the annual Clevedope, hosted at the palatial estate of poster elmwood. The conversation is lively and the company is superb. Last year we had three moderators–oh, wait–that might not be a drawing point.
Seriously, it’s good times and good food. Ohio welcomes you.
I’ve been there several times for Steelers games. I’ll never forget in the mid 90s, driving there from Indiana for the AFC championship game against the Chargers(my first game I saw in Pitt), and seeing all the highway information signs flashing, “welcome to Blitzburgh” and “go steelers”
I guess the best description I can give is that I once saw a shirt that said, “Pittsburgh is an alcoholic town with a football problem”
Terrific! One of my favorite Dopers is moving to my city! Anne, I grew up in Pittsburgh and moved back here over a decade ago. I also saw this post last night and was getting together with friends, one of whom happens to be Jewish. I mentioned your prospective move and asked her about the Conservative Jewish Community. The good news is Pittsburgh has one of the larger ones in the country centered around its Squirrel Hill neighborhood. There are a lot of good kosher restaurants and delis there and Squirrel Hill is also next to Oakland, the neighborhood which has the University of Pittsburgh. It’s a neat, funky neighborhood, but quite definitely Jewish.
The city’s also heavily Catholic, but not the proselytizing sort. Fundamentalists are so rare around here that they’re almost non-existent, although I did get a phone call the other night trying to convert me. The local paper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, will have articles about Easter, Christmas, and St. Patrick’s Day, but it also covers Passover and Rosh Hoshana. When it comes to gays, well, it’s mostly tolerant, but the whole things somewhat quiet. From what I know from my Wiccan and Pagan friends, there’s also a pretty active Pagan community, too.
It was pretty rough for a while, but it’s getting better. Check the Post-Gazette’s website for want ads, and, if you’ll send me an e-mail, I can point you in the direction of some placement agencies. T-shirts and shorts are fine; I’ve never seen anyone where flip-flops though. We even have an outfit called Pittsburgh Geeks which has get-togethers every other month.
I’ve got to switch over to my job, but I’ll try to get to the rest of your questions at lunchtime.
We might be moving there. We’re still waiting to hear whether Mr. Neville is getting any other offers. I wish those places would hurry up and make up their minds- the waiting is really getting to me.
Ah. I’m definitely cool with non-proselytizing Catholics. I don’t mind people of pretty much any religious persuasion, as long as they’re not trying to either convert or kill me.
An active Pagan community is a good sign of tolerance for people who don’t quite fit the norm, too.
Be prepared for some hardcore sports fans. Especially football and hockey. If you’re not a Steelers fan, you might want to lay low around football season.
I hope you do come to Pittsburgh, Anne! We’d love to have you! And we’ve had some pretty successful PittDopes in the past.
(Perhaps we could do something this fall when Dinosaur Hall opens up again at the Carnegie Museum!)
One thing I didn’t mention yesterday because I wanted to get the word right is Squirrel Hill is also supposed to have one of the largest eruv’s in the country, if that’s of interest.
Housing prices are reasonable – I spent the fall and winter house-hunting and you can get quite a nice 3 or 4 bedroom house for about $200,000. Commuting isn’t bad by other cities’ standards, despite my occaisional moan, but parking in Oakland can be difficult for students (I don’t know about faculty). Oakland and the other areas east of downtown Pittsburgh are fairly well served by busses, at least for now.
As for ethnic restaurants, there’s actually quite a wide variety, including several Indian and Middle Eastern ones. There aren’t many vegetarian ones but most places do have vegerian entrees and I do know of one vegan restaurant. Supermarkets have a reaonsable selection of ethnic foods, but there’s a part of town called “the Strip District” which has all kinds of ethnic foods. In addition to Trader Joes, we also have a Whole Foods and a co-op, all east of the city. There are also farmers markets all over the place from spring through late fall.
Ah yes. Our antiquated state store system. The good news is they’re open fairly late so you can pick up a bottle or so after work and you can special order stuff through them. The bad news is neither state stores nor beer distributors are open on Sundays. I’ll omit a comment better suited to the Pit.
If you move here, we’ll be happy to have you join us. If you don’t, I’ll continue to enjoy your posts.
I don’t know how many beer distributors are open, but 10% of state stores are open on Sundays noon-5pm. You can find out which one’s by going to the PA-LCB site I posted earlier.
This used to be true, but is not anymore. Beer distributors are almost all open on Sunday now from 12-5, and you can usually find a State Store reasonably close that has Sunday hours.
I will echo the upthread poster who described Pgh as a collection of smaller communities, each has it’s own vibe. I agree with the love being given to Squirrel Hill, a great neighborhood. When I went to Pitt we spent a lot of time there, Shadyside as well.
If traffic getting to Oakland is a concern, you probably don’t want to move too far east of Squirrel Hill, IMHO.
Thanks for the correction about the state stores and beer distributors. I’m going to disagree with my Steeler-loving colleague above and say that for Oakland you could even go as far due east as Monroeville, although east of the city has the worst traffic.
I’ve found a link to a website called www.jewishpittsburgh.org which should have better information than this gentile can provide. It also has a map ot the eruv which encompasses surprisingly large area. I’d say it’s a good 5 miles east to west and north to south.
Mr. Neville has heard “no” from all of the other places he was waiting on job offers from, so we’re definitely going to be moving to Pittsburgh.
We visited late last month, and I really liked it. I even managed to find decent Mexican food (at Mad Mex), which was something I was a little worried I’d miss after living in California. We also found other good ethnic restaurants. I had some really yummy chicken schnitzel(sp?) at a kosher restaurant in Squirrel Hill.
I was pleasantly surprised by the wine and spirits store in Squirrel Hill- it seemed to have a better selection of wines at more reasonable prices than I was expecting. It’s also open on Sunday. There’s a grocery store in walking distance, too (Giant Eagle), which, incidentally, had a much better selection of Passover stuff than even Mollie Stone’s (in Palo Alto, which I used to drive three hours or so round trip to go to. Best Passover selection west of New Jersey, my ass!).
We rented a car when we were there, and I found this out first-hand. I missed a turnoff, and ended up on the freeway in rush-hour traffic that wouldn’t have been totally out of place in the Bay Area. There were a few other adventures in navigation, as well… But I get lost all the time even in the most logical street pattern, so that’s not such a big deal.
Giant Eagle rules.
Oh, and Anne, you HAVE to come to the Carnegie Science Center some day. Let me know when you’re coming-I’ll TRY and get you a discount.
We did go there, on the Sunday we were in town. I didn’t get to go to the planetarium show I really wanted to see, though, because we left to try to go shopping in the Strip district (I think that’s what it was called). We found out when we got there that everything was closed, anyway… :smack: I gave Mr. Neville a hard time about that for a while.
Hmmm. It seems a “Welcome to Pittsburgh” Dopefest is in order. May I suggest Gullifty’s since it’s in Squirrel Hill, accessible by bus, and has the best desserts in town?
Giant Eagle is overpriced and is pushing their “Market District” brands way too much. Look for other grocery stores.
(Note, I’m not in Pittsburgh, but an hour away, in Youngstown. For a little while longer, anyway.)