Why did Pittsburgh stay so white? (Philadelphia, York: public schools, university, kosher)

[selltheburgh]

Originally Posted by _Buster

White people liked crossing mountains to get to Pittsburgh, but other races didn't?

Most of our population came when Pittsburgh was one of the richest cities in the country and had a booming steel economy and auxiliary businesses.

Also - We aren't well connected to the entire East Coast Transit system like everything from Boston to DC is.

[fleetiebelle]

Originally Posted by _Buster

White people liked crossing mountains to get to Pittsburgh, but other races didn't?

Well, if you look at general "Appalachian" culture, it's not a melting pot.

[trackstar13]

Originally Posted by Gnutella

Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee are states with disproportionately large black populations, but Roanoke, Asheville, Knoxville and the "Tri-Cities" region are disproportionately white for those states. And none of them have ever endured the degree of economic misfortune that Pittsburgh did during the last three decades of the 20th Century, so there has to be another reason why they're so white compared to the rest of their states at large. Face it; the mountains are what have have kept Pittsburgh whiter than its peers.

I am sorry but this is wrong. Many of the towns and rural areas surrounding the Tri Cities have been absolutely devastated in a way that is unimaginable to those familiar with Pittsburgh. I know because I have spent some time in this region and helped provide affordable housing for residents. I witnessed people without running water, houses made of corrugated metal, no electricity, no clean drinking water, dirt floors, etc. There is a huge divide between the resort areas on the tops of the mountains and the poor people living in the "hollers" at the foot of the mountains. Far western NC and eastern TN are very beautiful places, but the poverty is something that many never knew existed until they visit the area and spend some time there. Another thing that amazed me were the number of rural homeless people and people with incomes less than $5,000 per year with children who were not even counted by the census because they have been off the grid their entire lives. Imagine if these people counted in the median income measures for the area.

To your other point regarding the mountains, this may be part of the reason for the racial makeup of Pittsburgh. However, I feel it is only a small part because the mountains in western PA are pretty mild barriers in comparison to the major peaks of the Appalachians and many of the west coast/mountain state ranges.

[SteelCityRising]

I don't know if I can buy the "Pittsburgh isn't diverse because it's within and surrounded by mountainous topography" argument because then we have comparably-sized mountainous cities such as Aurora, CO (pop. 325,000) that are pretty diverse.

[Aqua Teen Carl]

It's as if everyone forgot about areas like Aliquippa that are 40%+ black.

[Craziaskowboi]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

I don't know if I can buy the "Pittsburgh isn't diverse because it's within and surrounded by mountainous topography" argument because then we have comparably-sized mountainous cities such as Aurora, CO (pop. 325,000) that are pretty diverse.

The urbanized area of Denver is flat. The mountains are to the immediate west. Here's an eastward aerial view of Denver International Airport, which is immediately north of Aurora:



And I stand by my statement that migration and immigration into Pittsburgh has been hindered by topography. If you have two cities of roughly equal economic vitality, but one is on flat land and the other is within a mountain range, more people are going to move to the city on flat land simply because it's easier to get to.

[Joe Magarac]

Why did Pittsburgh stay white? I think the answer is not because blacks didn't come, but because whites didn't leave.

Most answers to this question so far have assumed that Pittsburgh didn't attract as many blacks during the Great Migration (when blacks fled the rural South from 1910-1960) as other cities did. I don't think that's correct. A couple points:

* Pittsburgh's population more or less stopped growing in 1930. It was at 670,000 in 1930, stayed there through 1950, and then began to decline.

* Pittsburgh did attract blacks from 1910-1930. It had two Negro League baseball teams, a thriving black business district in the Hill, etc. during this time period. The black population of Pittsburgh doubled (25K to 50K) during this period, such that about Pittsburgh went from being <5% black in 1910 to almost 10% black in 1930.

* Most other rust belt cities (e.g., Cleveland, Detroit, etc.) have comparable population trends: a lot of growth before the Great Depression - including a lot of black "immigration" from the South - followed by an overall decline post-1950.

* That statistic - Pittsburgh being 10% black in 1930 - might suggest that Pittsburgh had a low black population compared to other rust belt cities. Not so. Despite recruiting a large black population to work in the auto plants, Detroit was only 15% black in 1950 (when its population peaked) and 30% black in 1967 (just before the riots that triggered massive white flight).

So in my opinion, the right focus is not on whether Pittsburgh attracted blacks during the Great Migration. It did. The correct focus is on the white flight that affected every rust belt city from 1970 or so onward. Most rust belt cities (e.g., Detroit, Cleveland, etc.) lost a huge percentage of their white residents during this period, going from about 70% white in 1960 or 1970 to less than 50% white in 2000. Pittsburgh lost fewer whites; it never went below about 65% white. The question is, why? Here are some possibilities:

* Pittsburgh's topography doesn't make it as easy to live in the suburbs and commute to the city as does the flat topography (and the wide highways that it permits) that other rust belt cities have. Whites didn't leave Pittsburgh because commuting is harder here.

* Pittsburgh's neighborhood-y culture encouraged whites in the city to stay, at least in some neighborhoods. Bloomfield is one; Lawrenceville is another. Those places have been majority-white from 1900 to the present day. To the best of my knowledge, there are no similar neighborhoods in Cleveland or Detroit.

* Pittsburgh has universities in the city limits, which have largely white student populations and keep the city's overall population whiter than it would be otherwise.

* Pittsburgh's Jewish community in Squirrel Hill has never been in danger of leaving (the Orthodox can't drive to shul on the Sabbath, so they need to be in a walkable neighborhood), and that contributes to the white population here, too.

* As others have pointed out, there are former industrial towns (e.g., Aliquippa, Homestead) that are heavily black; they would skew the statistics if they were part of the city. Although some other former industrial towns (e.g., Sharpsburg) stayed mostly white, so maybe that's a wash.

[nei]

Originally Posted by Joe Magarac

Why did Pittsburgh stay white? I think the answer is not because blacks didn't come, but because whites didn't leave.

No. Take a look at the metro-level stats posted earlier. Pittsburgh is much whiter and has a lower foreign born population than most other northern metros. Also, why use just blacks? Blacks aren't the only non-white group.

[Joe Magarac]

Originally Posted by nei

No. Take a look at the metro-level stats posted earlier. Pittsburgh is much whiter and has a lower foreign born population than most other northern metros. Also, why use just blacks? Blacks aren't the only non-white group.

Eschaton, who posed the initial question and the metro-level stats, focused his interest on why Pittsburgh was whiter than other rust-belt cities. If you focus on "rust-belt cities" as opposed to "northern metros" you will get an apples-to-apples comparison: Pittsburgh is more like Detroit and Cleveland than it is like New York or Boston. Rust belt metros tend to have largely white overall populations (Pittsburgh 91%; Milwaukee 91%; Detroit 82%; Cleveland 82%; St. Louis 81%) but Pittsburgh is unique among this peer group in having retained whites in its city center (Pittsburgh 67%; Milwaukee 39%; Detroit 8%; Cleveland 37%; St. Louis 44%).

If you start expanding beyond rust belt cities to "northern metros," you are not comparing apples to apples anymore. And eschaton already explained why the focus on Pittsburgh is on why it retained whites and not blacks: "Obviously the low number of Latinos and Asians is due to how much our economy sucked until recently."

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Joe Magarac

Why did Pittsburgh stay white? I think the answer is not because blacks didn't come, but because whites didn't leave.

An interesting alternative.

Originally Posted by Joe Magarac

* Pittsburgh's population more or less stopped growing in 1930. It was at 670,000 in 1930, stayed there through 1950, and then began to decline.

Looking at other cities, the period from 1930 to 1960 was a period of stagnation (prior to several decades of worse decline) for many other U.S. cities in the Northeast and Midwest, including Boston, Buffalo, Saint Louis, Philadelphia, Chicago and Cleveland. This might mostly represent the spigot of immigration turning off fully. Some other northern cities (New York, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Milwaukee) performed better during this period, but they may have either had undeveloped lands within the city proper, or been annexing new land area.

Originally Posted by Joe Magarac

* That statistic - Pittsburgh being 10% black in 1930 - might suggest that Pittsburgh had a low black population compared to other rust belt cities. Not so. Despite recruiting a large black population to work in the auto plants, Detroit was only 15% black in 1950 (when its population peaked) and 30% black in 1967 (just before the riots that triggered massive white flight).

Interesting. I found 1930 figures which showed Detroit was 9.1% black in 1930 - less than Pittsburgh! Sadly, the U.S. census site is shut down by the shutdown, so I can't get into more detail. But you may be onto something here.

Originally Posted by Joe Magarac

* Pittsburgh's topography doesn't make it as easy to live in the suburbs and commute to the city as does the flat topography (and the wide highways that it permits) that other rust belt cities have. Whites didn't leave Pittsburgh because commuting is harder here.

While we might have the hilliest topography, Cincinnati is pretty hilly as well.

Originally Posted by Joe Magarac

* Pittsburgh's neighborhood-y culture encouraged whites in the city to stay, at least in some neighborhoods. Bloomfield is one; Lawrenceville is another. Those places have been majority-white from 1900 to the present day. To the best of my knowledge, there are no similar neighborhoods in Cleveland or Detroit.

Pittsburgh is different from most other cities racially because we didn't develop a "black side" like Cleveland, Saint Louis, Chicago, Boston, etc. Instead, we have black pockets and white pockets. Again Cincinnati is somewhat similar (although with a higher black population), which suggests our topography did play a role.

Cleveland assuredly still has working-class white neighborhoods on the West Side. Detroit has no white neighborhoods left, but it's truly in a class by itself as far as failed cities go.

Originally Posted by Joe Magarac

* Pittsburgh has universities in the city limits, which have largely white student populations and keep the city's overall population whiter than it would be otherwise.

I don't think Pittsburgh is that unusual here, since most major cities have universities (public and private) within the city proper. I do think Southwestern Pennsylvania is a bit odd because we don't have any classic college towns near the city (Indiana, Slippery Rock, and California don't really count, and are too far out) to act as siphons the way Ann Arbor has for Detroit.

Originally Posted by Joe Magarac

* Pittsburgh's Jewish community in Squirrel Hill has never been in danger of leaving (the Orthodox can't drive to shul on the Sabbath, so they need to be in a walkable neighborhood), and that contributes to the white population here, too.

Pittsburgh's urban Jewish community is a true rarity these days. I think New York City is the only other place with a strong urban Jewish enclave. That said, the population of Squirrel Hill was apparently never over 50% Jewish.