Why did Pittsburgh stay so white? (Philadelphia, York: universities, median income, living)

[nei]

Originally Posted by jimmyev

Pittsburgh's greatest growth came in the first half of the 20th century. It's 'diversity' reflects the ethnic groups that immigrated to the US (or moved north) during that time period - African-Americans, Italians, Eastern Europeans, and Byzantine Catholics from the remnants of the Ottoman Empire. Other cities' growth came in the second half of the 20th century (Phoenix, Las Vegas, Houston, Dallas, Miami) and their 'diversity' reflects the ethnic groups that immigrated to the US during that time period - Cubans, Vietnamese, Mexicans, Salvadorians, Guatemalans, Hondurans, and Haitians.

Currently, for whatever reason, Hispanics and/or Latinos (unless they happen to be of Peruvian descent and shoot a teenager in Florida) are separated out from other Caucasians. This makes cities with recent immigration artificially look more diverse than cities with older immigrant populations. But it's still just as hard to find a pierogie in Houston as it is to find decent pho in Pittsburgh.

Eh. Many old cities continued to get some immigration, the coastal northeast cities all get some. And New York City's diversity reflects recent immigration as much as older immigration [including white immigration — there's been eastern european immigration in the last few decades].

[jimmyev]

Originally Posted by nei

Eh. Many old cities continued to get some immigration, the coastal northeast cities all get some. And New York City's diversity reflects recent immigration as much as older immigration [including white immigration — there's been eastern european immigration in the last few decades].

East Coast metro areas continued to grow throughout the second half of the 20th century, albeit slowly. Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Buffalo actually shrank, especially between 1970 and 1990. Buffalo is kind of interesting because it sounds to be more diverse than Cleveland or Pittsburgh yet suffered the same population loss. Maybe that's just the effect of being in the same state as New York City?

[nei]

Originally Posted by jimmyev

East Coast metro areas continued to grow throughout the second half of the 20th century, albeit slowly. Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Buffalo actually shrank, especially between 1970 and 1990. Buffalo is kind of interesting because it sounds to be more diverse than Cleveland or Pittsburgh yet suffered the same population loss. Maybe that's just the effect of being in the same state as New York City?

The NYC metro's recent immigration rate is higher than almost all others except Miami, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area even with slow growth. But its domestic out-migration rate is recent decades is similar to Pittsburgh.

I doubt being in the same state would make much difference. But Buffalo's foreign-born % is double Pittsburgh (6.0 vs 3.1). Every upstate NY metro is nearly double that of Pittsburgh. Ditto with smaller New England ones, which are a bit higher.

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/res...son_singer.pdf

[gortonator]

Originally Posted by zman63

Here you go.

Pittsburgh Ranks In Top 10 Of Most Stressed Cities In Nation « CBS Pittsburgh

Thx - I've never been to Greenville, SC or Louisville, KY, but it does make me wonder how they have more stress than say, Manhattan SF or Seattle or Chicago. I'd personally give this survey about as much credence as most we see - examples like:

2 surveys with 1 result: Pittsburgh's smart | GoErie.com/Erie Times-News

But hey, it's a data point that backs up your claim. I respect that.

[Copanut]

Originally Posted by eschaton

In contrast, I think every single person I know who is a Pittsburgh booster is a transplant.



.

Guess you haven't met me and my over 300 friends in the area.

[nei]

Pittsburgh actually ranks the highest in % of people that report Italian as their first ancestry.

https://www.city-data.com/forum/city-...active-10.html

More so than more stereotypical Italian metros like Philly or NYC. If you take Italian as a % of the white non-hispanic population, Pittsburgh would go down in ranking a bit, though still one of the highest in the country.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by nei

Even if Lincoln hadn't annexed almost its entire metro, it would still be relatively white. Take a look at its core on this map:

Mapping the 2010 U.S. Census - NYTimes.com

[choose racial/ethnic distribution on the arrow to the right of choose more maps]

I see what you mean. But as the whitest city in the country, the core was still bound to be pretty damn white.

Originally Posted by nei

Btw, Kansas City appears to have less of a old core = minority, newer annexed neighborhoods = white but instead west half = white, east half = black both center and outlying.

Apparently the root was Jim Crow laws.

Originally Posted by nei

Seattle and Portland aren't quite as white as their numbers suggest, because there's very little (more so Seattle) white % change in city vs suburb. Much less segregated than the north. Seattle's metro is actually quite a bit more diverse than Boston, the geographic distribution is just different.

By American standards, Seattle is highly weird, because most of the whitest areas in the metro are found not in the suburbs, but the northern half of the city itself (where most neighborhoods are 75%+ white. Southern Seattle is mostly Asian plurality these days, but has a good mixture of everyone.

Portland is so white it's hard to come up with any patterns. The black population center (around King) is collapsing. The Latino and Asian populations are rising, but mostly in the fringes of the city and the suburbs.

Originally Posted by nei

I doubt being in the same state would make much difference. But Buffalo's foreign-born % is double Pittsburgh (6.0 vs 3.1). Every upstate NY metro is nearly double that of Pittsburgh. Ditto with smaller New England ones, which are a bit higher.

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/res...son_singer.pdf

Most of the smaller cities in Eastern PA (Allentown, Bethlehem, Reading, Lebanon, York, etc) have seen significant Latino immigration in recent decades, mostly from people moving out of New York. This migration has yet to "cross the mountain" so to speak in the state.

What is funny is on the other side, Cleveland has a significant number of Latinos as well (a historic Puerto Rican community exists in the West Side). So Pittsburgh is basically feeling a "Latino squeeze" from both directions.

[Craziaskowboi]

Pittsburgh is far enough into the mountains that getting there from any direction is considered a hassle. Immigrants on the East Coast don't cross Blue Mountain. Immigrants in Chicago and Detroit stay near the Great Lakes. The mountains are not only physical barriers that make highway and railroad construction more difficult, but they're psychological barriers as well. Once the terrain starts to get more difficult, the "flatlanders" start flipping out. And the world becomes larger for those who live within the mountains because simply getting around is more difficult in a mountainous area than it is in a flat area, and getting out of the mountains is considered just as big of a hassle for the people who live there as entering the mountains is for the flatlanders.

No, this isn't an excuse either. Even eHow.com says, "Mountain ranges, due to their sheer size, are an impediment to navigation and migration. They also obstruct the flow of the earth's air mass, affecting weather and climate on both sides of the mountain range." If mountains are enough of a barrier to affect the movement of air, they're enough of a barrier to affect the movement of people too. 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.

[_Buster]

Originally Posted by Gnutella

Pittsburgh is far enough into the mountains that getting there from any direction is considered a hassle. Immigrants on the East Coast don't cross Blue Mountain. Immigrants in Chicago and Detroit stay near the Great Lakes. The mountains are not only physical barriers that make highway and railroad construction more difficult, but they're psychological barriers as well. Once the terrain starts to get more difficult, the "flatlanders" start flipping out. And the world becomes larger for those who live within the mountains because simply getting around is more difficult in a mountainous area than it is in a flat area, and getting out of the mountains is considered just as big of a hassle for the people who live there as entering the mountains is for the flatlanders.

No, this isn't an excuse either. Even eHow.com says, "Mountain ranges, due to their sheer size, are an impediment to navigation and migration. They also obstruct the flow of the earth's air mass, affecting weather and climate on both sides of the mountain range." If mountains are enough of a barrier to affect the movement of air, they're enough of a barrier to affect the movement of people too. 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.

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

[pman]

Originally Posted by Gnutella

Pittsburgh is far enough into the mountains that getting there from any direction is considered a hassle. Immigrants on the East Coast don't cross Blue Mountain. Immigrants in Chicago and Detroit stay near the Great Lakes. The mountains are not only physical barriers that make highway and railroad construction more difficult, but they're psychological barriers as well. Once the terrain starts to get more difficult, the "flatlanders" start flipping out. And the world becomes larger for those who live within the mountains because simply getting around is more difficult in a mountainous area than it is in a flat area, and getting out of the mountains is considered just as big of a hassle for the people who live there as entering the mountains is for the flatlanders.

No, this isn't an excuse either. Even eHow.com says, "Mountain ranges, due to their sheer size, are an impediment to navigation and migration. They also obstruct the flow of the earth's air mass, affecting weather and climate on both sides of the mountain range." If mountains are enough of a barrier to affect the movement of air, they're enough of a barrier to affect the movement of people too. 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.

except that pittsburgh, as a steel center, was so profitable railroads were willing to scale mountains to get there. service was provided by the B&O from washington and baltimore, NY, Chicago, and Philadelphia by the PRR. the mountains hadn't stopped immigrants from reach pittsburgh BEFORE or AFTER railroads. carnegie and family endured a cheap, slow trip via canal. you certainly could get to pittsburgh if there was a reason to do so.
to the point about italian immigration, its peak was the early 20th century prior to the great migration which would indicate that something else happened between pre WWI and post WWI. It's the economy stupid. pollution was also at its worst from the 20's through the 60's. Roanoke and Asheville aren't major economic centers and provided little work.