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Some First Impressions of Pittsburgh, PA
Lots of hills and bridges in a well-kept, industrious city. Six observations.
Recently, I’ve moved from the oil patch of western North Dakota back to my home state of Pennsylvania. Even though I was actually born in Colorado, I consider PA my home, particularly the Main Line Philly suburbs. I grew up and lived in the eastern part of the state for most of my life, leaving a few times for brief sojourns in Chicago and Memphis, until my 2012 self-abduction to North Dakota to work in the Bakken.
I’ve spent the last ten and a half years living in ND, which has been akin to completing a lengthy prison sentence. While the Great White North is a burgeoning “Jobtopia” — the oil boom is still entrenched and virile with high-paying opportunities , FYI— it lacks in many other categories. No one moves to ND for the culture, community, infrastructure, education, or social life. You move there to work. That’s it.
Oh, and freeze. As it’s winter there for about eight months of the year.
Other than a brief visit to Pittsburgh back in 2011 for a role as an extra in The Dark Knight Rises stadium explosion scene, and driving through the region to get somewhere else, I never spent much time, or gave much thought to Philly’s coal-covered steely sibling city.
