Are Milwaukee and Pittsburg good places to live?

[rockymountaindem]

I'm looking at grad schools, and these are two places I've never visited so far. What do the denizens of these fine cities think of their hometowns?

I'm going to dinner so I await your replies from afar.

[joneschick]

1. what makes a good city for you? Milwaukee--

there are quite a few du'ers here. theatre, museums, restaurants, lake front looks good but stay out of the water.....serious poverty and racial disparities and a proud Socialist history. Lovely neighborhoods....the 'burbs go on forever. what are you interested in?

[Dangerously Amused]

4. Ditto everything joneschick said.

Would add that the downtown proper is very clean and well-maintained for a city of that size. There are non-stop ethnic, art and lifestyle festivals in the summer at the lakefront:


http://milwaukee.about.com/od/festivals/a/festivals.htm


and the arts community is well supported. The lakefront is great with paths for blading, biking or walking, areas for picnics, etc. I like to walk all the way out on the breakwater and watch the sun go down and the lights come up in the city... quite peaceful. And Wisconsin is a very blue state. But you probably knew that.

[Magrittes Pipe]

2. Milwaukee has some of the best dining for a city its size.

And beer is cheaper than water.

I've not spent any time in Pittsburgh, but they put french fries and slaw on their sandwiches, so they can't be all bad.

[Bunny]

3. Do you mean Pittsburgh, with an H?

Come to Pittsburgh, you will love it. I understand Milwaukee is nice as well -the former Mr.Bunny went to Marquette and has fond memories of the place, cold weather notwithstanding.

[distantearlywarning]

5. I go to grad school in Pittsburgh

It rocks! I love it. I've never been sorry that I moved here. There have been some other threads on DU extolling the many merits of Pittsburgh - you should do a search.

[Metta]

6. Props for Pittsburgh.

Small city. Manangeable to get around although the roads are laid out in a triangle or in random ways because the rivers converge at the point, so sometimes you can't get there from here although it's nowhere near as bad driving around as Seattle. Good ethnic mix in and around the university section. Lots of cheap eateries. Small, thriving alternative music scene here. Great alternative music cd store, Paul's Cd's, in what's left of the Italian section; on the busline with the university section. An amazing vinyl, (record) store, Jerry's Fine Used Records, over 100,000 sides from $2.99 and up, in the Jewish section of town. A fine high end guitar shop, Acoustic Music Works, just down the block there. A fair amount of free music and lots of trees. The winter gets cold and the hills do get icy from time to time but we don't get huge amounts of snow very often as a rule.

I've lived comfortably here for the past 23 years.

[RetroLounge]

7. How are the bookstores?

RL

[Metta]

8. Pitt and Carnegie Mellon's are both good. Small mom and pop, Jay's, in

university section, good. Maybe some I don't know. Other than that, Barnes and Noble (blue) and Borders (red) are all I know about.

Good libraries. Interlibrary loan works well.

[rockymountaindem]

11. Well, I go to school in Toronto now, so cold and snow aren't an issue

You make it sound pretty good in Pitt. Maybe I'll pay a visit one of these days before I decide on a school.

[Metta]

12. As I remember, Toronto is flat. We have hills here, some serious.

They can be dangerous to drive on, some winter days. I suggest living on/near a busline if you aren't within walking distance of where you'll be most of the time.

I've enjoyed my stay in the 'burgh. I feel quite comfortable. It's less cosmopolitan than Toronto. I've never seen Tibetan monks here, unless they were doing a sand mandala.

Hey, it's only, what, a five hour drive down?

[miss_american_pie]

9. Pittsburgh is the best place to live, ever.

:D

[Orrex]

13. If you can overlook all of the weirdos

Overlook them or embrace them, so to speak...

[miss_american_pie]

14. Without the weirdos

I would have nothing to write about. ;)

[jane_pippin]

10. People seem to love Milwaukee...

I've lived here for all but five years of my life and I hate it, but I'm in the minority there.

There are some things even I must admit are nice about it:

Lots of beautiful parks

Great museums

Cheap beer

More ethnic festivals than you can shake a stick at. Do you know what Summerfest is? It's a music festival and it's sorta lame in that it goes on about a week longer than it needs to, so it has to fill the stages with Journey and Rush and REO Speedwagon to fill all the time slots. But it's actually pretty entertaining because you get to go to this huge festival park on the lakefront and for $15.00 see Journey and Rush and REO Speedwagon, and there's beer everywhere so you can enjoy Journey and Rush and REO Speedwagon. It's pricey beer, but it's abundant. This is the same park where most of the other festivals are staged too. There's German Fest, Greek Fest, Polish Fest, Festa Italiana, Asian Moon...and probably more I'm forgetting.

Summer weather is amazing--sometimes at night it's still 75 degrees. Whenever I get out of here that's one thing I'll miss.

The people are pretty nice and friendly and there are definitely characters you will never, ever, ever meet outside of Milwaukee. Our homegrown weirdos are one of a kind.

You can still find nice apartments that are fairly inexpensive, especially if you look just outside of downtown.

It generally takes only 15-20 minutes to get anywhere in the city from anywhere. That used to be one of the "selling points" of the city way back in the day, apparently.

Proud socialist tradition--We were the last city to have a socialist mayor, Mayor Zeidler. He just passed away a few weeks ago.

Lots of hardcore Democrats around

Friday Fish Fry! EVERYWHERE! (I don't eat fish, but I like that the Friday Fish Fry tradition is alive and well here.)

Bowling!

Mini-Bowling!!

Hilarious sayings such as "aina" and its variant, "aina hey" ("What the fock" is another favorite.)

The smell of yeast--there's a certain spot on the freeway near a brewery that reeks of yeast. You get used to it eventually, and in my case at least, you kind of get to like it. It's pretty fucking putrid though. :D

Here's what I dislike:

The public transportation system is a joke. I'm happy to live in a town that has one, but really. It shouldn't take me an hour and two buses to get someplace 20 minutes away.

Winter. I cannot stress this enough. I fucking hate winter here. Anyone who says it's not that bad isn't standing at a bus stop. It's that bad. Of course, some people like winter the way I like summer so if that's how you are you probably won't notice that it's 4 below zero in March.

This town is one of the most racially segregated cities in the country. It's ridiculous. I don't know how to describe it exactly, but it is.

Sensenbrenner, and most of his constituency.

Local media is a joke. Newspaper, TV, radio--all lame and useless, unless of course you want to know how hot/cold it is outside. They're good at telling us that.



So...Would I recommend living here? Yeah. Despite what I hate about it, it's more or less a good place to be and the bad things about it--well, some of them you get used to and some of them you work on changing. And I think I just hate it because I'm sick of it and need a change, so don't let my bad feelings get in the way of your enjoying the place should you decide to give it a shot here.