What do Pittsburghers (that’s what the linked story calls them) think of Houston? Well, let’s just say the author of this Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story writes up Houston as a mixed bag:
Many aspects of Houston are as foreign to Pittsburgh as its 90-degree days in October. There are no zoning laws, for one thing. There are no income taxes, for another.
It’s truly multicultural, with more than one-third of the population Hispanic, one-fourth of the population black. The city council has representation from those groups, as well as members from Chinese and Pakistani backgrounds. Women make up half the council.
People keep moving out from the city in all directions, commuting on increasingly congested highways to their energy and aerospace and health care jobs.
“Houston to a large extent epitomizes sprawl,” said Robert Litke, director of planning and development for the city. “We are overwhelmingly an automobile-dominated society. But growth has enabled an awful lot of people — minorities — to get out of the ghetto or barrio and get into decent housing on cheap land in the suburbs, as long as you’re willing to spend a little extra time in the car.”
Plenty of former Pittsburghers view it as an open society, where enterprising newcomers are treated better than strangers are received in more clannish Western Pennsylvania. A few others, however, said neighbors don’t go out of their way to talk to one another. It’s one of the things lamented by Iris O’Rourke, 54, who intends to return to small-town life in Lawrence, Washington County, after two decades away.
“When I take food over to a neighbor, they think I’m weird. In Pennsylvania, that’s what we do!” said O’Rourke, who left her hometown as a single mother with a few suitcases and $400 to jump-start life for her and her daughter.
All the Pittsburghers here seem to know other Pittsburghers who came and then decided to leave.
Maybe the author should have included a link to this, for skeptical Pittsburghers.
