"Bohemian Bargain"

[TheGerbil]

http://post-gazette.com/pg/05312/602342.stm

According to this article, a new book by Forbes magazine publisher Rich Karlgaard calls Pittsburgh a "Bohemian Bargain."

The book, "Life 2.0," categorizes 150 US cities based on lifestyle and cost of living.

Here are a couple of quotes from the article:

Mr. Karlgaard divided the 150 cities into six categories, but did not rank cities within categories. Pittsburgh was in the Bohemian Bargains category. These are cities with a lively downtown, reasonable cost of living and unusual neighborhoods. St. Louis, Cincinnati and Milwaukee also are in the category

In his description of Pittsburgh, Mr. Karlgaard pays homage to the city's transformation under its two "renaissances," its hilly landscape, rivers, friendliness, educational institutions and culture. He notes the city's downsides are crime and difficult race relations.

So on the whole, very positive. Although I am not sure why he thinks crime is such an issue here.

Anyway, if this book takes off, it could be good for our image. So I'm happy

[PghUSA]

G,

I saw that too! That is definetly taking notice of some of the hard work put into this area in the last 50 years. I am just sorry that the author spent lots of effort on "cateogorizing" the cities, Pittsburgh is much much more then Bohemian, we should have ranked somewhere for the "family towns" too.

[TheGerbil]

Good point, it's a bit silly to put every city in one category. Pittsburgh could fit in several of the categories mentioned. But if he was only going to put us in one, I think he picked a good one.

[PghUSA]

G,

I don't want to sound ungrateful at all, it's just that part of the reason Pittsburgh has to battle stereotypes in the first place is because the city could be THIS but can't be THAT. I just wish he could rank all the cities by those methods, that would've been very cool. I am glad though that unlike some "studies" and "rankings" they even know about Pittsburgh and CMU etc.