Not everything in the 'hoods is good.
You can't blame city officials for emphasizing the positive in a new website, pittsburghcityliving.com, designed to help lure residents and businesses to Pittsburgh.
Profiling the city's neighborhoods, the site conveys the message that each would be a swell place to raise a family or headquarter, say, a software start-up.
Putting such a spin on the communities, though, necessitated the omission of information that anyone mulling a relocation to Pittsburgh undoubtedly would find valuable, although not necessarily uplifting. Some examples:
• West End: Rumor has it this neighborhood sports upscale art galleries and design and decorator boutiques, but no one really knows for certain. PennDOT construction projects virtually cut off the community from the rest of the city for nearly a decade.
• Hays: The neighborhood's dwindling population of about 500 and lack of a business district leave Hays largely lacking a distinct identity. That explains its less-than-flattering nickname: "Hays: The Gateway to Lincoln Place."
• Knoxville: Not a neighborhood where it's advisable to make eye contact with anyone, carry large sums of money or ask directions from the lively lads congregating on street corners.
• Lawrenceville: Often home to the city's largest parking lot, Butler Street, when that road is used as a primary detour for the always-under-construction Route 28.
• North Shore: Don't try to find the beach.
• Strip District: The name is a misnomer; contains only one strip joint.
• Uptown: Where you find the working girls who city outsiders would expect to locate in the Strip District.
• Mt. Oliver: Intimate little neighborhood not to be confused with adjoining intimate little borough of Mt. Oliver, which is not part of the city but is entirely surrounded by it. Don't bother asking why there are two distinct Mt. Olivers; it's one of Pittsburgh's inexplicable oddities.
• Beechview: Because many of the city's few Mexican residents settled here, any Arizona emigres might feel more comfortable making amigos somewhere else.
• Eastside: This neighborhood, once part of East Liberty before it got a Border's, Starbucks and Ethiopian restaurant, is among the city's trendiest locales. But beware the gangs of organic grocery store clerks frequently roaming its streets.
• Westwood: There was little to distinguish this neighborhood from indistinguishable Hays, until Mayor Luke Ravenstahl recently moved here. For the foreseeable future, Westwood likely will be among the first communities to have its streets cleared following a ferocious winter snowfall.
• Homewood: Motorists driving through this community long have observed the quaintly quirky tradition of not stopping at red lights once the sun goes down. If you don't mind patching a few front-door bullet holes, the housing stock is highly affordable.
• Brighton Heights: Conversely, expect to pay top dollar to live here. Not many neighborhoods can boast of being directly within the olfactory range of a wastewater treatment plant.
