Pittsburgh, Hipper than you Think?
This carved out corner of a city, through a century or so of being labeled Steel City and otherwise rarely being known aside from apparently having a great jewelry store where you can even get one for the thumb, is slowly but ever so surely becoming one of the up-and-comingest cities to live in. Particularly if you’re the eco-friendly, alternative transportation sort. A couple of reasons:
- byCycle – Pittsburgh is one of only three (including Milwaukee and Portland) cities that this website allows you to, using a Google Maps API, plot a course through via your bicycle.
- Google Transit – Google launched this version of Google Maps specifically aimed at combining walking directions & public transportation routes for those of us looking for directions sans car. It recently expanded to five other cities, and Pittsburgh is lucky enough to be a part of it.
Combine that with a potential up and coming car share program (who, my sources tell me, is tentatively scheduled to be released as early as March ’07), a host of major colleges (including CMU, home to a branch of Google)great local places to eat, drink and participate in general merriment (from sports bars to smokey dives to hipster heavy hangouts like brillobox and Quiet Storm ), plenty of coffee shops, parks, and festivals, all spread over an amalgam of small neighborhoods and main streets woven together between a couple of mountains and a triumvirate of (granted, mucky) rivers. Through in a half dozen or so bridges for the bums to live under and you’ve got the makings of a great place to put your address.
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