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Comment by shas3 | Hacker News Reader

There's certainly a hipster bubble in Pittsburgh around Oakland, Shadyside, -W-e-s-t- East Liberty, Southside, and Squirrel Hill which are the neighborhoods around CMU and U Pitt. The rest of Pittsburgh and the suburban region is pretty rough, though. Personally, I loved North Hills, Mt. Lebanon, and Dormont. But the start-up quality is only present in the neighborhoods abutting CMU and U Pitt. As a non-white, we were sometimes bothered by the extreme whiteness and slight red-necky feel of non-East End neighborhoods.

Edit: as pointed out by comments below, East Liberty.

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the extreme whiteness and slight red-necky feel

Bigotry based on racial, subcultural, and socioeconomic markers? I was born in Pittsburgh and I grew up in that part of the country. All manner of people fit those racial, subcultural, and socioeconomic markers -- good and bad.

As a non-white myself, let me just say this: Most of the time, most people are basically good. However, if you stand out from the crowd, even for reasons you can't help, that small single-percentage of jerks and sociopaths is going to spot you and pay some unwanted attention to you.

The above is contingent on group-think or mob psychology not having taken sway, of course. Those factors change the situation completely.

Well, I'm not completely sure that I trust your judgement, as you left out the single biggest hipster area of Lawrenceville and also spelled "East Liberty" as "West Liberty," which is an entirely different area.

That said... the extreme whiteness and slight red-necky feel of non-East End neighborhoods.

...is definitely still an issue. It's getting better though, and for the most part anywhere within the city limits is relatively diverse. Pittsburgh's biggest problem is that the segregation is by neighborhood. It's comparable to Chicago, in many ways.

Mine is but one perspective, as most comments everywhere are. One can also add Bloomfield to the list of neighborhoods with hipster-gentrification.

> As a non-white, we were sometimes bothered by the extreme whiteness and slight red-necky feel of non-East End neighborhoods.

Hey shas3, this is serious question, which I'm asking purely out of curiosity. I'm not judging you or trying to embarrass you. Would you consider it okay if a white person were say, for example, about Detroit, "as a white, I was sometimes bothered by the extreme blackness and slight ghetto feel of many Detroit neighborhoods."

I spent middle school and junior high in a pittsburgh suburb. it was the first place in the country I had ever heard friends of mine expressing overt racism.

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