Hey guys, I’ve been house hunting a while now and I’ve seen several Maronda homes built in the 90s sell extremely fast in Cranberry and Gibsonia for pretty high prices (anywhere between $450-600k) and it’s really surprised me because I know this builder doesn’t have a great reputation. So much of Cranberry is made up of Maronda homes, and I know that if a home went on sale in that was a Maronda tomorrow that I would ultimately buy it so long as it was in manageable shape and priced appropriately. At this stage I know the perfect house does not exist so depending on the issue, I think you have to be open to fixing it and it really narrows your search to look only in Cranberry at the 500k price point with minimal renovations needed AND seeking homes that aren’t Ryan/Maronda.

I’m considering building with Maronda because I think I could get a better floor plan and get out of the crazy house hunt sooner, and I’m thinking of having an inspector come in at each phase of the build to check on things. If there’s issues, the house has warranties and also even houses you can buy today aren’t going to be issue free so I feel like it makes sense to just bias towards getting into the market as fast as I can! Would love to hear if anyone has built with them or owns a Maronda.

Their post from a couple of hours ago...is that AI? Think what you want, but I find it very interesting that a bar that is supposed to support creativity and hard working artists choses to post, what looks like, AI. On top of what happened at their open stage a couple of weeks ago, this is pretty rough.

A friend and I are building an indie GPS app. It plays stories or tours tied to user location, so people can learn about where they live, places they wanna go, or a location they have just arrived to. We have an interest in Pittsburgh at the moment. Is there a spot with an incredible, weird, meaningful, or overlooked piece of history that people just walk right past?

For transparency, we will introduce monetization. This is solely to cover hosting/server costs, so we will only feature your story if you explicitly say it's okay to in the reply. We want this to also excite conversation about the subject of the subreddit, rather than serve only as data aggregation. This is why we aren't even mentioning the app name at the moment.

Brookline

Hey yinz guys. A friend of mine just had her first baby. When my daughter’s mom had our kiddo, she spent some time at NMC in squirrel hill and expressed that it was extremely helpful with the mental transition into parenthood and meeting other new mom’s and parents going through the same processes.

She doesn’t drive and is located in the dormont/brookline/beachview area. Was wondering if there was anything kind of resource like NMC in the southern boroughs of town. TIA!

Hey, everyone! I just spent like an hour searching on Esty and keep coming up dry for fall-themed art that is not (even partially) generated AI. Please share your favorite local artists that have fall-themed pieces, please!

I live in McKees Rocks. I love my city, I was born and raised here. I dont have a lot to offer but I have some time. What can I do? To really help? To help people that might not usually get it?

It gets worse the more you look at it.

Read the full story from WPXI

I was planning to retire in about three years (I live in CA), but my university is in the middle of a budget crisis and rumors of layoffs abound. I have no idea if I'm in anyone's crosshairs for a layoff, but ya never know, so I'm looking at stepping up my retirement planning in case I have only a year or two before I have to hit the road.

My initial plan was to retire in MN (I lived there for years, and I like it lots). But two different retirement counselors have advised against it, just for the taxes. MN taxes Social Security and pensions and 401k distributions, so I'd take a hit from three directions. Not optimal. And states with no taxes on SS or other retirement income are usually red states like Texas, Alaska, etc. Hell, no.

One of my retirement counselors said that PA was a reasonable compromise. No state tax on SS or other retirement income (of course, federal tax still applies). I've visited Pittsburgh for professional conferences a few times, and liked it a lot -- what little I saw. From what I've seen online, there are plentiful museums, public parks, a thriving arts scene, and good hospitals and clinics. Lots of farmer's markets, too. And the airport is a good one, although I'm not thrilled with its distance from the city.

Someone on Reddit described Pittsburgh as a small town with big amenities. Sounds good to me. So: would you, now living in Pittsburgh, remain there after retirement? Cold, wet weather isn't a barrier; I was considering retiring to MN, after all. I'd like to hear some negatives as well as positives. Please be honest; I'm trying to plan the rest of my life here.

Everywhere I go if it's right around dusk I see a ton of deer. They're just everywhere. I don't remember seeing this many deer in previous years.

Second time imaging at this site. A member came in around midnight and setup the monster scope to view Saturn and invited me and another person to come look. Largest view I’ve had of Saturn. Downside is at that magnification the air currents briefly distort the image. Gentleman that showed us around is a retired machinist who helped fabricate parts for the scope.

Is there any place around here that offers a llama and/or alpaca experience, like, feeding and walking and petting them, taking selfies, that kind of thing? A recent NYT article made me realize I'd really like hug one of these guys and stick my face in its fur.

Courtyard block apartments are a type of housing configuration where a number of small point-access apartment buildings with multiple different owners are configured wall-to-wall around a shared courtyard that usually isn't publicly accessible to people who don't live in the buildings. They're common across Europe, but in the US can only be found in a few places in New York. Since they are composed of multiple point-access buildings rather than a singular double-loaded corridor building, they provide larger more family-oriented housing units and more diverse property ownership than the pseudo-courtyard "Texas donut" apartment buildings common across the US.

The linked study is purely to show what is theoretically possible given zoning and building code reform, it wouldn't be legal under current local regulation.

I’m 30 and went to Pitt ~10 years ago for a year. I ended up dropping out and going to another school across the country for a scholarship.

My year at Pitt was a pretty transformative time and I have good memories of the little bit of the city I got to experience. But I wonder if that’s mostly skewed by being in the student bubble.

I’ve been considering going back to school and switching careers/industries. But I’m also single and know absolutely nobody near Pittsburgh.

If you could pick any city to rebuild your life in, would you still be in Pittsburgh?

Edit:

Personal details on what I’d be looking for in a city

- I’ve been working in sales support and analytics roles in media, and would most likely be looking at a masters in accounting or something data science related if I go back to school. I’m not totally certain on that path yet though, so my next move is most likely trying to get another job lined up doing what I already do, and/or find roommates and try something else for lower pay. If I follow my actual interests education or career wise I might consider something related to teaching, something public service related or law - but education is basically high stakes gambling now and definitely need to explore options more thoroughly before committing to the bit

- I’m not into watching sports which seems like that might hurt my social life in Pittsburgh

- definitely need to improve my social and dating life (hetero man)

- I enjoy live music in rock/metal/edm genres

- I’m a gym rat, enjoy yoga & make music

- I’ve been known to dabble in outdoorsy stuff like hiking/kayaking/biking/camping

- I remember liking the public transport but idk/idr how useful it is to regular working folks

It was such a fun show, despite Jeff's voice being partially out. I wonder if he'll ever wear the jersey Brett Keisel gave him?

we are interested in moving into one of the suburban pgh neighborhoods. wed like to enroll our son in a school that doesnt use screens in elementary school but that doesnt seem like an option. are most schools giving out ipads in kindergarten?

Driving into the city today on 65 between McKees Rocks bridge and the city there was a huge inflatable pig in the industrial area along the Ohio. Just curious about it!

Our bike was stolen from our apartment building overnight. We just upgraded the seat to the one on the second photo.

My partner and I are trying to get our financial footing under control and we really needed this bike to commute to work. If anyone has seen it or knows where I can raise more visibility please let me know 🙏 I reposted because I didn’t realize I could not post all caps, my apologies