Why Pittsburgh Ruled 2015

Here at SkyVue, we’re proud to be part of Pittsburgh’s dramatic citywide renaissance. As one of most prominent new communities of apartments in Pittsburgh, we’re looking forward to a vibrant future for this 250-year old city. In many ways, 2015 was a banner year. The burgh appeared on several most-livable-cities lists and made national news by grabbing Zagat’s #1 food city award (which we blogged about here). Over at Pittsburgh Magazine, columnist Virginia Montanez has a fantastic piece titled 10 Ways Pittsburgh Ruled 2015. As part of her fantastic PittGirl column, she details several reasons why the iron city is back on top. Check out our favorites below, which we edited for context:

Lots of new development, lots of it green (even skyscrapers)

It’s hip to be green these days, so when it came time for the nation’s 7th largest bank, PNC, to plan its latest addition to the downtown skyline, they went big and green. They say their new 33-story headquarters consumes half the energy of a typical skyscraper its size. Some of the green features include window blinds that open and close automatically to conserve energy, onsite water recycling, and enough “breathability” to ventilate itself naturally over 40% of the year. The Tower at PNC Plaza opened this year in downtown’s formerly dilapidated Fifth/Forbes corridor. About two miles to the east, that same corridor is home to another outstanding new development by the name of SkyVue (aka the freshest apartments for rent in Pittsburgh).

Ground zero for robotics

Pittsburgh had become a leader in the field of robotics. Last year Montanez wrote about how robots created at Carnegie Mellon University played chess, competed to rove the lunar surface, and served as design inspiration for Disney’s “Big Hero 6.” Thanks again to CMU, Pittsburgh still leads the nation in robotics, now in a commanding fashion. Perhaps the biggest news is the Uber/CMU partnership in which Uber named Pittsburgh its home base in the quest for driverless cars. The deal will bring a $5.5 million robotics program to CMU.

More pedal power!

Slowly but surely, Pittsburgh is becoming a seriously bike-friendly city. This year saw the launch of Healthy Ride Pittsburgh, a collaboration between Highmark and Allegheny Health Network which placed 500 bikes at 50 rental stations throughout the city. In the first five months of operation, the program logged 23,000 users on over 40,000 rides. Here at Skyvue, we fancy ourselves the most bike-friendly apartments in Pittsburgh. Our location in Oakland has bike lanes galore. And if you own a bike, Skyvue makes cycling convenient year-round thanks to secure bike parking within our on-site covered garage. The truth is, Pittsburgh likes bikes, and we do too.