First off, we have to watch bragging up Pittsburgh too much. Remember that most of America thinks that Pittsburgh — as much as Cleveland or Detroit — is a rusted-out, half-abandoned, polluted, depressing, terrible place to live. Pittsburgh is still a joke at the national level. While visiting my little cousins last week, I overheard a Pittsburgh joke on “The Fairly Odd Parents,” a Nickelodeon cartoon of fairly recent vintage.

And you know what? Most of Pittsburgh IS rusted-out, half-abandoned, and somewhat depressing. Who could say that the Mon Valley, the South Side, or even the North Side is an uplifting, cheery place? Look at all the grey hairs. Look at all of the young people moving away. Didn’t Maxim or some magazine like that just rank Pittsburgh as the worst place in America for young, single people to live? We have to be realistic here. Pittsburgh, and all of Western Pennsylvania, has some serious long-term problems.

Columbus, on the other hand, is new, clean, post-war, demographically young, and the fastest growing city in the Northeast quadrant of the United States. Does it necessarily have the character or architecture of Pittsburgh? Of course not. But I can understand why so many people, including both my own fiance, do prefer it to Pittsburgh. Oh, and does everybody remember Richard Florida? He ranked Columbus way over Pittsburgh.

Now I’m not really sure how to respond to you guys’s definitions of what really is a city, as opposed to a sprawling suburb. But Columbus is classified as a Metropolitan Statistical Area by the Department of Commerce. Ergo, it is a city.

And it does have a skyline, a dense urban core, and suburbs. Yes, the suburbs make up a larger proportion of the MSA than Pittsburgh’s suburbs do. But that’s mostly because most of Columbus was built after World War II. And not everything about post-war development is bad. Don’t each of you want a driveway and a garage? Personally, I would never want to live where Pat lives. I could never have a nice car there. Hell, I don’t like parking my mediocre-at-best Pontiac there now.

I would suggest that what makes a university urban is the physical campus itself and where it is located within a city. Pat seems to suggest that what makes a school urban is who attends it. I would suggest that everybody look up the word “urban” in Webster and see if it refers more to physical geography or demographics.

But arguments about America’s Rust Bucket vs. A City That People Actually Move To aside, this is allegedly a sports blog. So lets compare Pitt and Ohio State on the football field. Win a national championship or actually sell out your stadium this side of the Ford Administration, losers.

Hail to Cities, Regardless of their Style