I've lived in the metro area my whole life, but I moved to Pittsburgh proper in early 2017. I've lived in Lower Lawrenceville, Allegheny Center/North Side, East Carnegie, the Strip District, and South Side. I've been warned about every one of those neighborhoods at some point by people claiming they were dangerous, yet I've never had any real issues at all.

Someone recently just said, "I'm surprised you didn't get shot" when I mentioned that I had owned a house in East Carnegie and sold it a year ago. I owned there for 3 years and didn't experience any violence whatsoever. If you would have told me it had a reputation for being dangerous, I wouldn't have had any idea what you were talking about. Lot of dickhead contractors, plumbers, and real estate agents trying to take advantage of me but no regular people shooting at me or anything. Point being, people need to lay off the local news channels.