Squirrel Hill owes its easygoing prosperity to the fact that it wasn't revived – most of its liberal, middle-class denizens never abandoned it. A center for Pittsburgh's Jewish community, Squirrel Hill has proved both adaptable and constant. Malls can't seem to displace Murray and Forbes Avenue where you'll find scads of restaurants and institutions such as the Carnegie Library and Little's Shoes. Besides restaurants and specialty shops, neighborhood services remain: groceries, a drugstore, and a neighborhood movie house. Though a quintessential family neighborhood, Squirrel Hill offers its long-toiling grad students up-to-date conveniences and, in coffeehouses like the lauded 61C Café. The idyll continues on Squirrel Hill's leafy residential streets, as its solid brick houses merge with Schenley Park to the west and Frick to the east.

The 61A, 61B, 61C and 61D bus routes all provide services to Oakland and Downtown as well as some other fun destinations on their outer ends -- take the 61B to Regent Square, hop the 61C to Kennywood or ride the 61D to the Waterfront. The 64 bus route also heads to the Waterfront, as to Shadyside, Bloomfield and Lawrenceville.