[5] To support neighborhood businesses, the Urban Redevelopment Authority added the West End Village as a Mainstreet Pittsburgh district in 2009.

The term "West End" is also used to refer to the surrounding region, which includes the West End Valley in addition to western neighborhoods Sheraden, Elliott, Windgap, Esplen, Ridgemont, Westwood, Oakwood, East Carnegie, Chartiers City, Fairywood, Crafton Heights, and Banksville.

The West End of Pittsburgh is mostly residential, with some industry and a relative paucity of commercial districts in comparison to the rest of the city.

Over the past 30+ years the West End neighborhood (Temperanceville) has suffered the demolition of much indigenous residential architecture and the removal of most of its tenant units from the rental market, displacing a once substantial multicultural low-middle-fixed income population in favor of attempts to attract business.

The "overlook" (once one of the most-visited sites in Allegheny County) has drawn fewer visitors since 2004, when a 2.5 million dollar park improvement eliminated historically available vehicle access to the bluff-top, thereby impacting all-season visiting.

When this bypass opened in 1951, its South Hills connector was the Banksville Circle, a predecessor thoroughfare to the Parkway and Fort Pitt Tunnels.