Overall quality of life in Pittsburgh (foreclosure, purchases, luxury)

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by rhondee

I hope the downtown and strip district increase in population continues, and through the Allegheny Together project alot of first ring neighborhoods are working hard to preserve and improve what they have, like Bellevue and many others.
I do hope the trend will continue that people prefer to live in walkable communities . You can never replicate that in a new development. We have to look to our young people to want to purchase homes in a town,
although I've met older people looking to move out of the suburbs and back into town b/c of the convenience. They don't have to jump in their car every time they want to go get a gallon of milk.
I'd also like to see some of the blight torn down and green spaces to take their place.

Why not? There are many "New Urbanism" developments around, all over the country. Now some of them are kind of lame, IMO, but they are built with walkability (at least around the development) in mind, with stores, coffee shops, dr/dentist offices, etc.

[rhondee]

For Katiana,
Yeah, I'm aware of the new urbanist communities but from what I've heard they are generally very high end and too cost prohibitive for middle class housing. And that's understandable, I can't imagine many developers taking on the project of building a whole new town. It's high risk enough nowadays to build housing alone.
But it's neat that some areas of the country have the population, the local government and the developers( and the $$) to create these communities. But it's not happening around Pittsburgh.
At the very least new regular housing developments may be able to plan better to allow infrastructure to be built in gradually as the growth of a development occurs.
However, as I look at my old town, the re creating of the churches alone could never be done as well as original. Pittsburgh is 253 years old, and architecturally as well as structurally they just can't and don't,build that way anymore.

[BrianTH]

To be fair to new-urbanist developers, a lot of times they have planned to serve a mixed-income market, and then it turns out there is so much demand for even the more modest units that the whole thing goes upscale. What this shows is that the market for these sorts of developments has been underserved (which gets into issues of public policy, such as zoning, utilities, transportation spending, and so on).

Incidentally, I agree that it is tough to duplicate the nature of an urban environment that was developed over many decades. But over time some of these areas could achieve a similar effect, at least if they are allowed to change.

[rhondee]

I guess getting back to Impala 26's original point of preserving the natural and beautiful surrounding woodlands of Pittsburgh instead of clearing them for development,while re-using and revitalizing some of the neighborhoods that already exist here would be the most ideal scenario.

[Katarina Witt]

I agree with Brian that most New Urban developments try to offer varieties of housing, e.g. apartments, townhouses and single family houses. My daughter looked at an apt. to rent in a New Urban community recently. She thought it was too expensive, but I could have afforded it, so it wasn't priced for the ultra-rich (who aren't renting apts anyway). The only one that I know of that really is more than a group of housing units built around a little shopping area is Stapleton in Denver, which is big enough to attract some retail other than coffee shops, dry cleaners and the like.

[rhondee]

For Denver to be successful with New Urban developments offered in all economic ranges illustrates the fact that Denver would be creating new towns anyway d/t population growth.
Here we have a population that's shifting around,and going mostly to suburbs.Pittsburgh is in danger of losing some of it's current 90 neighborhoods and essentially creating "ghost boroughs" or ghost neighborhoods. My own borough's population has dropped by about 1/2 what it was.
Cranberry is a suburb that has grown into a town ,is the only one that has been created within the last few decades here (that I can think of) .But it's not a walking community.
I guess if the trend would continue whether we like it or not then maybe we could convert the "ghost boroughs" into green space/ plant forest. Then we would have downtown core as center, surrounded by a ring of green space/ forest , then towns/New Urbans surrounding that outside.
I would think it alot easier/cheaper to revitalize and improve existing i/o building all new and tearing down old . Plus alot of these brick streets with beautiful Victorian houses are just gems,hate the thought of losing them.
However it would evolve, the bottom line is we have to preserve our woodlands.
We certainly have unique challenges here!

[BrianTH]

Things are going to change--you have to remember Pittsburgh is basically 20-30 years behind a lot of other cities due to the steel bust. In particular, 20-30 years ago a process of core urban gentrification started in a lot of other cities, and Pittsburgh is just starting that process now itself. Eventually that dynamic will push out to many more of the City's neighborhoods, and likely some nearby neighborhoods as well. So we should definitely go into preservation mode in these places with fundamentally solid buildings, not tear them down (except to the extent they are physically past the point of no return).

And then in 20-30 years from now we will have a housing bubble and subsequent financial crisis . . .

[rhondee]

Thanks Brian, you make me feel better and ALOT more hopeful. I believe Pittsburgh is on the cusp of tranformation-for the better. It's just hard going through it when you've lived here along time.Everything feels topsy turvy right now. LETS AVOID THAT HOUSING BUBBLE,THOUGH!! LOL

[rhondee]

For Katiana:
BTW I love Denver! It's such a nice city filled with the nicest people. It is not an arrogant city or filled with hipsters who think they are just too cool for anyone else -I like the vibe there! My sister lives in Parker( they did live in Aurora up until a few years ago) I also enjoy driving to the cool ,crisp, clean mountains where I can clear my head.

[BrianTH]

The cynics will say Pittsburgh's transformation is just around the corner, and always will be. But there is real data out there suggesting an actual, ongoing change as we speak, so I think a little optimism (and a lot of patience) is warranted.

Oh, and just remember not to mortgage your place to the hilt at the top of the bubble then blow it all on cars and vacations, and you should be fine.