Intrigued About Development/Investment Opportunities in Pgh... (Pittsburgh, Oakland: real estate, buying a house)

[ditchdigger]

Heavy industry is most often done at a scale that simply does not mix well with other uses.

That's why you hide it down there by the riverbank.

You're just lucky I didn't win that big Mega Millions jackpot...

[BrianTH]

The era in which no one goes to the riverfronts because they are full of toxic mills is, thankfully, over.

[Copanut]

Originally Posted by ditchdigger

Something I've often wondered about, say, The Waterfront, as a center of employment--How many jobs per square foot exist there today, as compared to when US Steel's Homestead Works was in its heyday? How about the Southside Works and J&L?

...and how many GOOD PAYING jobs are there?

[ditchdigger]

Originally Posted by Copanut

...and how many GOOD PAYING jobs are there?

Yeah, that's probably an even better yardstick--"wage density".

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by ditchdigger

Yeah, that's probably an even better yardstick--"wage density".

Well, it depends on what you are measuring. A big plant that provides a small number of high-paying jobs is a good reason to want it somewhere in the metro, not such a good reason to want it right next to where people live, taking up space that could be otherwise used for amenities. If most of them can't get jobs in the plant, what exactly is the point of such a location?

[ditchdigger]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Well, it depends on what you are measuring. A big plant that provides a small number of high-paying jobs is a good reason to want it somewhere in the metro, not such a good reason to want it right next to where people live, taking up space that could be otherwise used for amenities. If most of them can't get jobs in the plant, what exactly is the point of such a location?

We were talking about how many jobs per square foot of space a given enterprise might generate. Following Copanut's comment , I coined a phrase to describe how many dollars in pay said space might generate, i.e. 2.89 crummy retail jobs might equal the same number as 1 well paid machinist's job. I don't know what the numbers are, but I thought it was a question worth asking to give some perspective to the discussion.

As to the question of putting something industrial in "such a location", "right next to where people live", the locations in question in the OP, were Braddock and Hazelwood. People who live there now have proven willing to live in an arguably seedy area to begin with. How negative an impact could a new factory have on an environment that's already undesireable to most people? (And I know I suggested that it might revitalze the neighborhoods, but you said it wouldn't, so, ok.)

Here's a shot, courtesy Of Google Earth of the site in Hazelwood, outlined in red.

(It's really interesting to adjust GE so you can appreciate the topography. I said earlier that you can put residential anywhere, and the picture illustrates that we have. Part of the Burgh's charm is how the neighborhoods are defined by the hills and hollows. Industry though, likes big flat spaces.)

The OP asked what I'd do. See that big, flat, vacant space there, between the railroad and the river? Something about that space, to me anyway, says "industry". You mileage may vary...

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by ditchdigger

but I thought it was a question worth asking to give some perspective to the discussion.

I think it is a worthwhile question for other purposes, but my point was just that if the issue is where to put an industrial plant in relation to where people live, you really do want to look at the number of jobs, not the wages of those jobs. In fact, the higher the wages, the less you need the plant to be within walking distance of a lot of people.

How negative an impact could a new factory have on an environment that's already undesireable to most people?

I'd put the point in terms of opportunity costs. As we have developed various riverfront amenities--trails, parks, walkable commercial areas, and so on--they have proven fairly popular. Thinking ahead to when the City will be looking to develop new residential units in these brownfield sites--and sooner or later that will be true, perhaps sooner than some people think--at that point such new residential developments will attract a lot more investment if those sorts of riverfront amenities can also be developed at the same time. But that's not possible if there is a working industrial plant sitting along the river instead.

And note it isn't as if anyone is clamoring to building industrial plants in these sites anyway. So we are both talking about hypotheticals--if and when someone wants to actually invest in developing these areas, what model is likely to work? The old mill-town model you are sketching just isn't viable anymore, but we know the model I am sketching has ongoing viability.

Also note I've made the same point about things like the Mon-Fayette Expressway. People will sometimes argue that as long as it runs through currently depressed areas, what's the harm? The logical response is that we know that elevated highways limit the development potential of the land they pass through, particularly waterfront areas. And eventually maximizing the value of these areas is going to be important for the urban core, even if right now we haven't reached that stage. So rather than locking in the failed models of the past, we should be planning for the sorts of models that can actually work in a city setting.

I said earlier that you can put residential anywhere, and the picture illustrates that we have. Part of the Burgh's charm is how the neighborhoods are defined by the hills and hollows. Industry though, likes big flat spaces.

Residential developments also like flat spaces--we have sprinkled some residential units on the slopes and valleys, and maybe those are the most "charming" residential units to some. But the truth is that by far most of the residential units in the urban core are actually in relatively flat areas, mostly either flats along the rivers or plateaus in the hills. In fact we have parks and other green spaces taking up much of the urban core's slopes and valleys--it isn't a coincidence that Schenley is a park and Shadyside is a dense residential neighborhood, rather than the other way around.

And residential developments also like waterfronts. I recognize that so do many industrial plants, but this just brings us back to the same point I was originally making: there are plenty of riverfront locations available throughout Southwestern PA. But riverfront locations right in the urban core of the only major city in Southwestern PA--those are relatively scarce, and it doesn't make sense to use them for heavy industry instead of people-friendly developments.

The OP asked what I'd do. See that big, flat, vacant space there, between the railroad and the river? Something about that space, to me anyway, says "industry". You mileage may vary...

It was certainly the vision people in Pittsburgh had between the Civil War and WWII. I think we need to recognize, though, that the time for that vision is long past.

I mean, you are actually looking at the end stage of that model: a disinvested brownfield. Look just up river, and you will see the thriving South Side Flats. I think it is pretty obvious which approach makes sense for the future.

[ditchdigger]

It was certainly the vision people in Pittsburgh had between the Civil War and WWII. I think we need to recognize, though, that the time for that vision is long past.

Yep. We're now working on the vision for the period between WWII and WWIII.

A big plant that provides a small number of high-paying jobs is a good reason to want it somewhere in the metro, not such a good reason to want it right next to where people live, taking up space that could be otherwise used for amenities. If most of them can't get jobs in the plant, what exactly is the point of such a location?

There is one point, and it may be more compelling than any other.

It's a post-industrial brownfield site.

If we agree that industry is a positve, and that we should add some to the local economy, is it better to knock down a forest, level a mountaintop, or pave over a farmer's field (not to mention building the transportation infrastucture to get there), or wouldn't it be better to put it someplace we've already boogered up?

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by ditchdigger

If we agree that industry is a positve, and that we should add some to the local economy, is it better to knock down a forest, level a mountaintop, or pave over a farmer's field (not to mention building the transportation infrastucture to get there), or wouldn't it be better to put it someplace we've already boogered up?

People in Pittsburgh aren't used to this, but the U.S. population is growing, and the Pittsburgh Metro is likely to join that trend in the near future (if it hasn't already--in fact the urbanized portion of the Pittsburgh Metro grew in population from 1990 to 2000--it was the rural part of the Metro that lost population). Meanwhile, decreasing people per household means you need more housing units per person than back in, say, 1950.

So something is going out in that farmer's field--either the industrial plant or housing units. And whatever goes there will require infrastructure. And it will actually be much more efficient from an overall infrastructure standpoint--including energy and environmental issues--to put the industrial plant in the farmer's field and the new housing units in the brownfield inside the existing urban core, rather than the other way around.

That is because despite its massive size, the industrial plant will typically have less total infrastructure needs than a housing development of the same size. And in fact you can house people at higher densities in the urban core rather than in the farmer's field, which allows for even higher relative infrastructure efficiencies.

For example, putting more people into the urban core allows you to switch over a higher share of transportation to high-capacity/high-efficiency modes, and the more dense the urban core gets the higher up this scale you can go (e.g., to electrified trains). You can tell the exact same story about telecommunications: putting more people into the urban core allows you to use higher-capacity means of transmission. And so on. Conversely, if you scatter large industrial plants through your urban core, you will create grey zones where these modes of transportation and telecommunications will be uneconomic, interfering with both overall penetration of these modes as well as creating specific network design problems. And to the extent industrial users might be able to achieve similar efficiencies through agglomeration, that also doesn't work if they are intermixed with residential neighborhoods--they need to cluster together in industrial parks and such.

So you were right to point out that land-use policy is inextricably linked to transportation policy, and telecommunications policy, energy policy, environmental policy, and so on. But taking those factors into consideration only supports the conclusion that it is typically better to favor residential develops over heavy industry inside your urban core.

[ditchdigger]

So something is going out in that farmer's field--either the industrial plant or housing units. And whatever goes there will require infrastructure. And it will actually be much more efficient from an overall infrastructure standpoint--including energy and environmental issues--to put the industrial plant in the farmer's field and the new housing units in the brownfield inside the existing urban core, rather than the other way around.

That is because despite its massive size, the industrial plant will typically have less total infrastructure needs than a housing development of the same size. And in fact you can house people at higher densities in the urban core rather than in the farmer's field, which allows for even higher relative infrastructure efficiencies.

Maybe in a total dollars and cents sense, but you're failing to properly allocate those costs. To extend main lines some given distance to reach a site in the farmer's field the costs are going to be similar. Now, once you're on site, sure, residential will require a whole lot more infrastructure, because you're talking about individual services to dozens or hundreds of units, compared to one big connection for an industrial facility. But to get there from where the lines now end, sorry, I can't agree.

I can't agree on the statement "you can house people at higher densities in the urban core rather than in the farmer's field", either. Maybe you won't be able to sell anybody on the idea of high density residential in a rural setting, but there's no physical reason you couldn't build to any density you want.

And not to confuse the issue by going to another thread for a quote, but...

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Unfortunately, I think that means it may be a long time before some of these Mon Valley areas are redeveloped. To be sure, as long as you aren't taking on a lot of debt to do it, this is a very cheap way to get housing. But I don't really see a lot of people making use of that opportunity until almost all the excess capacity in more central areas is used up first.

So if we already have excess capacity in the central areas, (and cheap housing in other areas, where infrastructure already exists as well), how does that mitigate in favor of even more residential in an area that requires re-development, and new and "a whole lot more" infrastructure?

One other thought, since you mentioned amenities in connection with the river, somewhere above. The river is sort of an industrial amenity. The RIDC has put some very nice industrial parks around the region, but I haven't visited one yet where you can dock a barge. River transportation is one of the factors that played into the mills locating where they did. Indeed, if you look at where they were, it must've been a key factor. Now, since this all hypothetical anyway, there's nothing to say that whatever industry might want to locate there would need the river, but lack of the river out there in the farmer's field could mitigate against some industrial possibility.

Which brings me, anyway, back to square one. I'm not sure another lap around the subject would be of any use.

Originally Posted by DaBurgh

Love the enthusiasm!

It'd be kinda nice if the OP would show enough enthusiasm to come back and contribute something to the discussion, wouldn't it?