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Thanks, everyone. Very helpful responses all around. Excited to move to Pittsburgh, and possibly Lawrenceville!
No doubt. If you do end up in Lawrenceville, your first mission is to get some breakfast at Coca Cafe. It will put a smile on your face that should last for at least a solid two weeks, hahaha.
Just thought I'd bump this, considering I've been a Lawrenceville resident now for around five years. Central, but in the flats near Upper Lawrenceville, and I've taken time to explore all over.
I just don't think that Upper Lawrenceville is going to "make it," unlike the rest of the neighborhood. Basically, the area suffers from two issues which I think will stall out gentrification pretty quickly.
First, the housing stock is of notably lower quality than Central or Lower Lawrenceville. North of Butler, towards the river, there's only a few blocks of old brick rowhouses, some of which are in good shape, but all of which are tiny, rather undistinguished, and have the nuisance of being so close to an active train line and an in-use industrial area.
South of Butler, on the slope, there is a lot of housing. However, unlike the rest of Lawrenceville, a lot of construction was done in frame, not brick. This means except for houses which have been neglected for decades, there was an en-masse conversion to aluminum siding, making a huge proportion of the houses ugly as sin. Carnegie Street is the main exception, where around half the houses would have potential if they were fixed up. But as you go up the slope, particularly into the alleys, it just gets worse and worse. And generally speaking, it's a bad idea for resale to own one of the best houses on your street.
Second, Upper Lawrenceville is becoming an African-American neighborhood. In 2000, it was 11% black, by 2010, it was 28% black. Only four neighborhoods in the city saw a larger positive black population shift (Uptown, Knoxville, Mount Oliver, Sheridan). That is not to say that Upper Lawrenceville is becoming less safe as a result - it's both far safer and far less white than it was in the 90s, and if my black neighbors in the Central Lawrenceville Flats are any indication, they're probably mostly parents who want a safer place to raise their kids.
That said, the major population change in Upper Lawrenceville has been black families moving in, not gentrification. If current trends continue, It will easily be a majority-black neighborhood by 2020. While most urban pioneers aren't scared of the idea of living in a black neighborhood, I can say from experience talking with the older Lawrenceville locals (some of whom still drop the N word in casual conversation) a lot of them are. Thus I expect the demographic shift will speed up further this decade. Only an influx of gentrifiers buying the houses could make up the difference in local population loss, and given what I said above, I don't see enough good housing stock existing to draw those people in.
The bottom line is, while I don't see Upper Lawrenceville getting significantly worse, someone looking to buy there needs to keep in mind that unlike Central and Lower, there's every chance if you buy a house it won't appreciate dramatically in the short run. We bought our house in Central for around $53,000, and when we sell it a few years down the line, we expect to get somewhere between twice and three times what we paid. I just don't see that happening in Upper any time soon.
That is not to say that Upper Lawrenceville is becoming less safe as a result - it's both far safer and far less white than it was in the 90s, and if my black neighbors in the Central Lawrenceville Flats are any indication, they're probably mostly parents who want a safer place to raise their kids.
That's just the sort of people that help a neighborhood take off. Families that care about their children and what they're exposed to and doing. You could be right about some of the long time white residents deciding to leave due to the racial changes, though.
Large black populations haven't stopped the north side neighborhoods from taking off. Take a look at prices in Manchester sometime, that neighborhood is 80% black and liveable homes are reliably going for 6 figures. The same goes for the Central Northside.
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This means except for houses which have been neglected for decades, there was an en-masse conversion to aluminum siding, making a huge proportion of the houses ugly as sin.
Ugly housing hasn't hurt Bloomfield any! I think if Butler Street in Upper Lawrenceville can keep growing and become more seamlessly connected to central and lower lawrenceville (a la South Side's Carson Street), then people will be willing to put up with the uglier houses.
My opinion on the future of Upper Lawrenceville is that it will grow at a steady pace, but probably not explode. There is a market for $50K - $75K homes, and Upper Lawrenceville is the only neighborhood in the East End that offers homes in that price range, along with safety and a business district. The only other neighborhoods offering that are Troy Hill and maybe some parts of the West End.
I've been quite impressed with the progress of Upper Lawrenceville's business district over the past year... lots of exciting new businesses and restaurants like Cure and Wild Purveyors. Upper has lower-quality housing and tapers off into a weird hillside of isolated decayed houses east of 58th or so... but I think the neighborhood has potential to capitalize on the boom in Central Lawrenceville and LoLa (Lower Lawrenceville's new moniker).
The only thing that slows upper L'ville from gentrifying as fast as Central and LOLA is being cut off from Central with the cemetery.
Racial make up has nothing to do with it, from what I hear section 8 is being pushed out of L'ville at a pretty good clip....that goes for ghetto blacks and trashy whites.
I'm supposing that you and I have different definitions of "make it." From this post, I'm gathering that, for you, a neighborhood "making it" means that you can buy a house there and then sell it for three times as much in a short turn around time.
For me, a neighborhood "making it" means that it has become safe and stable, affordable, nice to live in and, of course, desirable. Honestly, the point at which people start flipping houses in a neighborhood, is the point at which I start losing desire to live there because of the inflated prices, haha.
That's definitely just a difference of opinion, though; different strokes for different folks, of course.
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Originally Posted by eschaton
...keep in mind that unlike Central and Lower, there's every chance if you buy a house it won't appreciate dramatically in the short run.
Yes, but the majority of homes in Central and Lower are already going for three times the price of those in Upper, so somebody looking to buy right now will have that to deal with as well. You could buy a house in Upper, pay it off way more quickly and sell it for a modest gain when the time comes, or not sell it and simply live there and enjoy it. This is the other side of the "can't sell it for way more in a few years" coin.
That being said, I'm not at all convinced by your argument that Upper Lawrenceville won't appreciate considerably in the near future.
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Originally Posted by eschaton
Second, Upper Lawrenceville is becoming an African-American neighborhood. In 2000, it was 11% black, by 2010, it was 28% black. Only four neighborhoods in the city saw a larger positive black population shift (Uptown, Knoxville, Mount Oliver, Sheridan). That is not to say that Upper Lawrenceville is becoming less safe as a result - it's both far safer and far less white than it was in the 90s, and if my black neighbors in the Central Lawrenceville Flats are any indication, they're probably mostly parents who want a safer place to raise their kids.
That said, the major population change in Upper Lawrenceville has been black families moving in, not gentrification. If current trends continue, It will easily be a majority-black neighborhood by 2020. While most urban pioneers aren't scared of the idea of living in a black neighborhood, I can say from experience talking with the older Lawrenceville locals (some of whom still drop the N word in casual conversation) a lot of them are. Thus I expect the demographic shift will speed up further this decade. Only an influx of gentrifiers buying the houses could make up the difference in local population loss, and given what I said above, I don't see enough good housing stock existing to draw those people in.
I'm going to politely say that I disagree with your assessment. I think that a steady stream of gentrifiers will make up a good bit of the difference in local population loss. In my last year of living there I saw many homes sold to young white people. Most of them were the "bad stock" wood frame and townhouse places, too. I want to emphasize on top of this, however, that I don't think this needs to happen. I think the neighborhood will continue to improve and grow even with an increasing presence of minorities.
I know that you are speaking in terms of gentrification and the possibility of being able to flip a house, and I can interpret this part of your post accordingly. Nonetheless, it makes me uncomfortable to read about how a neighborhood isn't going to "make it" because more black people are moving in, especially when it's a neighborhood that is doing quite well currently and has steady home sales and businesses moving in on its main street. I hung out with a lot of the neighborhood kids when I lived there, and they were great. Again, I know that your evaluation is strictly financial; I just feel the need to put in a social counterbalance. Maybe black people living there means the home prices won't skyrocket right away, but it certainly does not mean that the neighborhood isn't "making it;" not to me, at least.
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Originally Posted by eschaton
If current trends continue, It will easily be a majority-black neighborhood by 2020. While most urban pioneers aren't scared of the idea of living in a black neighborhood, I can say from experience talking with the older Lawrenceville locals (some of whom still drop the N word in casual conversation) a lot of them are.
So, potentially, in 2020 it will be a majority black neighborhood that is safe and stable, close to town on a major bus line and has a strong business district full of cool bars, shops and restaurants. Everything in that list except the "majority black" part is almost a certainty, and I would strongly argue that this would mean the neighborhood has "made it."
I really want to stress that I'm not trying to be rude or inflammatory with these responses. I totally understand our differences in perspective, and I'm not offended or outraged or any of that junk, haha; I just wanted to make sure that I put something up here to flesh out my somewhat different thoughts, so that all the internet readers can be informed by both.
Large black populations haven't stopped the north side neighborhoods from taking off. Take a look at prices in Manchester sometime, that neighborhood is 80% black and liveable homes are reliably going for 6 figures. The same goes for the Central Northside.
Manchester and Central Northside not only have nicer houses than Upper Lawrenceville, they have nicer houses than all of Lawrenceville, aside from perhaps Fisk and Main. Gentrifiers of all colors are are willing to move into bad neighborhoods if the houses are particularly awesome. But you don't see, for example, people moving into Hazelwood, for example, even though many of the houses there are similar to the smaller ones in the South Side and Central Lawrenceville.
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Originally Posted by ferrarisnowday
Ugly housing hasn't hurt Bloomfield any! I think if Butler Street in Upper Lawrenceville can keep growing and become more seamlessly connected to central and lower lawrenceville (a la South Side's Carson Street), then people will be willing to put up with the uglier houses.
Yeah, the "warrens" in Bloomfield below liberty are pretty similar in overall look to Upper Lawrenceville. As is Polish Hill and Troy Hill. Still, one needs to keep in mind that despite the relative stability of Bloomfield, it's only succeeding in the relative sense (e.g., it's population is shrinking more slowly than the Pittsburgh average). I have a feeling if the part of Bloomfield which is really Friendship was excluded, the statistics on population growth would look more dire.
Generally speaking, I think ugly houses with little potential don't appeal to many new homeowners. Renters are willing to live there, of course, as you seldom care what the outside of your house looks like when you rent. This essentially means two different populations - students and those just out of college, and the poor. I could see a scenario where the hipsters get gentrified out renting in Lower and Central in the next decade, and start moving to Upper en-masse. But barring that, I think many of the houses will transition from being owned by working-class families and retirees to rental units with absentee landlords who try to provide the cheapest housing possible.
I've seen this myself in Central. The intact houses get snapped up pretty quickly by young couples. But the houses which were wrecked (like my neighbor two houses down, who hated his "old-timey windows" and had a horizontal slider put in, with no effort to match the brick or even take out the lintels), get taken over by landlords who rent them out to whoever wants a house really cheaply. My wife and I jokingly talk about the "unfit mothers" - the pair of renters who now lives in the house, throw garbage in the sidewalk, and drink and smoke weed in front of their children. On the other hand, a wrecked shanty the next block down has a bunch of 20somethings with mustaches living in it.
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Originally Posted by ferrarisnowday
My opinion on the future of Upper Lawrenceville is that it will grow at a steady pace, but probably not explode. There is a market for $50K - $75K homes, and Upper Lawrenceville is the only neighborhood in the East End that offers homes in that price range, along with safety and a business district. The only other neighborhoods offering that are Troy Hill and maybe some parts of the West End.
I think this is right overall. I don't think Upper Lawrenceville will turn into some horrible ghetto. I do think that people shouldn't be blinded by the Lawrenceville hype, however, and realize that it's a pretty different area now, and becoming more different as time passes.
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Originally Posted by Evergrey
I've been quite impressed with the progress of Upper Lawrenceville's business district over the past year... lots of exciting new businesses and restaurants like Cure and Wild Purveyors. Upper has lower-quality housing and tapers off into a weird hillside of isolated decayed houses east of 58th or so... but I think the neighborhood has potential to capitalize on the boom in Central Lawrenceville and LoLa (Lower Lawrenceville's new moniker).
Yeah, I think Upper Lawrenceville is in some ways better in terms of Butler Street than Central Lawrenceville. Central has in some ways been hampered because it was more of an intact commercial area than Lower or Upper pre-gentrification. As a result, commercial space is nearly filled up, with about half older, established neighborhood businesses. Upper Lawrenceville, in contrast, had a ton of vacancies, which is better for startups. There's still a whole lot of churn going on up there, however - I've seen many businesses close over the past few years as well.
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Originally Posted by Blackbeauty212
The only thing that slows upper L'ville from gentrifying as fast as Central and LOLA is being cut off from Central with the cemetery.
Yeah, this is a big issue, and difficult to see a solution to. Perhaps if the riverfront plan succeeds in getting the big industrial properties to move, more housing can be built on the flats in Upper, at least tying in half of Butler.
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Originally Posted by Blackbeauty212
Racial make up has nothing to do with it, from what I hear section 8 is being pushed out of L'ville at a pretty good clip....that goes for ghetto blacks and trashy whites.
This may be the case. At least on our street, the two black families I know are both homeowners.
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Originally Posted by CaptainPittsburgh
I'm supposing that you and I have different definitions of "make it." From this post, I'm gathering that, for you, a neighborhood "making it" means that you can buy a house there and then sell it for three times as much in a short turn around time.
For me, a neighborhood "making it" means that it has become safe and stable, affordable, nice to live in and, of course, desirable. Honestly, the point at which people start flipping houses in a neighborhood, is the point at which I start losing desire to live there because of the inflated prices, haha.
I didn't buy my house with expectations of flipping it. I bought it because I could get a nice, if small, brick rowhouse for roughly $50,000. That said, it does hearten me in a way that if trends continue with local real estate prices, I'd actually be able to afford to move to Friendship within a few years once our renovations are done and we know if we're going to have a second child.
I do think that people have developed these expectations of Lawrenceville - essentially that it's the "New South Side." This may happen, but if it does I think it's going to be limited to Central and Lower Lawrenceville.
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Originally Posted by CaptainPittsburgh
Yes, but the majority of homes in Central and Lower are already going for three times the price of those in Upper, so somebody looking to buy right now will have that to deal with as well. You could buy a house in Upper, pay it off way more quickly and sell it for a modest gain when the time comes, or not sell it and simply live there and enjoy it. This is the other side of the "can't sell it for way more in a few years" coin.
That being said, I'm not at all convinced by your argument that Upper Lawrenceville won't appreciate considerably in the near future.
True. I bought my house in Central in 2007, when the last of the cheapies were on the market. The only houses selling for under $100,000 now are alley houses - and although the "ways" aren't as sketchy as they used to be, they're still not somewhere I'd want to live.
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Originally Posted by CaptainPittsburgh
I'm going to politely say that I disagree with your assessment. I think that a steady stream of gentrifiers will make up a good bit of the difference in local population loss. In my last year of living there I saw many homes sold to young white people. Most of them were the "bad stock" wood frame and townhouse places, too. I want to emphasize on top of this, however, that I don't think this needs to happen. I think the neighborhood will continue to improve and grow even with an increasing presence of minorities.
I hope you're right, of course. Maybe being married to an architect has made me overestimate the value of curb appeal to people.
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Originally Posted by CaptainPittsburgh
I know that you are speaking in terms of gentrification and the possibility of being able to flip a house, and I can interpret this part of your post accordingly. Nonetheless, it makes me uncomfortable to read about how a neighborhood isn't going to "make it" because more black people are moving in, especially when it's a neighborhood that is doing quite well currently and has steady home sales and businesses moving in on its main street. I hung out with a lot of the neighborhood kids when I lived there, and they were great. Again, I know that your evaluation is strictly financial; I just feel the need to put in a social counterbalance. Maybe black people living there means the home prices won't skyrocket right away, but it certainly does not mean that the neighborhood isn't "making it;" not to me, at least.
I'm not surprised someone took umbrage at what I wrote. I was trying very hard to walk a line with it, as I personally have no issue with black neighbors - I considered looking for a house in Garfield within a few blocks of Penn, but was unable to find anything which hadn't been converted into apartments already. I was emphatically not writing any assumption the growing black population meant more "trash" was moving in (a phrase some people on the forum seem to throw around).
And again, this is just to say "don't believe all the hype" not "this place is turning into a horrible ghetto.
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Originally Posted by CaptainPittsburgh
So, potentially, in 2020 it will be a majority black neighborhood that is safe and stable, close to town on a major bus line and has a strong business district full of cool bars, shops and restaurants. Everything in that list except the "majority black" part is almost a certainty, and I would strongly argue that this would mean the neighborhood has "made it."
I could see things going a lot of different ways, both better and worse than this. I think the assessment is pretty much spot on however. Even as a black neighborhood, it's still going to be a nicer and safer place than it used to be.
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Originally Posted by CaptainPittsburgh
I really want to stress that I'm not trying to be rude or inflammatory with these responses. I totally understand our differences in perspective, and I'm not offended or outraged or any of that junk, haha; I just wanted to make sure that I put something up here to flesh out my somewhat different thoughts, so that all the internet readers can be informed by both.
I'm not surprised someone took umbrage at what I wrote. I was trying very hard to walk a line with it, as I personally have no issue with black neighbors - I considered looking for a house in Garfield within a few blocks of Penn, but was unable to find anything which hadn't been converted into apartments already. I was emphatically not writing any assumption the growing black population meant more "trash" was moving in (a phrase some people on the forum seem to throw around).
Not at all, I totally understand the way that you were addressing the issue. Gentrification is an impossible subject to converse about without bumping up against uncomfortable grey areas. I think you did well at broaching it tactfully; it just make me feel compelled to (hopefully equally tactfully) respond, haha.
I also think your whole response was a great post, polite and well-reasoned.
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I think if Butler Street in Upper Lawrenceville can keep growing and become more seamlessly connected to central and lower lawrenceville (a la South Side's Carson Street), then people will be willing to put up with the uglier houses.
