What areas could Pittsburgh do without? (Arlington Heights, St. Clair: 2015, houses, neighborhoods)

[eschaton]

Off and on, I've been reading the book The Triumph of the City the past month or so.

His section on the rust belt was interesting. He makes the point that redevelopment in shrinking cities is almost always wrongheaded. When a city has a shrinking population, there is more housing available than people to fill it. Cities focus on redevelopment schemes, including new housing, which only makes the problem worse, as it increases housing stock even further beyond demand.

I'm sure it's been brought up before that Detroit is now taking these lessons to heart and planning to raze whole sections of the city and relocate residents in the remaining stable areas. I don't think Pittsburgh's anywhere near this, but I do think there areas we could do without. Hays, for example, is just so sparse, and I don't see it coming back. The remaining houses there are pretty universally in bad shape, and were never nice to begin with.

I'll just let the discussion run from there.

[SteelCityRising]

My landlady just moved to Hays, and while I can definitely say that the neighborhood has a creepy and eerie vibe to it I didn't quite notice the "run-down" character that you implied.

[PreservationPioneer]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I don't think Pittsburgh's anywhere near this, but I do think there areas we could do without. Hays, for example, is just so sparse, and I don't see it coming back. The remaining houses there are pretty universally in bad shape, and were never nice to begin with.

The concept of urban renewal based on the destruction of neighborhoods and eminent domain is clearly wrong and unethical. Who is to say what neighborhoods are worthy and not worthy of being saved? What makes one person's opinion better than another's? A neighborhood might not look like much to you, but it might be beautiful to someone else. Leave our city alone and let private investment and development determine the fate of the city, rather than government getting involved and destroying neighborhoods, as it has in the past. I can see why this is happening in Detroit and Youngstown, because sections of those cities are mostly urban prairie. Pittsburgh's rough neighborhoods are mostly intact.

Pittsburgh already lost a good portion of its urban neighborhoods in the last century. Large sections of the North Side, Uptown, Strip District, the Lower Hill District, and Downtown were completely removed from the urban fabric and replaced with parking lots.

If you want to see the effect that population loss has had on Pittsburgh's neighborhoods, you need only look at the perimeters of downtown in the 1923 map and compare it to a current satellite view. Most of those neighborhoods are long gone:

Pittsburgh Historic Sites

[PreservationPioneer]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Hays, for example, is just so sparse, and I don't see it coming back. The remaining houses there are pretty universally in bad shape, and were never nice to begin with.

What would be the point of demolishing the neighborhood of Hays? These are peoples' homes, regardless of what they look like to you. Where are you going to put these people when you destroy their homes? Are you going to find them homes in a different part of the city? What are you going to replace the neighborhood with that would justify the cost and the work of destroying it? I actually think Hays is a beautiful, scenic neighborhood with a country feel that is unique to the city. Hays' main problem is it is in a flood zone.

It seems so arrogant and snobbish to me when someone says, "This neighborhood looks ugly. It should be demolished." I think sprawl is ugly -- can we demolish Robinson, McKnight Rd., and Monroeville?

[ctoocheck]

Originally Posted by alleghenyangel

The concept of urban renewal based on the destruction of neighborhoods and eminent domain is clearly wrong and unethical.

I don't know if something so drastic might be good (and we don't know the details of whatever steps they've taken in Detroit), but the idea of managed decline seems to make a bit of sense, at least. While it is indeed a shame, it's very unlikely that, for example, many of the towns in the Mon Valley will be coming back (bar some miracle), and will just continue to languish with what little assistance we can provide, unless they're allowed to slowly "die" in a managed way.

Take, for example, the dormant Mon-Fayette expressway, which was largely intended to help boost the economy in the Mon Valley. This project would drain billions of dollars and quite probably not really boost the economy there enough to make a significant, lasting impact. Meanwhile these monies could be used to boost areas that aren't over the brink. There are likely a number of examples of areas that now, after decline and shrinkage, have excessive infrastructure that is a drain at the expense of areas that could better use the money.

I know it would be terrible to lose such history in these towns and so forth, but...

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by alleghenyangel

The concept of urban renewal based on the destruction of neighborhoods and eminent domain is clearly wrong and unethical. Who is to say what neighborhoods are worthy and not worthy of being saved? What makes one person's opinion better than another's? A neighborhood might not look like much to you, but it might be beautiful to someone else. Leave our city alone and let private investment and development determine the fate of the city, rather than government getting involved and destroying neighborhoods. I can see why this is happening in Detroit and Youngstown, because sections of those cities are mostly urban prairie. Pittsburgh's rough neighborhoods are mostly intact.

Pittsburgh already lost a good portion of its urban neighborhoods in the last century. Large sections of the North Side, Uptown, Strip District, the Lower Hill District, and Downtown were completely removed from the urban fabric and replaced with parking lots.

If you want to see the effect that population loss has had on Pittsburgh's neighborhoods, you need only look at the perimeters of downtown in the 1923 map and compare it to a current satellite view. Most of those neighborhoods are long gone:

Pittsburgh Historic Sites

I totally understand your point, but I have a counter.

Cities grow from the inside out. The central area builds up, and then neighborhoods progressively develop further from the city core.

This isn't the way cities shrink though. Instead of shrinking in a planned fashion, they shrink by accident, with missing teeth scattered about until whole neighborhoods are like Swiss cheese. As a result, city services get more and more inefficient, with things like bus service, policing, and garbage collection forced to continue along old routes even when 50% of the old structures are gone.

To be clear, Hays is the only neighborhood I think could be totally depopulated, because it's almost entirely gone as it is. There are sub-regions within Pittsburgh however, particularly long, one-way streets up steep slopes in isolated areas, where I think eminent domain would be a good thing, provided the city swapped the houses for ones in in a denser area of equal or greater value.

Another example, here in Lawrenceville, is the alley houses. Although some of these houses are being fixed up, most are still abandoned or quasi-abandoned, and too many are still drug and prostitution locales. Lawrenceville community groups themselves have been pushing for destruction of these houses, both due to safety concerns as well as the desire for the street-side houses to reclaim their old backyards.

As to whose to pick and choose, I think it's the up to elected officials. Centralized urban planning does have an awful history, but ultimately municipal government exists to serve the interests of the majority of residents - not the structures of the city, and not every single neighborhood. And I think good governance is typically done in a utilitarian fashion, which by nature will result in some people losing out. The questions then become more of "is it a good deal or not" - which all boils down to whether or not we know more about urban planning today than we did in the period from 1950-1980.

[PreservationPioneer]

I think alley houses are historically significant, and the destruction of them would be a mistake. Alley houses are unique to urban areas and they add to the sense of place. They also provide more affordable and smaller alternatives for people than the often larger and more expensive street-side homes. Also, they are practical and make good use of space, and are energy efficient and green because of their small footprint (it doesn't take much to heat them). What practical improvement does demolishing alley houses create? Lawrenceville is gentrifying. Soon those alley houses will be filled with single yuppies.

[PreservationPioneer]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I totally understand your point, but I have a counter.

Cities grow from the inside out. The central area builds up, and then neighborhoods progressively develop further from the city core.

This isn't the way cities shrink though. Instead of shrinking in a planned fashion, they shrink by accident, with missing teeth scattered about until whole neighborhoods are like Swiss cheese. As a result, city services get more and more inefficient, with things like bus service, policing, and garbage collection forced to continue along old routes even when 50% of the old structures are gone.

To be clear, Hays is the only neighborhood I think could be totally depopulated, because it's almost entirely gone as it is. There are sub-regions within Pittsburgh however, particularly long, one-way streets up steep slopes in isolated areas, where I think eminent domain would be a good thing, provided the city swapped the houses for ones in in a denser area of equal or greater value.

Another example, here in Lawrenceville, is the alley houses. Although some of these houses are being fixed up, most are still abandoned or quasi-abandoned, and too many are still drug and prostitution locales. Lawrenceville community groups themselves have been pushing for destruction of these houses, both due to safety concerns as well as the desire for the street-side houses to reclaim their old backyards.

As to whose to pick and choose, I think it's the up to elected officials. Centralized urban planning does have an awful history, but ultimately municipal government exists to serve the interests of the majority of residents - not the structures of the city, and not every single neighborhood. And I think good governance is typically done in a utilitarian fashion, which by nature will result in some people losing out. The questions then become more of "is it a good deal or not" - which all boils down to whether or not we know more about urban planning today than we did in the period from 1950-1980.

I have a solution: demolish the sprawl and force people to move back to the city.

[Uptown kid]

Most of the city's forgotten formal urban renewal areas like St. Clair, Arlington Heights, & Fairywood...
BroadHead Manor's property & the old mall's property are just wasting space... Old St. Clair Village's space is being wasted too. A.H. besides the seven rough barracks of housing projects & a few small houses is a waste too! Hays is an unknown/useless area to most Pittsburghers, but I don't think they have to raze it.

[ferraris]

Another example, here in Lawrenceville, is the alley houses. Although some of these houses are being fixed up, most are still abandoned or quasi-abandoned, and too many are still drug and prostitution locales. Lawrenceville community groups themselves have been pushing for destruction of these houses, both due to safety concerns as well as the desire for the street-side houses to reclaim their old backyards.

Some of the "alley" houses actually are older than the "backyards" they sit on. I actually took a look inside of one of them with the intentions of buying. It was over 120 years old and in good structural condition. Unfortunately the current residents hadn't maintained the inside too well and the only bathroom was a pittsburgh toilet in the basement. The house wasn't for me at the price being asked, but Lawrenceville is in demand, there are people that would take that on. It would be a shame to tear down a structurally sound house just because someone in a newer house feels that it's in their backyard.