Official Pittsburgh neighborhoods which don't exist

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Herodotus

To a small degree, this has happened in both Manchester, and Crawford Square. However, too many black folks have the suburban mindset. In fairness, if you had kids, would you really want to subject them to the nonsense going on in a place like Manchester?

I dunno. I mean, I have a daughter, and despite liking Lawrenceville, lately I've been having some regrets I didn't look for a house in the North Side for five years ago when I was still single. At the time, I was opposed both because it seemed still rather unsafe, plus there was a lack of a walkable commercial district. The former seems to have alleviated a bit, while the latter...well, having a toddler, we can't go into half the businesses we used to frequent on Butler anyway.

Regardless, the problem with forever moving outward into still-affordable second-ring suburbs is that's just where the white-flight contingent went to begin with. I know there's been some pretty major racial issues now that black people are moving into Verona, for example. Or, in the south, I'm pretty sure I read about black families getting their houses burned down in Lincoln Place within the last few years. In contrast, in much of the city, especially those areas with a large transplant population, people are able to discriminate (no pun intended) between both white and black neighbors who are upstanding or trouble.

Originally Posted by Herodotus

Perhaps as the area gets better, this will no longer be an issue. The phenomenon of "black gentrification", is fairly recent, and hasn't been studied much, though the long term implications could be very positive. There have been some stories done about this in both Harlem, and Bed-Stuy, as well as in Chicago's Bronzeville section. Bed-Stuy in particular, has large numbers of very impressive brownstones, all well maintained, and filled with members of the black middle class, despite very bad areas being nearby.

The problem is, I'm guessing by then the black middle class will be priced out of the North Side - particularly because their own houses are falling in value. Still, a big plus of Pittsburgh's tiny neighborhoods is it doesn't take many people to make a difference. An influx of 500 members of the black middle class into a city neighborhood would make a huge difference.

[ferraris]

Middle class is middle class. If the black middle class is priced out of the nice north side neighborhoods, then the white middle class has been, too. Depending how you define middle class, it may have already happened. I think you can definitely say that homes in the Central Northside and Allegheny West are outside the reach of the working class, at the least.

[ElijahAstin]

Originally Posted by I_Like_Spam

Neighborhoods never stay the same, the same Lower Hill urban renewal sent most of the Italian and Syrian residents of the same area to Beechview and Brookline and the Jewish residents out to the east.

But every neighborhood changes in both ethnicity and socioeconomics, its as inevitable as the seasons. The South Side is certainly different today than it was when I first started working there in the 80's, people can pine for the old times, but it was going to change for good or bad. I guess its good for those who owned their own homes anyhow.

On the Hill, you can still see Greek Catholic cupolas on Bedford and a converted synogogue on Webster, St. Benedict's was originally built as a German church.

On the North Side, when I was a kid, the Deutschtown section was virtually 100% caucasian and mostly German. I read that the dividing line was Chestnut Street which separated the Germans from the Croats- back in the day.

Squirrel Hill's ethnic/socioeconomic stability is a remarkable exception to the rule--virtually unheard of in this country, Jewish urban neighborhoods tending to be especially susceptible to change. While the non-Jewish residents of Squirrel Hill have diversified in recent years, the neighborhood remains close to 50% Jewish. Stanton Heights/Highland Park, which once rivaled Squirrel Hill's proportion of Jewish residents, have seen a remarkable exodus in recent years.

[aw_now_what]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Something similar happened with Polish Hill. It used to be called Herron Hill, but when the rest of the Hill District started declining rapidly, it was lumped in, and essentially redlined. In order to better market the neighborhood, the name was changed to Polish Hill, despite Poles not being the majority, as it showed the neighborhood was...umm...different from the rest of the Hill District.

That is absolutely untrue. Polish Hill was called that long before anybody thought of marketing neighborhoods, and before redlining became an issue. The name came about organically: because it was a hillside whose population was around 90% of Polish birth or descent.

Pittsburgh does unfortunately have racism in its history; no need to do rewrites to add even more.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by aw_now_what

That is absolutely untrue. Polish Hill was called that long before anybody thought of marketing neighborhoods, and before redlining became an issue. The name came about organically: because it was a hillside whose population was around 90% of Polish birth or descent.

Well, than the president of the Polish Hill community group told an absolute untruth in a talk my wife attended, because he said it was Herron Hill up until the "rebranding."