Where Pittsburgh could fit 100,000 more people... (Philadelphia, Washington: apartment complexes, loft, neighborhood)

[pman]

Originally Posted by ferrarisnowday

Well that makes the NSC all the more frustrating.

yep, just goes to show they might have been a little to quick to hop back on the bus bandwagon for the downtown to oakland fix.

[BrianTH]

I think the main implication of fewer people per household is that we will need to build differently this time to get to such numbers, most notably by putting more multi-units into brownfield locations. So the question in the OP--where could that happen?--is quite relevant.

[BrianTH]

So this is the sort of infill that will get us another 100,000, but you can also see the seeds of the sort of NIMBYism that has crippled development in other Northeast cities and caused their core area housing prices to skyrocket:

Greenfield neighbors wary of church housing plan - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

[szug-bot]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

So this is the sort of infill that will get us another 100,000, but you can also see the seeds of the sort of NIMBYism that has crippled development in other Northeast cities and caused their core area housing prices to skyrocket:

Greenfield neighbors wary of church housing plan - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

concerns there with traffic are legitimate. its a great location for a bus-dependent commuting lifestyle, though.

im glad to see the structure being purchased relatively quickly. we'll see how this plays out w/ the DPW.

[pman]

That's also why developers are finding core areas to build since they're often easier. If pmc wanted a tower on top of the misguided ura garage who would fight it?
I agree it would be different but its not impossible. The reality is new people would occupy a mix of extant housing now abandoned, industrial and commercial conversion, and new build. Where they'd live is a much more difficult question in terms of geography but supply would certainly have an impact.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by szug-bot

concerns there with traffic are legitimate.

Aren't they always?

Once an urban area has reached the point that main surface roads are regularly being congested, the only real solution is to provide higher-capacity alternatives (e.g., rapid transit with its own ROWs), and maybe adopt congesting pricing.

Trying to prevent people from adding housing units where they want them to be is bad policy for numerous reasons (economic, environmental, health, safety, and so on), and in the end isn't likely to deal with the urban road congestion problem on a net basis anyway (in fact, it may well make it worse on a net basis).

So I think we need to be prepared to almost always override this concern as a justification for trying to prevent the addition of housing units. But we should be prepared to address it through other policy responses.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by pman

Housing isn't difficult to build.

I think you're wrong, housing is often quite difficult to build due to NIMBYism. Look at how large segments of Brooklyn in NYC have stayed essentially SFH (rowhouses mostly, but also detached in places) because residents flip every time a developer gets a parcel big enough to put a residential high rise in.

Within the Pittsburgh context, I especially think resistance to higher-density housing will be strong in the lower East End, where people have the most pull to fight it. I do think neighborhoods which were used to being sleepy residential backwaters, even if they were somewhat modest before, will also display NIMBYism as time goes on.

Thankfully, we're not seeing much anti-residential fervor in Lawrenceville yet. While the locals are weirdly against any more commercial development on Butler (seemingly fearing it becoming a new Carson Street, which is unlikely IMHO), they are willing to say yes to virtually any new residential development. There's a real clamor for apartments here because so much of the older population would like somewhere in the neighborhood to relocate to on one floor with access to an elevator.

Hopefully they'll be able to afford it.

[pman]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I think you're wrong, housing is often quite difficult to build due to NIMBYism. Look at how large segments of Brooklyn in NYC have stayed essentially SFH (rowhouses mostly, but also detached in places) because residents flip every time a developer gets a parcel big enough to put a residential high rise in.

Within the Pittsburgh context, I especially think resistance to higher-density housing will be strong in the lower East End, where people have the most pull to fight it. I do think neighborhoods which were used to being sleepy residential backwaters, even if they were somewhat modest before, will also display NIMBYism as time goes on.

Thankfully, we're not seeing much anti-residential fervor in Lawrenceville yet. While the locals are weirdly against any more commercial development on Butler (seemingly fearing it becoming a new Carson Street, which is unlikely IMHO), they are willing to say yes to virtually any new residential development. There's a real clamor for apartments here because so much of the older population would like somewhere in the neighborhood to relocate to on one floor with access to an elevator.

Hopefully they'll be able to afford it.

and I think you're wrong, look at how many people have been added in ny which is at historic population highs. you're missing the forest for the trees, there are individual battles, yes, but in the long run those battles will not stop population increases but determine how they're accomodated. DC has seen transformation of neighborhood after neighborhood in the course of a decade and they have a very restrictive code even downtown since nothing can be taller than the capitol.

[BrianTH]

I sometimes wonder if we are in a relatively brief window of time in which most locals are still more concerned about population decline than population growth, and therefore are more willing to go along with residential projects than a lot of the Northeast Coast peers (e.g., I see a lot more sentiment from natives along the lines of "Will people really want to rent all those units?" than "What will happen to these neighborhoods when a bunch of people rent all those units?").

Assuming for the sake of argument that was true, I would hope as many projects could get done in this window as possible.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by pman

look at how many people have been added in ny which is at historic population highs.

Yeah, but then look at housing prices in NYC, which indicate a massive unmet potential demand for more housing. And I personally think it is quite troubling that the population growth in NYC slowed way down from the 1990s to the 2000s.

So restrictions on new housing builds may not entirely stop city population increases, but I think there is ample evidence they can slow those population increases way, way down.