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Even if Pittsburgh never lost housing, it would have lost population (around 20% at least) due to smaller family sizes. The 1950 peak is a difficult goal.
I did out the math once out of curiosity. Around 2/3rds of the population decline of Pittsburgh was due to falling household size. Given present day smaller sizes of households (and presuming that the new migrants Pittsburgh picks up will have the same household size as Pittsburgh today) we'd only need around 110,000 more people to be as full as the 1950 peak. I'd say this is doable, if we became the next Portland or something, within 20-30 years.
Housing unit loss has been spotty. On one hand many neighborhoods (Beltzhoover, Middle Hill, parts of Homewood) have seen massive demolitions. Other neighborhoods saw additional construction - first in the suburban fringes of the city, and later on with some infill in the core. At the same time some grand houses have been subdivided (both in neighborhoods in decline and the "student slum" of Oakland, while gentrification has caused some subdivided areas to turn back into single-family housing (Allegheny West).
The problem with Pittsburgh its a very small downtown. If you have a urban dense downtown lots of people it draws people all hours . If you have a downtown thats a destination peole want to live close to it . Creating urban walkable neighborhoods around downtown . Pittsburgh has the smallest least dense downtown Seattle has the largest most dense downtown. Urban neighborhoods to cut out car traffic and create foot traffic are dense and have large amounts of retail. So people never have to leave there neighborhoods like grocery stores , Department stores, big box stores. But to support those you need a large urban dense population . Pittsburgh downtown has less than 5,000 people living there. Seattle is nearing 100,000 2010 Seattle had 65,000 people downtown. Since then Seattle has added 7,000 new housing units a year in its urban core and is adding 8,000 in 2013 according to the DJC. Downtown Pittsburgh has less than 5,000 hotel rooms . Seattle has more than 15,000 hotel rooms. Pittsburgh has 15million square ft of class A&B office space . Seattle Has 45million square ft of class a office space. My point is Pittsburgh needs to become a city that people want to live in to encourage urban infill and development . Seattle has down that with several Flagship stores downtown not found in malls Like the flagship Nordstrom, R.E.I, Barneys,Columbia Sports whare,Nordstrom Rack and R.Y.U is also opening a new flagship store downtown the other is in Manhatan. And if people are living in neighborhoods to be urban they need to be able to walk to urban grocery stores . Seattle has several grocery stores downtown and the urban neighborhoods thats why walk skore isw accurate. Pittsburgh downtown is more of a vertical office park with a little retail, a few hotels and a couple of appartment complexes. It needs to become at least a regional draw to push Pittsburgh into the next century .
Re: the bold-Seriously? I had no idea! Actually, oftentimes model homes are built and then lots sold and actual homes built for specific buyers. "Spec homes" are not all that common.
You state, and I will bold below:
I really don't know why one would even do that. There are many dense neighborhoods that don't have a lot of people activity in them. The downtowns of some cities, which are full on non-residential streets, pretty much "die" at night for example.
Commercial streets have the highest population density normally. What are you talking about? In DC, residents live on top of street level retail.
The problem with Pittsburgh its a very small downtown. If you have a urban dense downtown lots of people it draws people all hours . If you have a downtown thats a destination peole want to live close to it . Creating urban walkable neighborhoods around downtown . Pittsburgh has the smallest least dense downtown Seattle has the largest most dense downtown. Urban neighborhoods to cut out car traffic and create foot traffic are dense and have large amounts of retail. So people never have to leave there neighborhoods like grocery stores , Department stores, big box stores. But to support those you need a large urban dense population . Pittsburgh downtown has less than 5,000 people living there. Seattle is nearing 100,000 2010 Seattle had 65,000 people downtown. Since then Seattle has added 7,000 new housing units a year in its urban core and is adding 8,000 in 2013 according to the DJC. Downtown Pittsburgh has less than 5,000 hotel rooms . Seattle has more than 15,000 hotel rooms. Pittsburgh has 15million square ft of class A&B office space . Seattle Has 45million square ft of class a office space. My point is Pittsburgh needs to become a city that people want to live in to encourage urban infill and development . Seattle has down that with several Flagship stores downtown not found in malls Like the flagship Nordstrom, R.E.I, Barneys,Columbia Sports whare,Nordstrom Rack and R.Y.U is also opening a new flagship store downtown the other is in Manhatan. And if people are living in neighborhoods to be urban they need to be able to walk to urban grocery stores . Seattle has several grocery stores downtown and the urban neighborhoods thats why walk skore isw accurate. Pittsburgh downtown is more of a vertical office park with a little retail, a few hotels and a couple of appartment complexes. It needs to become at least a regional draw to push Pittsburgh into the next century .
I'm pretty sure your office numbers are way off. Downtown pittsburgh is small geographically, but very dense. It could be a lot worse for a city that had been in decline for decades. The areas around the core CBD are being redeveloped and residential is being added at a fairly brisk pace starting a few years ago. Also, I'm not positive but I don't think Seattle has any "second downtown" equivalent to Oakland in Pgh. The two cities are just built very differently.
I did out the math once out of curiosity. Around 2/3rds of the population decline of Pittsburgh was due to falling household size. Given present day smaller sizes of households (and presuming that the new migrants Pittsburgh picks up will have the same household size as Pittsburgh today) we'd only need around 110,000 more people to be as full as the 1950 peak. I'd say this is doable, if we became the next Portland or something, within 20-30 years.
Housing unit loss has been spotty. On one hand many neighborhoods (Beltzhoover, Middle Hill, parts of Homewood) have seen massive demolitions. Other neighborhoods saw additional construction - first in the suburban fringes of the city, and later on with some infill in the core. At the same time some grand houses have been subdivided (both in neighborhoods in decline and the "student slum" of Oakland, while gentrification has caused some subdivided areas to turn back into single-family housing (Allegheny West).
Pittsburgh city reached its highest population in 1950. As has been discussed ad nauseum on Urban Planning, the decade of the 50s is when suburbanization began in earnest. That would be the source of some of Pgh's population loss during that decade, also in the 1960s. The metro population continued to grow in those decades. However, in the 1970s, Pittsburgh's metro population began to decline too, due to the gradual decline of the steel industry during the early 70s, culminating in a rapid "bust" in the latter part of that decade and into the 80s. (See second link) As for declining family size, if there were still an interest in living in the city, more housing units could have been built.
Commercial streets have the highest population density normally. What are you talking about? In DC, residents live on top of street level retail.
I would like to see some documentation of that. It is not the case in Pittsburgh, according to eschaton's map and according to my knowledge of Pittsburgh. It's not the case in Denver, either, AFAIK. These people living on top of street level retail are generally not families; they're more likely to be single people or couples.
Paris is a very good example of a city where it has A LOT of people living in the commercial historic core and a bunch of restaurants, bars, etc on the first floor of 6 story apartments. That's why Paris is 54k people per square mile achieving densities almost as high as Manhattan despite not having a bunch of highrises. It's a very old city too.
But Katiana, typically, most big city downtowns have urban streetwalls since those are generally the most structurally dense areas of a city. However, urban cities generally have neighborhoods that are dense outside of the downtown area also. Generally, if the neighborhood is a bunch of single family homes, it's not urban.
For people not knowledgable about Pittsburgh, I attempted to make a color-coded map of neighborhood structure. It ain't perfect (Inkscape doesn't allow diagonal slashed lines, which makes showing "mixed" neighborhoods difficult) but it's a fairly good primer.
Cyan are the urban residental neighborhoods. These are characterized by large numbers of rowhouses, either in brick or (more rarely) frame, although a few have tightly packed detached houses. They would unquestionably be considered urban.
Brown are 19th century neighborhoods of lower density. For the most part these are "upland urban" neighborhoods, where the topography meant a reliance on detached frame. In some parts craxy topography means they come across like old rural areas (Hays is like this in its entirety). East Carnegie is a special case, because it's an old mill town which is far away from the urban core, but happens to be in the city.
Green are Streetcar suburbs. They were mostly built out in their cores mostly between 1900 and 1930 or so. The older ones have an abundance of detached grand foursquares, while the later ones are progressively more modest. Some of these (Shadyside, parts of Squirrel Hill) have far higher population density than the "urban" parts of the city. They're probably most comparable to the "urban" portions of Seattle.
Yellow are actual suburbs in the city. They were mostly built out from the 30s/40s through the 1960s. The later ones feature driveways and cul-de-sacs. Note some of the larger streetcar suburbs (Brookline, Squirrel Hill South, Point Breeze) have large pockets of this too, but there's no easy way to show this on a map.
Orange are urban renewed/ruined areas. Most of these are "project neighborhoods" where historically housing projects comprised the vast majority of the residential base. Crawford-Roberts has no projects per-se, but it was blighted and had massive infill since the 1990s which has resulted in a much less urban "mixed income" neighborhood. Allegheny Center is a special case I discussed before.
Red are heavily blighted areas. For the most part "missing teeth," demolition, and abandonment has meant the 19th century urban fabric is gone. That sid, they haven't had enough reinvestment to be remuddled yet.
Grey are non residential neighborhoods. Outside of Downtown, the old urban fabric is pretty much gone.
You are calling North Oakland and Central streetcar???? Really Esch?
Census Tracts on Pitt's campus approach 50,000 ppl/mi^2. North Oakland's density is almost 15,000 through the entire neighborhood with twenty or more high rise apartments.
Central (S. by students) Oakland is 90% row houses or multi-unit apartment buildings. Its more urban than anywhere outside Seattle's CBD.
Overbrook is not suburban, its an extension of Brookline and Carrick.
East Liberty is streetcar too? How so?
Normally I agree with most of your posts, but this one took me for a loop.
City data ate my long reply, so this might be briefer than I'd like.
Quote:
Originally Posted by _Buster
The odd thing about Pittsburgh is that many of the areas immediately surrounding the CBD are going through major transitions, and so in all likelihood these area are going to become far more dense within the next 5-7 years: Lower Hill district (former Mellon Arena site and sea of parking lots), Strip District, Uptown, and possibly sections of the North side. These areas are all within 1 mile of downtown, and currently have large amounts of unused or open space that either are already in the works for development, or have great potential to be . The plans that are in the works include significant residential. Are there entire areas like that in Seattle?
We'll see. Things are undoubtedly getting better, but one thing which worries people in Pittsburgh is the developers are not being ambitious enough with their infill. These areas should be seeing new residential highrises, but the development plans in the works are more in the midrise range if that, and often don't contain anywhere near enough units for areas immediately next to downtown.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ironcouger
The problem with Pittsburgh its a very small downtown. If you have a urban dense downtown lots of people it draws people all hours . If you have a downtown thats a destination peole want to live close to it . Creating urban walkable neighborhoods around downtown . Pittsburgh has the smallest least dense downtown Seattle has the largest most dense downtown. Urban neighborhoods to cut out car traffic and create foot traffic are dense and have large amounts of retail. So people never have to leave there neighborhoods like grocery stores , Department stores, big box stores. But to support those you need a large urban dense population . Pittsburgh downtown has less than 5,000 people living there. Seattle is nearing 100,000 2010 Seattle had 65,000 people downtown. Since then Seattle has added 7,000 new housing units a year in its urban core and is adding 8,000 in 2013 according to the DJC. Downtown Pittsburgh has less than 5,000 hotel rooms . Seattle has more than 15,000 hotel rooms. Pittsburgh has 15million square ft of class A&B office space . Seattle Has 45million square ft of class a office space. My point is Pittsburgh needs to become a city that people want to live in to encourage urban infill and development . Seattle has down that with several Flagship stores downtown not found in malls Like the flagship Nordstrom, R.E.I, Barneys,Columbia Sports whare,Nordstrom Rack and R.Y.U is also opening a new flagship store downtown the other is in Manhatan. And if people are living in neighborhoods to be urban they need to be able to walk to urban grocery stores . Seattle has several grocery stores downtown and the urban neighborhoods thats why walk skore isw accurate. Pittsburgh downtown is more of a vertical office park with a little retail, a few hotels and a couple of appartment complexes. It needs to become at least a regional draw to push Pittsburgh into the next century .
Pittsburgh's downtown is very small. However, at only two-thirds of a square mile, it has 92,000 jobs. I have seen one study which ranks Pittsburgh as having the fifth most job-dense downtown in the country.
Of course, regarding downtown living, Pittsburgh is behind the times. Part of this is simply because Pittsburgh has retained better residential neighborhoods outside of downtown than many other cities. If you can buy a historic rowhouse in a mixed-use neighborhood with a vibrant walkable commercial district, and then get into downtown in twenty minutes on the bus, why bother with a downtown condo? I mean, downtown living is starting to take off now in a major way, but Downtown Pittsburgh will probably never be the "it" place to live due to the office shortage meaning demand for commercial space downtown is still tight.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MDAllstar
That's the point though you see. There shouldn't be many non-commercial streets in a city. The goal should be to have as many high population density commercial streets as possible. Obviously you will always have some residential only streets, however, the goal should be to have as many non-residential streets as possible across the city. This is seen in many of the most urban cities in the world. As for street-walls, they are important for the highest level of urbanity. When you talk about non-street wall streets in Boston and Chicago, are you talking about apartment building streets or single family attached house streets? I think in the context of street walls, this discussion should focus on streets that are filled with either apartments or condos. Do you think a street without a street wall can measure up to a street with one from an urbanity standpoint?
While I see urban streetfronts doing much better than strip malls in the next few decades, the rise of online shopping means that we've probably passed "peak storefront." Even the hippest neighborhoods here often have commercial vacancies which last for years, because outside of bars, restaurants, and a handful of staples (salons, convenience stores, banks, etc) there just isn't the same demand these days. I often see offices taking up first-floor storefronts, or many converted into houses. It's just the way it is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiana
Pittsburgh city reached its highest population in 1950. As has been discussed ad nauseum on Urban Planning, the decade of the 50s is when suburbanization began in earnest. That would be the source of some of Pgh's population loss during that decade, also in the 1960s. The metro population continued to grow in those decades. However, in the 1970s, Pittsburgh's metro population began to decline too, due to the gradual decline of the steel industry during the early 70s, culminating in a rapid "bust" in the latter part of that decade and into the 80s. (See second link) As for declining family size, if there were still an interest in living in the city, more housing units could have been built.
The point is Pittsbugh had a different sort of decline in population than elsewhere in the rust belt. In other places there was more of a racial turnover/white flight, which meant that white families were being replaced with black families of equal or greater size. In contrast in Pittsburgh what predominantly happened is the kids moved away and the parents stayed and aged in place. This made Pittsburgh a very, very old city until recently, but it also meant that a much more painless method of gentrification happened here than elsewhere, as the gentrified population in many neighborhoods was literally dying out.
Quote:
Originally Posted by speagles84
You are calling North Oakland and Central streetcar???? Really Esch?
Census Tracts on Pitt's campus approach 50,000 ppl/mi^2. North Oakland's density is almost 15,000 through the entire neighborhood with twenty or more high rise apartments.
Central (S. by students) Oakland is 90% row houses or multi-unit apartment buildings. Its more urban than anywhere outside Seattle's CBD.
Overbrook is not suburban, its an extension of Brookline and Carrick.
East Liberty is streetcar too? How so?
Normally I agree with most of your posts, but this one took me for a loop.
Okay, I made bad calls on Central Oakland and Overbrook, and corrected them. On Central Oakland I knew the area on the far side of Bates was rowhouses. But I was thinking that the core was mostly detached houses, when really it looks like Halkett and Coletart are the only ones which aren't mainly rowhouses.
I stand by North Oakland and East Liberty though. North Oakland was originally detached Victorian near-mansions, similar to Shadyside. It's changed with time due to the infill apartment buildings (some of which are quite large) but the basic form of the neighborhood to begin with wasn't urban/rowhouse. Also, Schenley Farms is pretty suburban in form, and it's a not insubstantial area within North Oakland. East Liberty is similar. Virtually the entire area north of the Boulevard (which is the main residential area) is detached grand Victorians. The core area (the remuddled, urban-renewed commercial center) is pretty urban in form, but no one really lived there until the recent apartment projects.
As for declining family size, if there were still an interest in living in the city, more housing units could have been built.
It's harder to add new units in a city already built out unless you demolish old ones. In any case regardless of the population decline from suburbanization and economic collapse, there was a decline from smaller families. The same housing stock in Boston housed 20-25% more people in 1950.
Levittown, NY has 22% less people than its peak. Does that mean there's less interest in living in Levittown than 40 years ago? No. It's just that the same housing stock doesn't hold as many people as the baby boom passed. In Levittown's case, regulations make adding new housing stock nearly impossible in Levittown, so more housing units can't be built.
Quote:
I would like to see some documentation of that. It is not the case in Pittsburgh, according to eschaton's map and according to my knowledge of Pittsburgh. It's not the case in Denver, either, AFAIK. These people living on top of street level retail are generally not families; they're more likely to be single people or couples.
I'm not sure how you could tell from a map, as density isn't measured street by street but by tracts, which range in size from a half a dozen blocks to much of a neighborhood.
Neighborhood with street-level people living above street level retail tend to be denser even if the specific street isn't. In New York City and perhaps Boston, the retail streets with people living on top of them could be denser because they have taller housing. Compare:
It's harder to add new units in a city already built out unless you demolish old ones. In any case regardless of the population decline from suburbanization and economic collapse, there was a decline from smaller families. The same housing stock in Boston housed 20-25% more people in 1950.
Levittown, NY has 22% less people than its peak. Does that mean there's less interest in living in Levittown than 40 years ago? No. It's just that the same housing stock doesn't hold as many people as the baby boom passed. In Levittown's case, regulations make adding new housing stock nearly impossible in Levittown, so more housing units can't be built.
I'm not sure how you could tell from a map, as density isn't measured street by street but by tracts, which range in size from a half a dozen blocks to much of a neighborhood.
I agree it's harder to add new units to a built-out city, but not impossible. Denver has redeveloped the old Stapleton airport, as one example. Pittsburgh's hilly topography leaves a lot of vacant land; if there had been a huge demand, some of that land could have been developed. Developers develop, they go after it.
eschaton's map had a "gray zone" that was deemed mainly commercial. I think it's foolish to think that people are living at the top of some 7 story department store, or some 20 story office building. "Living above the store" is a midwestern farm town thing.
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 12-14-2013 at 07:30 PM..
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Actually, oftentimes model homes are built and then lots sold and actual homes built for specific buyers. "Spec homes" are not all that common. 
