PA City/Borough Population Estimates (2017) (Philadelphia, Erie: sales, real estate, income)

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by trackstar13

Lawrenceville is a very nice neighborhood and I like some of the aspects of what it has become, but I also find it a bit odd. I have been staying in Lawrenceville for the past few days and I have walked around the neighborhood quite a bit. I finally met a few people with kids and one of the couples I spoke with told me they are moving to the North Hills as they want better schools for their kids when they get older. One of the things I find odd about Lawrenceville is how there are some very large houses with very few people occupying them. For instance, a few of the houses around my friend's house are 4 and 5 bedroom houses and they only have one resident. I am not sure if this is common in many other cities. I am not saying that everyone should live in a crowded apartment building, but it seems strange to me that someone would want that much space on their own, especially in a place as expensive as Lawrenceville. Additionally, the development in Lawrenceville is very different than what I have seen in other cities and while other posters have mentioned some of the apartments, it seems that there are many houses that have been torn down to simply be replaced by new, modern single family homes instead of duplexes, condos, or apartments. While other cities may have more single or DINK households than Pittsburgh, I wonder if Pittsburgh is unique in that some of the neighborhoods like Lawrenceville seem to have many large, single family homes that are occupied by one or two people.

Pittsburghers like their square footage for some reason. Many of the flips with three or four bedrooms in my neighborhood are being sold to affluent singles or DINKs (dual income/no kids). As a single male I would rather live in a tiny house than have to maintain, clean, heat, and cool a 3,000-square foot residence on my own. At the very least if I ended up buying a 3-BR residence I'd rent the other two bedrooms out on a month-to-month basis or via AirBNB/HomeAway to generate additional income. Tiny houses have not caught on in Pittsburgh, and it's because it's nearly as expensive to build a new tiny house in the city as it is to build a standard-sized home.

[trackstar13]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

Pittsburghers like their square footage for some reason. Many of the flips with three or four bedrooms in my neighborhood are being sold to affluent singles or DINKs (dual income/no kids). As a single male I would rather live in a tiny house than have to maintain, clean, heat, and cool a 3,000-square foot residence on my own. At the very least if I ended up buying a 3-BR residence I'd rent the other two bedrooms out on a month-to-month basis or via AirBNB/HomeAway to generate additional income. Tiny houses have not caught on in Pittsburgh, and it's because it's nearly as expensive to build a new tiny house in the city as it is to build a standard-sized home.

This is true and it does seem that Pittsburghers love the extra square footage. With that being said, I think part of it is related to the original construction of the houses. The houses in Lawrenceville seem much bigger than the houses in the neighborhoods I used to live in when I was in St. Paul and Minneapolis. It seems that in the Twin Cities the older houses were 2-3 bedrooms and less than 1,500 square feet, while it is not uncommon to see city houses in Pittsburgh that are 4-5 bedrooms and more than 2,000 square feet. There are probably some historical reasons for this, but I am most surprised when I see a large, new construction house in Lawrenceville that is sitting in spot where a similar size house used to be located. I guess if it were me I would build something a little smaller and more efficient.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by trackstar13

Lawrenceville is a very nice neighborhood and I like some of the aspects of what it has become, but I also find it a bit odd. I have been staying in Lawrenceville for the past few days and I have walked around the neighborhood quite a bit. I finally met a few people with kids and one of the couples I spoke with told me they are moving to the North Hills as they want better schools for their kids when they get older. One of the things I find odd about Lawrenceville is how there are some very large houses with very few people occupying them. For instance, a few of the houses around my friend's house are 4 and 5 bedroom houses and they only have one resident. I am not sure if this is common in many other cities. I am not saying that everyone should live in a crowded apartment building, but it seems strange to me that someone would want that much space on their own, especially in a place as expensive as Lawrenceville. Additionally, the development in Lawrenceville is very different than what I have seen in other cities and while other posters have mentioned some of the apartments, it seems that there are many houses that have been torn down to simply be replaced by new, modern single family homes instead of duplexes, condos, or apartments. While other cities may have more single or DINK households than Pittsburgh, I wonder if Pittsburgh is unique in that some of the neighborhoods like Lawrenceville seem to have many large, single family homes that are occupied by one or two people.

Under zoning, you can't build multi-family housing on residential streets in Lawrenceville. All of the existing units are grandfathered in. I dunno when it changed, but the zoning banning multi-family predated gentrification. The only thing that can be infilled between the rowhouses are new rowhouses.

There are exceptions. Multi-family is allowed right along Butler Street in the business district, along with the industrial zones near the river. About 550 units have been added since 2013 this way. And there's a mid-century apartment building off of 46th. a senior apartment building in Lower Lawrenceville, etc. But it's damn difficult to get any new multifamily built otherwise. Someone was attempting to get an abandoned church converted into multi-family, and ultimately abandoned the project due to NIMBY opposition, which decreased the unit count/increased the parking requirements until it was no longer economical. Someone is going to be demolishing the church now, and it remains to be seen what will go up in its place.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Someone was attempting to get an abandoned church converted into multi-family, and ultimately abandoned the project due to NIMBY opposition, which decreased the unit count/increased the parking requirements until it was no longer economical. Someone is going to be demolishing the church now, and it remains to be seen what will go up in its place.

What an absolute shame. I was unaware of this. NIMBY's suck! This reminds me of the residential high-rise they were going to build in the Strip on the vacant lot near Savoy that also received a lot of NIMBYism due to its proposed height. I even heard Polish Hill neighbors decrying it would "affect views".

[trackstar13]

Thanks for the input eschaton and I definitely understand better why Lawrenceville is being developed the way it is now. City officials should really work on improving the flexibility of zoning. I never realized that the zoning rules were so restrictive in the city and specifically Lawrenceville. It seems that it is currently very challenging to get anything re-zoned.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

What an absolute shame. I was unaware of this. NIMBY's suck! This reminds me of the residential high-rise they were going to build in the Strip on the vacant lot near Savoy that also received a lot of NIMBYism due to its proposed height. I even heard Polish Hill neighbors decrying it would "affect views".

A lot of the opposition was related to parking concerns (indeed, some people who lived in the neighborhood used the abandoned surface lot as their personal parking until it was chained off) but there was a racist element too. The project was in development before I moved out of the neighborhood, and my wife went to some of the community meetings. The developer was a Nigerian immigrant, and some of the "old timers" accused him of wanting to bring "Section 8" into the neighborhood. Which was ridiculous, because the neighborhood had already taken off by then, but whatever.

The absolute worst NIMBY story in Pittsburgh was the Garden Theater apartment building blocked by a single NIMBY who doesn't even live in Pittsburgh. Now we're likely to see all the historic buildings knocked down because of that one selfish idiot.

Originally Posted by trackstar13

Thanks for the input eschaton and I definitely understand better why Lawrenceville is being developed the way it is now. City officials should really work on improving the flexibility of zoning. I never realized that the zoning rules were so restrictive in the city and specifically Lawrenceville. It seems that it is currently very challenging to get anything re-zoned.

The zoning was likely considered "defensive" during the time the neighborhood was going downhill, as chopped up houses would mean more low-income renters moving in at that time. Now it's flipped around and people are terrified of not having on-street parking, so variances allowing for a two/three unit are always opposed by someone or the other.

[bradjl2009]

Originally Posted by trackstar13

I have noticed that he is surrounded by people under 40 and very few of them have any kids. I know this is anecdotal evidence, but I wonder what will happen as Pittsburgh continues to gentrify and more and more houses that use to house families are occupied by 1 or 2 people. I didn't think that Pittsburgh could fall below 300,000 in population, but it may happen by 2020.

I would imagine this is happening all over the US, our TFR is now at it's lowest point in 40. More millennials than any other generation just don't that interest of marriage and children so far through their adulthood.

[trackstar13]

Originally Posted by bradjl2009

I would imagine this is happening all over the US, our TFR is now at it's lowest point in 40. More millennials than any other generation just don't that interest of marriage and children so far through their adulthood.

I am not really sure if this is happening across the U.S. or not and I just looked at the census data related to persons per household and Pittsburgh averages closer to 2 where some of the faster growing cities like Dallas or San Antonio average closer to 3.

[tallydude02]

Johnstown is now below the 20,000 mark. At its peak in 1920, the city had 67,327 residents. I was there a couple of years ago and the city was definitely in rough shape. Even the surrounding more affluent townships looked a little drab.

[PGH423]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

Excuses. Excuses. Excuses. Other cities sustain things like prison closures, and it doesn't affect their population growing vs. declining.

Those would be cities that are growing in population. We unfortunately aren't. That's not the same as saying we are significantly shrinking though.