Which neighbiorhhood could be next? (Pittsburgh, Penn Hills: home, tenants, high school)

[jimmyev]

Originally Posted by Copanut

Show me some stats, because if what you are stating is true, why has Esplen, Allentown, Carrick, and so many other good areas fallen on hard times.

I'm pretty sure that Swissvale fell on hard times because there's a freaking glass plant in the middle of the borough. Actually the census tract surrounding the glass plant is the poorest census tract in the borough. Because nobody wants to live in an industrial park. Edgewood is more desirable because that borough doesn't have an industrial plant in its center.

[stburr91]

Originally Posted by jimmyev

I'm pretty sure that Swissvale fell on hard times because there's a freaking glass plant in the middle of the borough. Actually the census tract surrounding the glass plant is the poorest census tract in the borough. Because nobody wants to live in an industrial park. Edgewood is more desirable because that borough doesn't have an industrial plant in its center.

The glass plant is just about on the border of Swissvale and Rankin, and has no real negative effect on Swissvale.

That area is next to Rankin, and was the first area in Swissvale to see the introduction of section 8 housing. This was right at a time when much of Wilkinsburg had been largely destroyed, and was becoming a ghost town. Much of the poverty of Wilkinsburg filtered into Swissvale.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Copanut

Show me some stats, because if what you are stating is true, why has Esplen, Allentown, Carrick, and so many other good areas fallen on hard times.

So first, stats:

Unfortunately, older employment stats are hard to find online. But as this article points out:

Pittsburgh's Future: Has the Economy Ever Been This Bad?

Between March 1980 and 1983, the Pittsburgh Region lost over 85,000 jobs – almost 1 out of every 10 jobs that existed at the time.

Do the math, and the Pittsburgh region had under 1,000,000 jobs as of March 1980. Per the link above, it had over 1,120,000 jobs as of March 2011.

As for earnings, mean earnings in 1980 were about $7.88/hour in 1982 dollars (see Table 3):

http://www.industrystudies.pitt.edu/papers/incomedist-labor.pdf (broken link)

In 2010 dollars that is about $17.81/hour:

http://146.142.4.24/cgi-bin/cpicalc....982&year2=2010

Mean earnings were about $20.23/hour in Pittsburgh in 2010:

http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ocs/sp/ncbl1558.pdf

As for why that didn't stop certain places for decaying . . . to start, it is important to understand what I noted above, which is that relative female labor force participation in Pittsburgh has gone way up. I believe women were under 40% of the Pittsburgh workforce in 1980, and are now almost 50%. Moreover, higher-income women often end up in the same household with higher-income men. So there are not as many well-paid households in total to go around as the same number of higher-paying jobs would have implied back when there were fewer dual-income households.

Second, we have seen great shifts in the nature of the good jobs in Pittsburgh since 1980, which is layered on top of the usual reasons for areas to fall into and out of favor. This leads to a pattern of some winners and some losers among the old places, plus some largely new places relatively to 1980.

Again, generally you can't just focus down on individual places, because too much is shifting around. Pittsburgh today is, on the whole, a wealthier, higher-income place than it was in 1980, but that wealth and income isn't distributed in the same ways, either among people or over places.

[Tinare]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

I believe the first segment opened in 1993. It was extended in 2003.

The East Busway opened in 1983.

Port Authority of Allegheny County > Customer Info > Busways and T > Martin Luther King, Jr. East Busway

[BrianTH]

By the way, you don't have to take my word for it . . . these economic modelers rated Pittsburgh as one of the country's "hot" job cities:

Hot or Cold? The State of Jobs in America’s Largest Cities « EMSI | Economic Modeling Specialists Inc.

The criteria was simple: Pittsburgh is among the metros that had job growth from 2001 to 2010, and also from 2009 to 2010. Interestingly, they also compared 2009-2010 job growth to 2001-2010 job growth, which is what I would call an acceleration measure. If jobs were growing at a steady rate, you'd expect around 8% of the total growth from 2001-2010 to be in 2009-2010. So if you are substantially below that number, you might say job growth was decelerating in that year, and if you were substantially above, you might say job growth was accelerating in that year.

Pittsburgh was #3 in this measure among "hot" cities with growth from 2009-2010 making up 17% of its growth from 2001-2010, after Boston (40%) and Chattanooga (20%). Note there were also four more cities (Springfield, Worcester, Grand Rapids, and New Orleans) that they classified as "heating up" because they were negative 2001-2010, but positive 2009-2010.

[pman]

as I'm sure Brian knows, perception lags reality. do all of these things mean swissvale is going to make a comeback? absolutely not. to extend this discussion a little bit, the whole state had a bad run for a few decades from the collapse of mining to the collapse in steel and the subsequent collapse of railroads, particularly the penn central bankruptcy, among other things. even though three mile island wasn't a disaster, it must have just been another "black eye" for a state already struggling. it's two largest cities were in freefall and the smaller ones weren't doing much better.

[PreservationPioneer]

Originally Posted by Copanut

Show me some stats, because if what you are stating is true, why has Esplen, Allentown, Carrick, and so many other good areas fallen on hard times.

Not necessarily because the jobs aren't there, but because these are unfashionable areas. I think fifty years ago, places like Braddock and Allentown didn't have the stigma they do today. I think, over the years, people migrated to more fashionable areas of the city, or suburbs, in an effort to appear more affluent.

I watched a documentary on Braddock, and an older female resident was interviewed. She remembered Braddock's good times, when the town was booming, and mentioned that even then there was a desire on behalf of the town's younger people to "get out." I think this mentality, to "get out" of blue collar, working class neighborhoods, and settle in more upscale areas, whether that be a suburb (as it was for the last half century) or Shadyside, is still very much in evidence today. You would be surprised how many people give me a sideways look when I tell them I live in McKees Rocks -- and it's not that crime is that bad, or that it's far away from good jobs, because it's not. Robinson and downtown are just nearby. It's because it's not considered fashionable or upscale to live there -- and everyone wants to look like they have money.

I think as urban living becomes ever more popular, and the popular neighborhoods become more pricey, more people will settle in the Allentowns and Esplens.

I also hope that there are other young people like me who want to own their own house -- and see great opportunities in neighborhoods like Elliott, where homes can be bought for the price of a used car. But I'm afraid too many people want to live the Shadyside urban sophisticate lifestyle, which is difficult in a blue collar neighborhood. But I should note it has happened in Lawrenceville and South Side, so it's very possible that it will spill over into other working class neighborhoods.

[calvin20874]

Originally Posted by alleghenyangel

Not necessarily because the jobs aren't there, but because these are unfashionable areas. I think fifty years ago, places like Braddock and Allentown didn't have the stigma they do today. I think, over the years, people migrated to more fashionable areas of the city, or suburbs, in an effort to appear more affluent.

Yes, and this is my point. Without increasing population, there is not enough pressure on the housing market that people would start looking to rebuild those places. So the old mill towns and places like Wilkinsburg get depleted in favor of places like Cranberry.

Nothing would make me happier than to see a revitalized, gentrified Pittsburgh and inner suburbs. My family left in the early 80's, during the time of the great out-migration. I've watched for decades as industries have left Pittsburgh and my home town in the eastern suburbs has declined. I very much want to believe that Pittsburgh is now on the threshold of robust job growth, but I've been disappointed so many times.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Tinare

The East Busway opened in 1983.

Sorry, that was actually a typo on my part.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by alleghenyangel

Not necessarily because the jobs aren't there, but because these are unfashionable areas. I think fifty years ago, places like Braddock and Allentown didn't have the stigma they do today. I think, over the years, people migrated to more fashionable areas of the city, or suburbs, in an effort to appear more affluent.

Populations in the mill towns also started declining as soon as motorized transportation became affordable on blue collar wages. Most people don't really want to live right next to large industrial plants, even if they work in them. But it is a different question once the plants shut down.