City neighborhoods: Stable, Declining, or Rock Bottom? (Pittsburgh, Houston: buses, authority)

[steindle]

And hey, let's take that a step further, looking only at violent crimes (homicide, rape, aggravated assault).

In Bloomfield, 1 in 95 citizens is a victim of one of these crimes (at least in 2009).
In Upper Lawrenceville, it's 1 in 83.
In Mt. Oliver, it's also 1 in 83.

For the sake of comparison:
In Homewood South, it's 1 in 37.
In Beltzhoover, it's 1 in 40.

I'm sorry. I know I seem overly touchy about this. But the fact is: Saying that Mt. Oliver is "rock bottom" is just objectively wrong.

[ferraris]

It's important to remember that Bloomfield, and even Upper Lawrenceville to an extent, have a lot more out of neighborhood visitors and workers than Mt. Oliver. Just comparing residential populations isn't an accurate way to measure the chance of a crime happening to you. How many people are there shopping and working on Liberty Avenue each day that don't live in Bloomfield? Don't forget that a lot of UPMC Childrens and UPMC Shadyside employees might set foot in Bloomfield to get to their car, bus stop, or lunch destination, too.

[Aqua Teen Carl]

Also keep in mind those stats are for Mt. Oliver (which is part of the city) and not Mt. Oliver borough (which I pointed out earlier). Not the same at all.

Not to mention this thread was about blight as well which is everywhere in Mt. Oliver. Just do a tour on Google street view if you don't believe me.

[steindle]

Originally Posted by Aqua Teen Carl

Also keep in mind those stats are for Mt. Oliver (which is part of the city) and not Mt. Oliver borough (which I pointed out earlier). Not the same at all.

Yes, to some extent. I was responding to Uptown's statement that "Mt. Oliver Borough or even Mt. Oliver (the city nieghborhood) aren't safe places..."

Not to mention this thread was about blight as well which is everywhere in Mt. Oliver. Just do a tour on Google street view if you don't believe me.

I don't need to use Google Street View -- I live there. Just a few minutes ago I took the 44 through Beltzhoover, Knoxville, and Mt. Oliver. Again: there is no comparison. Pick virtually any block in Beltzhoover and you're going to see a 20% to 100% vacancy rate. Houses are literally falling apart, everywhere.

That is absolutely not true about Mt. Oliver. I walked home down Penn Ave, turned on Otillia, walked up Ormsby -- I saw maybe two abandoned houses. Some blocks in Beltzhoover are MISSING well over half of the houses that were originally there. Walk down any street in Mt. Oliver and you're never going to see anything like that -- not a single house within 5 blocks has been torn down in the 30 years my parents have lived here.

In any case, I'm done defending it. The data and visual evidence speaks for itself. As much as people love to Chicken Little about the plight of Mt. Oliver, it doesn't even touch "rock bottom."

[steindle]

Originally Posted by ferrarisnowday

It's important to remember that Bloomfield, and even Upper Lawrenceville to an extent, have a lot more out of neighborhood visitors and workers than Mt. Oliver. Just comparing residential populations isn't an accurate way to measure the chance of a crime happening to you. How many people are there shopping and working on Liberty Avenue each day that don't live in Bloomfield? Don't forget that a lot of UPMC Childrens and UPMC Shadyside employees might set foot in Bloomfield to get to their car, bus stop, or lunch destination, too.

This is obviously a consideration, and I agree that Bloomfield and Lawrenceville have much more out-of-neighborhood foot traffic than Mt. Oliver.

The fact remains that: (1) believe it or not, people DO come to Mt. Oliver from outside of it to work or shop every day. Obviously not as much as Bloomfield, but definitely a hell of a lot more than, say, Beltzhoover. And (2) Regardless of whether you agree with that, in comparison to its equally cloistered and non-trafficked "Rock Bottom" peers, Mt. Oliver still has a substantially lower violent crime rate.

Also, I should say that I don't mean to bash Beltzhoover by invoking it frequently -- I genuinely feel for the vast majority of its residents, who are working against all odds to make it better. I am just using it as a (basically) adjacent example of a truly troubled area.

But...again...I'm genuinely done with this thread now. Some people will just not believe things they don't want to hear.

[Uptown kid]

First off are we talking bout the borough or the liltle city nieghborhood?
Over the past 3.5 years (2008-6/7/2011) Beltzhoover had 6 homicides, Mt Oliver Borough with 4, Knoxville with 3, St. Clair Village 3, Arlington 2, Arlington Heights 1, Mt. Oliver 1, Allentown 1, and Carrick with 1...
There's been other homicides occuring in other southern neighborhoods but aren't gang neighborhoods so I didn't bother.

[Rodeno]

Originally Posted by ferrarisnowday

Is Monroeville really declining? Maybe from "really nice" to just "nice"? Unless we're talking about home values or something. I have a hard time imagining any part of Monroeville being worthy of warning somebody about it.

I don't have stats, and this is by word of mouth from a friend who lives there... Monroeville is seeing more and more section8 housing, and I know some people will be sensitive and say, "not all people in section 8 are bad..." This is true, but the fact remains, where there is lumps of section 8, crime usually follows, and home prices fall. I have never found Monroeville all that great any ways, but no where near a "ghetto."

[joannagraham77]

Originally Posted by ferrarisnowday

And that's about where the comparison ends. Their Museum District is nice, and combined with Texas Medical Center and the nearby Universities it is somewhat analagous to Oakland, but I didn't see much in the way of walkability outside of those areas and the downtown when I was there.

They did have the CLEANEST Metro I've ever been on though, even cleaner than Japan's trains.

Ha! While I haven't been to Pittsburgh...and I've pretty much lived in Houston my whole life, there really isn't very much here for tourism.. Honestly, it feels alot like a place where you can earn great money (for some) and have it go further because houses are cheap (for some areas).

As far as the metro...I haven't actually ridden it but I have to suggest that it's because it's brand new and is the silliest thing we've spent money on in quite awhile!! Houston is just not a commuter city. The metro rail was marketed as being something to allow residents to commute but it's basically a med center shuttle. So, a typical commuter would have to drive to the med center, park and then ride the shuttle. Wacko!

[ferraris]

Originally Posted by joannagraham77

Ha! While I haven't been to Pittsburgh...and I've pretty much lived in Houston my whole life, there really isn't very much here for tourism.. Honestly, it feels alot like a place where you can earn great money (for some) and have it go further because houses are cheap (for some areas).

As far as the metro...I haven't actually ridden it but I have to suggest that it's because it's brand new and is the silliest thing we've spent money on in quite awhile!! Houston is just not a commuter city. The metro rail was marketed as being something to allow residents to commute but it's basically a med center shuttle. So, a typical commuter would have to drive to the med center, park and then ride the shuttle. Wacko!

Yeah I noticed that it seemed like the line basically was Med Center - Museum District - Downtown, and I wondered if the lack of residential areas on the line was part of the reason it was so clean. There certainly were a lot of people in suits and other business attire riding it.

It's also interesting that fares essentially run on the honor system. I wish we could do that with the Port Authority in Pittsburgh...trying to exit a bus from the rear when you have to pay in the front is a huge pain for everybody on a packed bus; it would be great to actually be able to make use of the back doors!

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by Aqua Teen Carl

Not to mention this thread was about blight as well which is everywhere in Mt. Oliver. Just do a tour on Google street view if you don't believe me.

Are the new anti-blight regulations making a change in this?