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[Following the focus of gentrification no one in particular]
If (Big if) these neighborhoods are to gentrify in a livable time period (excluding the first four because the gentrification is to some degree enviable) I'd rank them: Singer Place/Upper Central/Hamnet Place in Wilkinsburg, Northern East Liberty, Garfield "up the hill", Crawford Roberts Hill/Uptown, Larimer, Franklin/Park Triangle/Hunter Park/the High School area/Princeton Park/most of Sperling (Central Wilkinsburg) in Wilkinsburg, Eastwood/Lincoln Park in Penn Hills, the East Hills, Bedford Dwellings/Terrace Village/Middle Hill in the Hill District, Lincoln-Lemington-Belmar, & then Homewood...
BrianTH- your right. In this decade in most hoods gangs only claim turf (besides in many of the projects & on certain blocks & streets such as: Formosa Way/N Homewood Ave/Race St in Homewood, Bedford Ave in the Hill, Brighton Place & Morrison Ave in Cali-Kirk, Leland St/N Charles St/Wilson Ave/Chester Ave/Brightridge St in Perry Hilltop, Freeland & Climax St in Beltzhoover, Ochard/Rochelle/Charles Streets in Knoxville, Trent Ave/Ella St/South Ave/Taylor Way/Franklin Ave/Robinson Bvld in Wilkinsburg, Lillie Ave & Margarita St in Braddock, Kirtpatrick St in North Braddock, Grant Ave & Crawford St in Duquesne & Bailie Ave/Beaver St in McKeesport ). Though I think when crime has been an issue for 25-5 years "gangs" "turf" should mean something more than stuff that affects bad people and their families... Gang activity brings down parts, if not all of the neighborhood (to different degrees for certain areas though).
My understanding is LLB isn't anywhere near as bad as Homewood. More properly, the southern portion is just as bad, but the northern portion is a fairly safe black middle class area.
I guess the question is, however, will it go downhill before gentrification can lap it? I would assume so, given it lacks the amenities you'd expect gentrifiers would want (walkable commercial areas, good transit access, cool old houses to fix up, etc).
As an aside, why do people sometimes refer to LLB as Lincoln Larimer?
Lincoln-Lemington-Belmar may not be as bad as Homewood, but I feel Homewood has more potential for the future. LLB is a rather forgotten nook of the city without a strong identity... its southern portion is hardly distinguishable from Homewood... and its northern and eastern portions have this weird rotting "ghetto in the woods" vibe. Topographically, LLB is very rugged and disjointed. I think LLB will be one of the absolute last neighborhoods in the city to turn around... if ever. It offers the worst of both worlds... it's one of those "remote", suburbanesque (and at some times quasi-rural) city neighborhoods that still gets saddled with city problems (school district, wage tax, crime, etc.)
Homewood, for all its problems, is more connected to the burgeoning East End... has a largely gentle topography and tight grid of streets... quality housing stock (much of it in sorry state)... and a commercial district.
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Originally Posted by eschaton
Mainly because they are residential, suburban-style neighborhoods which, while safe, have bad local schools. I could see Morningside appealing to gentrifiers - it has a tiny commercial area which could revive, and the housing stock isn't like Highland Park, but is still pretty good. It has a nice urban residential feel, even though it's detached housing. Stanton Heights in contrast is far more suburban in character. I just don't see that sort of neighborhood being greatly appealing any time soon.
Greenfield had a mini-bubble around five years ago, IIRC. One of the last affordable neighborhoods with a good school feeder pattern.
Pittsburgh's situation isn't unusual though. Populations still shrunk last decade in Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Louisville, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Saint Louis, Cincinnati, etc. It's really a phenomena of virtually all cities in the Northeast and Midwest, with only oddball cultural centers which get a lot of immigration (New York, Boston), and midwestern cities with a lot of suburbs within their limits (Indianapolis, Columbus) bucking the trend.
I have heard lots of chatter about Morningside, and I do believe it's seen an uptick in interest in recent years... primarily young middle-class families. It's a little on the bland side IMO, but offers relatively affordable quality housing with proximity to East End amenities.
As for Stanton Heights... I agree that it will not hold much appeal going into the future. 50/60 years ago, cities built neighborhoods like that to compete with new suburban living options... but now they offer little of what makes urban cores appealing to today's generation... beyond proximity. It seems to primarily function as a neighborhood option for police officers and other public servants who are subject to City residency requirements but really want to live in the suburbs. I do think Stanton Heights has a better location than similar "suburbs in the city" like Lincoln Place, Banksville and Summer Hill.
Greenfield, which actually has a welcome sign proclaiming itself "Suburb in the City", is relatively urban in terms of its density and structural environment. I find the neighborhood to be bland and aesthetically unappealing... but it obviously has some major strengths due to luck of location. I feel like there's a severe shortage of street trees in Greenfield... which may not be a big deal in a really dense rowhouse neighborhood like South Side... but makes a detached-home neighborhood like Greenfield feel really harsh.
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You make some keen observations on central city core populations. I agree to a point. However, the City of Pittsburgh has experienced unique economic and demographic trends that distinguish it from just about every other Rust Belt city. Most Northern/Midwestern industrial legacy regions endured painful economic periods coupled with high out-migration in the 70s and 80s... but none of them experienced a regional economic collapse as severe as Pittsburgh's steel bust. Pittsburgh's unemployment rate in the mid-80s was dramatically higher than the national rate, and the region experienced a net loss of hundreds of thousands of migrants (most acutely felt in the City proper and the constellation of urban factory towns). Pittsburgh had poor demographic trends for at least 30 years prior, but the 80s exodus developed demographic distortions that plunged the region into decades of "natural decline". Pittsburgh remains the only major U.S. region experiencing more deaths than births, which needs to be accounted for when analyzing population change. Cleveland and Buffalo come closest to mirroring our trends... but Cleveland's industrial base was more of a steel/automotive hybrid and didn't collapse quite as hard in the 80s. Of course... today Cleveland and Buffalo are in much worse situations than Pittsburgh... and are failing to attract new residents in the numbers that Pittsburgh is.
Pittsburgh is also unique because there's been so much negative inertia on a regional scale. It's one of the only major metros (along with Cleveland, Buffalo and sometimes Detroit) that consistently lost population decade after decade. There was a trend for municipalities of all types around here to depopulate... so the City... suffering from both the usual urban American urban decline... AND regional decline... would of course lose huge chunks of population.
The City of Pittsburgh is also one of the most underbounded of major core cities (other than Boston, Miami and SF... which are pretty special cases)... which limits opportunities for population growth. At a mere 55 sq miles, the city contains less than 13% of metro population. As you mentioned... it's useless to compare City of Pittsburgh to City of Columbus... which is closer in area to Allegheny County. But... the City of Pittsburgh is also 50% smaller than Cleveland (77 sq mi), Cincinnati (78 sq mi) and Baltimore (80 sq mi), and almost half the size of Milwaukee (95 sq mi).
So when you combine the widespread urban decline of legacy urban cores in America... with an exceptional case of regional decline... and a city area of only 55 sq mi... unable to expand its territory in a hyper-fragmented region... providing limited opportunities for new housing stock in an era of rapidly shrinking household size... you have the perfect storm to crush the City. It's remarkable Pittsburgh didn't fray more than it did... a testament to those who stayed and arrived... and worked so hard to keep the city beautiful, functional and livable.
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Originally Posted by BrianTH
The shape is somewhat similar in those cities as they all experienced similar forces (deindustrialization, surbanization, white flight, and so forth). But the severity of Pittsburgh's population decline is really pretty unique (although Detroit is now going through something similar).
Just some quick data, here is Chicago's population change by Census, starting 1940:
Before we move on, it is worth noting that with declining people per household, particularly in core urban areas, a small population decline in the same geographic territory does not necessarily mean a decline in the number of occupied housing units in that territory.
Again, that is a broadly similar shape, but the severity of the losses in Pittsburgh, particularly cumulatively, is very different.
I don't think comparing the cities of Chicago and Milwaukee to the city of Pittsburgh is very useful. Chicago is a megacity and the capital of the Midwest. It has many Rust Belt characteristics, but operates on another level economically and demographically. Milwaukee, while anchoring a significantly smaller metro than Pittsburgh, has a core city area of almost 100 sq miles. Its northwestern half is essentially suburbia, cushioning the population declines for the city in the post-war era. An analysis of the urban core of 50 sq miles would probably look much more similar to Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Cleveland, etc. Of course, this is why I hate making comparisons based on municipal boundaries... they are so arbitrary and vary wildly across this country of diverse municipal regimes. And once again... I do not envy Chicago or Milwaukee... who have been experiencing two of the worst economies in the country in recent years. Chicago's metrics are particularly troubling given its megacity status.
I do think the 00s will be the last decade of severe population loss for the City of Pittsburgh (which I will conjecture occurred primarily pre-2007... the 2001/2002 recession lasted until 2006 in Pittsburgh thanks to USAir). If there is a loss in the 10s... it will more likely be under 3% decline (though I am with BrianTH in my optimism of a population gain).
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Originally Posted by BrianTH
We'll see, I guess. I think the change from a shrinking population to a growing population, particularly with the population growth being fueled by younger, better-educated, higher-income migrants, is going to result in more than minor dynamic shifts.
I agree. While the population of Allegheny Co. increased by an extremely modest 3700 or so this past year... the real change is way more significant than that... because we had to attract enough migrants in order to overcome natural decline. The excess die-offs are largely irrelevant when assessing the demographic future of Pittsburgh... right now there is a strong surge of in-migration that if sustained... will radically change the city's neighborhood dynamics.
I am still looking for something in Pittsburgh close to the cultural district. Shadyside or Squirrel Hill would be ideal but I only have $100K to invest, there are houses out there in the range that are cute but in areas described as gritty. I can’t afford “posh” but would like something truly respectable. Where should I focus?
When I read the title the obvious choice would be Fox Chapel. That is the best neighborhood in Pittsburgh, without question, but then you threw in a price stipulation of 100K. Well, you can't live in the best neighborhood for that price range. So, the best neighborhood for $100K? If you can find something in Highland Park, I think that is the best. Look at its location and what is going to happen there. 1. That great park on one side. 2. Soon East Liberty is going to be amazing. Highland Park is sitting pretty. Buy now and in 10 years it is going to be VERY expensive. I hate to post this because my next fixer upper might be there.
If you can't find anything there, look at Morningside.
My understanding is LLB isn't anywhere near as bad as Homewood. More properly, the southern portion is just as bad, but the northern portion is a fairly safe black middle class area.
I guess the question is, however, will it go downhill before gentrification can lap it? I would assume so, given it lacks the amenities you'd expect gentrifiers would want (walkable commercial areas, good transit access, cool old houses to fix up, etc).
As an aside, why do people sometimes refer to LLB as Lincoln Larimer?
I agree with this. Lincoln-Lemington is bad and considered a rough area in Pittsburgh, but I wouldn't even put it in the same category as Homewood. Homewood and possibly the Hill District are the only neighborhoods in Pittsburgh that I would say could be one of the most dangerous in the country. The thing is, Homewood is closer to the busway and areas that already being gentrified, so I believe that's why they said that.
Homewood, for all its problems, is more connected to the burgeoning East End... has a largely gentle topography and tight grid of streets... quality housing stock (much of it in sorry state)... and a commercial district.
The housing stock in Homewood, from what I've seen, isn't really in that terrible shape. Part of it is the homeowners didn't have the money, and the absentee landlords didn't have the time, to really wreck the buildings the way a lot were in white working-class neighborhoods like Bloomfield and Lawrenceville. And the decay hasn't been going on as long as the Hill District, so a lot of them could be easily brought back with some TLC
Quote:
Originally Posted by Evergrey
As for Stanton Heights... I agree that it will not hold much appeal going into the future. 50/60 years ago, cities built neighborhoods like that to compete with new suburban living options... but now they offer little of what makes urban cores appealing to today's generation... beyond proximity. It seems to primarily function as a neighborhood option for police officers and other public servants who are subject to City residency requirements but really want to live in the suburbs. I do think Stanton Heights has a better location than similar "suburbs in the city" like Lincoln Place, Banksville and Summer Hill.
One thing I have wondered about Stanton Heights is the racial division. On paper, it's a racially mixed neighborhood, but in practice, the southern third (the portion near Garfield which used to be the location of an old country club/golf course) is overwhelmingly black (but doesn't have a bad reputation), while the remainder is overwhelmingly white. AFAIK, it's been stable with this division for at least the last 20 years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Evergrey
Greenfield, which actually has a welcome sign proclaiming itself "Suburb in the City", is relatively urban in terms of its density and structural environment. I find the neighborhood to be bland and aesthetically unappealing... but it obviously has some major strengths due to luck of location. I feel like there's a severe shortage of street trees in Greenfield... which may not be a big deal in a really dense rowhouse neighborhood like South Side... but makes a detached-home neighborhood like Greenfield feel really harsh.
Yeah, by and large, the houses in Greenfield are ugly, with the best looking like striped-down, smaller houses in Friendship, and the worst being...quite bad examples of midcentury house design. That said, for the life of me I can't see any real distinction between the housing stock of Greenfield, Squirrel Hill south of Forward, and even the parts of Hazelwood up on the slope.
I have a particular loathing of Greenfield, because every so often my wife suggests that if our daughter doesn't get into the magnet system, we should move there "for the schools." No way am I going to move to an ass-ugly neighborhood like that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Evergrey
The City of Pittsburgh is also one of the most underbounded of major core cities (other than Boston, Miami and SF... which are pretty special cases)... which limits opportunities for population growth. At a mere 55 sq miles, the city contains less than 13% of metro population. As you mentioned... it's useless to compare City of Pittsburgh to City of Columbus... which is closer in area to Allegheny County. But... the City of Pittsburgh is also 50% smaller than Cleveland (77 sq mi), Cincinnati (78 sq mi) and Baltimore (80 sq mi), and almost half the size of Milwaukee (95 sq mi).
It's funny, because while I was aware of this, it always strikes me as odd, as it shows Pittsburgh actually, despite the large population decline, must still be fairly densely populated. Yet to my East-coast eyes, Pittsburgh has a huge number of essentially suburban neighborhoods within the city limits.
It isn't "academic mumbo jumbo", it is a simple observation of what has happened in many other cities in the last few decades. What made Pittsburgh different in those decades is that the steel bust led to unusual dynamics of population loss and disinvestment that forestalled such developments happening here at the same pace. But the era of Pittsburgh being on such a separate track is coming to an end, and thus what happened in these other cities over the last few decades gives us a better sense of what could happen going forward than Pittsburgh's own history in those decades.
Well, we recently bought a house in Wilkinsburg, which some people would suggest is comparable. And we do expect that Wilkinsburg is likely to benefit from these dynamics, and indeed it already is. I think there is reason to believe Wilkinsburg is a bit better positioned than Homewood, maybe not as well-positioned as the Hill, but the same forces will likely apply to all of these neighborhoods sooner or later.
By the way, there has been a lot of investment in the Hill recently, and it has experienced increasing property values.
Investment doesn't equal improvement. The fact is, the city schools are downright horrible. They were bad 30 years ago and are far worse today. Furthermore, while the population losses in Pittsburgh may have stabilized, there is still no reason to invest capital in the city. The local government is a joke. AN ABSOLUTE JOKE! And it's not going to change anytime soon. Taxes are too high. Incomes are too low. There may be small blighted pockets that turn it around, but outside of that, there is not the culture of growth in this town needed for a renaissance of crime-ridden and blighted areas. People in the Hill have always complained about a lack of a grocery store, etc. Why would people invest in areas where it's been proven time and time again not to work due to crime, unemployment, etc? The city of Pittsburgh doesn't have the budget to throw taxpayers' money away to bring in investors to fund ill-fated ventures. Neither does the county or the state. It's going to have to come from within the communities. But there's not enough free capital there to risk without help from the government.
Last edited by interested_burgher; 04-10-2012 at 10:16 PM..
Eschaton, I feel pretty much the same way about Greenfield, especially since so much of it isn't really all that walkable other than in the sense that there are sidewalks. I think the saving grace of the non walkable sections (besides schools) is the easy access to the Schenley Park and Eliza Furnace trails.
I really don't find Greenfield itself all that interesting, but it is on my list due to the potential for bike commutes to either Oakland or Downtown.
Furthermore, while the population losses in Pittsburgh may have stabilized, there is still no reason to invest capital in the city.
And yet a lot of sophisticated profit-motivated entities ARE investing capital in the City. And some of those investments are in once "crime-ridden and blighted areas" like East Liberty.
I'd suggest that is largely because whatever problems the City might have in the theories of some, the facts are that in the most established areas vacancies have gotten very low, rents and home prices are increasing not just in the most established areas but also in adjacent less established areas, and many other trends are pointing to increasing demand for housing in the City which cannot be met within just the boundaries of the most established areas.
And favorable demand trends trump theories about why those demand trends shouldn't exist, every time.
By the way, I think it is worth talking about crime specifically for a moment. Again, the following is not an academic abstraction, it is observable fact given the experience of many U.S. cities.
There are few things of consequence in cities with less inherent stability than crime patterns. That is because the nature of crime means it must be largely mobile. Perversely, this is why there are violent "turf wars" between rival criminal gangs: given the mobility of their primary activities, the only thing standing in their way in these cases is the rival gang.
But there is no more powerful gang than The Man--in other words, when enough "law-abiding citizens" with business connections and political support, and therefore potentially unlimited police backing, de facto decide to take over some turf, they will win, and would-be criminals will relocate to other turf. In fact, usually there isn't much of a fight, because most would-be criminals are smart enough to know that is a battle they can't win.
Of course on an individual level, crime rates can operate as a meaningful constraint on locational decisions--hence why I wouldn't necessarily recommend a currently high crime area to my mother. But when and if there is sufficient collective demand and political will to "take back" an area from the would-be criminals and make it safe for investment and redevelopment, that effort will work.
Again, this has happened so many times in the life of American cities there really is no doubt about it. What it means, then, is that unusually high criminal rates in a particular area are primarily a symptom, not a cause, of local investment and development patterns, and crime patterns will change, very quickly, if and when investment and development patterns change.
And yet a lot of sophisticated profit-motivated entities ARE investing capital in the City. And some of those investments are in once "crime-ridden and blighted areas" like East Liberty.
I'd suggest that is largely because whatever problems the City might have in the theories of some, the facts are that in the most established areas vacancies have gotten very low, rents and home prices are increasing not just in the most established areas but also in adjacent less established areas, and many other trends are pointing to increasing demand for housing in the City which cannot be met within just the boundaries of the most established areas.
And favorable demand trends trump theories about why those demand trends shouldn't exist, every time.
People aren't moving into the city of Pittsburgh, they're leaving for a variety of reasons.......taxes, crime, schools, etc. How that translates into increased demand for housing is beyond me.
You couldn't pay most people to live in Homewood or Larimer. Where are the people who live there now going to go should re-development occur? Neighboring communities.
It's not people from Shadyside who are committing the recent rash of Shadyside street robberies. The point being that even though there's a lot of development taking place in the East End, zone 5 is still the worst area for crime in the city according to any Pittsburgh policeman you talk to, and it spills over regardless of how pretty a neighborhood looks on the surface.
It's about time East Liberty has retail potential. It's in the middle of everything for goodness' sake. You almost can't avoid it if you're crossing the East End. The people in Shadyside, Point Breeze, and Highland Park need somewhere close to buy groceries, etc. I'm sure not many people from those areas frequent that pathetically run Giant Eagle between Shady and Penn where you have a certain color skin in order to receive any sort of customer service. Whole Foods, Target, and Trader Joe's filled that void.
Larimer and Homewood are destinations you have to go out of your way to go to. There's no reason to pass through. If you want to buy in Larimer or Homewood, go ahead. Good luck. You'll need it.
Also, I keep reading praise on here for areas like Bloomfield and Friendship. Apparently those people don't read the Pittsburgh Police blotter.
Anyway, I digress.
Last edited by interested_burgher; 04-11-2012 at 12:17 AM..
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