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This has been touched upon in other threads, but IIRC, it hasn't been dealt with directly anywhere. I'm talking about a bit wider area than just the Mon - essentially the depressed, industrial small towns along or near the rivers.
Recently, I was reading Frank Toker's book about the architectural history of Pittsburgh. While I knew the general history of the mill towns, I was surprised at how virtually all of them (Homestead, Braddock, East Pittsburgh, Wilmerding, Glassport, Clairton, Duquense, etc) were essentially founded as company towns by a single employer. The same could be said for some communities on the other rivers, like Aliquippa or New Kensington.
Regardless, this shows part of why they have failed so badly. If a borough was explicitly set up to have its focus on one employer, it loses its reason to exist once that employer closes, or even if that employer remains, but only a shell of the original workforce is there (as is the case in Clairton, IIRC). When coupled with the combination of factors which make these communities not attractive in the modern era (an urban built structure, but without local amenities or mass transit to easily get to city amenities) it's hard to see how any of them pull through - absent a Waterfront-style eking out.
One idea I have been mulling, is if *one* could be saved by sacrificing the rest. I'd say, despite its troubles, McKeesport would be the most likely, as it existed as an independent city prior to the robber barons setting up their company towns, and retains the shell of amenities which could be brought back to give Allegheny County a "second city" once again.
But as part of it, I think you'd need to tear down the rest. Maybe have all of the Mon towns unify into a common governmental structure. Build infill housing in McKeesport. Move people out of the other municipalities, and rezone the entire area as industrial/commercial parks - areas which could provide tax benefits but would not need to be provided amenities.
It's a crazy thought, but the alternative seems to be just let them all die a slow death instead. Maybe that's better?
Not having good transportation links into the core area is a solvable problem, and if you did that many of these former company towns could become bedroom communities.
Not having good transportation links into the core area is a solvable problem, and if you did that many of these former company towns could become bedroom communities.
Realistically speaking, do you see any light rail (or a hybrid like the AVRR plan) happening in the Mon in the next 20 years? Public funding for such projects is limited as it is, and with no thriving destination on the other side (unless you built an inter-city rail line from Pittsburgh to Morgantown), I'm not sure where you'd get the pull for such a thing.
And yes, I believe you built transit to where you want density, not places where it's already dense, of you'll wait forever. Look at Staten Island. That said, while I think having a commuter trolley/rail line would be a godsend for the Mon, I doubt the rest of the region, or even many of the inhabitants, would look at it that way.
20 years? Maybe. I think there is a good chance things are going to look very different in as few as ten years from now, both in terms of the likely potential demand for such a project and the political situation at the state and federal levels. And some of the possible projects, like extending the East Busway to Monroeville via East Pittsburgh, would be relatively inexpensive and take relatively little time.
I also might note that I am not just thinking of commuter rail and rapid transit, but also upgraded roads. After all, places like McKeesport are really quite close to Oakland and Downtown.
Funny thing is, across the plains of Texas - on the outskirts of Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Austin and San Antonio - near replicas of Mon Valley towns are being built from scratch. Places with the residential mixed with the commercial; sidewalks; limited street parking (with meters); parking garages (free) hidden in the middle of blocks; apartments above businesses; biking/walking paths winding around dense, single-family homes. The only difference (and it's a major one) is the complete lack of the industrial. That's built all by itself, far from anyone it could possibly bother.
Not having good transportation links into the core area is a solvable problem, and if you did that many of these former company towns could become bedroom communities.
Come on, this is giving simplistic answers to very complicated problems. I don't disagree that transportation is part of the problem, but certainly not the sole issue. If that was the case, the Mon-Fayette Expressway would have been a huge success, instead of the glaring failure that it is.
One of the biggest issues with the Mon Valley, besides transportation and education, is the mindset of the people. I love the Mon Valley, but there is this weird inbred, hick mentality that goes on in each town. The logical process would be to consolidate these communities into larger ones, but obviously that would never happen. Corruption, localism, and foolish one-party politics have lead these communities to where they are. These are folks that continue to vote for crooks, like Bill Deweese, even after conviction! And these folks voted for that scumbag Jack Murtha for years, knowing darn well that he was crooked. But, they bring in a few defense contract jobs, or a new prison, etc. so all is forgiven. People in these Mon Valley towns run their dumps like they are the mafia. That has, more than anything else, lead to their undoing. How does one fix that type of mindset? It's going to take a lot more than highways, trolleys, education programs, and Marcellus jobs.
I don't disagree that transportation is part of the problem, but certainly not the sole issue.
I agree that poor transportation links to the core area were not the only issues the Mon Valley has gone through. Specifically, deindustrialization led to mass depopulation and disinvestment. But with the core area itself going through a renaissance, there will be opportunities for repopulation and new investment, if transportation links to the core area are provided.
It will also be important to address ongoing environmental problems, including the air quality issues arising from point sources such as the Clairton Coke Works. Smarter school policies would also help, and so on. There are lots of policy areas that touch on redeveloping communities like these, but it starts with giving people and firms a fundamental reason to locate in those communities, and their main potential asset is proximity to the core area.
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If that was the case, the Mon-Fayette Expressway would have been a huge success, instead of the glaring failure that it is.
As an aside, of course the MFE doesn't go into the core area, but in general the MFE is not the sort of transportation project that would help the existing communities of the Mon Valley. Limited-access highways encourage greenfield development, and tend to undermine existing communities.
In addition to extending the Busway and commuter rail, if you want to encourage redevelopment of the existing Mon Valley communities it would instead make sense to create a network of upgraded boulevards.
One idea I have been mulling, is if *one* could be saved by sacrificing the rest. I'd say, despite its troubles, McKeesport would be the most likely, as it existed as an independent city prior to the robber barons setting up their company towns, and retains the shell of amenities which could be brought back to give Allegheny County a "second city" once again.
I don't think that is very viable.
Theoretically, you could indeed buy up and raze the housing in Clairton, Donora, East Pittsburgh, etc. under eminent domain.
But once the people are displaced- after a huge and costly fight I'm sure, people don't like to be forced out of their house and home- you wouldn't be able to force them into McKeesport. They'll move where they want to.
I don't think you can have thriving satellite towns around Pittsburgh as well as a thriving downtown Pittsburgh in a post-industrial era. There's just not enough of a population for that. You'd need twice as many people for that to be even a possibility.
But your framing of the issue is interesting and gets at THE BIG ISSUE we dance around all the time: how to construct of modern post-industrial city without losing the historical structures and communities/neighborhoods that we love. It's a difficult problem, and in America, the developers usually win the argument. But that hasn't been the case in many of Pittsburgh's surrounding areas.
I was in Dormont yesterday, which is the borough I grew up in. They have beautiful early 20th century homes there, narrow residential streets, few garages. All that makes it difficult to manuver in a car. There's limited parking on the street and it's one of those neighborhoods where, if you buy a home, you will probably be parking on the street.
But they also have the T running right through the center of Dormont. The borough SHOULD be using that to its advantage, but it doesn't. There is still the same old limited public parking as there always was, and now the residential areas require parking permits to keep outsiders (read T-riders) from parking on the street. It's as if the borough leaders got together and said, 'how can we make sure the T doesn't change the borough at all'?
I've heard this attitude is true in other areas besides Dormont (and not dealing with the T). Someone here said Etna's leaders are determined to keep their little business district from changing at all, and this basically depresses the entire town.
I can think of several ways Dormont could use the T to fill its public coffers. I'm sure there are people who can think of many ways Etna could thrive. But those ideas aren't heard in these communities. To revitalize any area, there has to be the will to do it.
I don't think you can have thriving satellite towns around Pittsburgh as well as a thriving downtown Pittsburgh in a post-industrial era. There's just not enough of a population for that. You'd need twice as many people for that to be even a possibility.
I think that is likely an overestimate of the necessary population. The crucial background fact is that the average people per occupied housing unit has declined greatly since the core area's peak population days. The implications of that fact are that you would only need something like a 20-30% increase in population to get back to the previous peak number of occupied housing units. And long before then, you would likely be running up against some significant price issues in almost all of the best-located neighborhoods, such that people would be looking for less-expensive alternatives a bit farther out (in fact there is evidence this crowding-out process has already begun).
Obviously that would be a big turnaround from trends in recent decades, but it isn't inconceivable in something like a 20-year time frame that such dynamics will be well under way, enough so that ample potential demand will be available as far down the Mon Valley, provided those communities can offer less expensive housing and convenient commutes.
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But they also have the T running right through the center of Dormont. The borough SHOULD be using that to its advantage, but it doesn't. There is still the same old limited public parking as there always was, and now the residential areas require parking permits to keep outsiders (read T-riders) from parking on the street. It's as if the borough leaders got together and said, 'how can we make sure the T doesn't change the borough at all'?
I agree we are underutilizing the T, although I wouldn't necessarily peg parking as the main problem--T stations should be attracting high-density mixed-use development.
In general, we know from other U.S. cities where the core area turned around 20+ years earlier than Pittsburgh's that NIMBYism has in fact prevented adequate use of centrally-located places with good transit. There is starting to be some serious pushback on this issue from various urban advocates, so hopefully as the Pittsburgh area starts facing these problems in the coming years and decades it will have learned from the mistakes of other places and do better. Fortunately, I would again suggest the political situation is likely to be increasingly conducive to such improvements in policy.
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