Will Pittsburgh Still Offer "Something for Everyone" in Its Future?

[Clint.]

Originally Posted by selltheburgh

A few points:

Lawrenceville was pretty rough in the late 90s. There was a lot of heroin there and from what I've heard, even more before then. Just 9 years ago there were lots of walking junkie-zombies, open air drug dealers, prostitutes, etc. 'Operation Sweatpants' Bags More Than 24 Johns - tribune review pittsburgh - August 05, 2006 - Id. 192392247 - vLex It wasn't a scary neighborhood, but you definitely had to watch your back when you were walking around in the evening there. I never had a problem, but I know of others who did.

Too bad that old man was busted like that. 74 is pretty old to be scoring with single chicks at the VFW if he is single and hard up. Sounds like entrapment to me. Drug users and hookers aren't that bad as long as they keep to themselves, right? Too bad they so often don't. At least the drug users don't if they need cash. And prostitute may just need cash for drugs. Eh, oh well. Cops probably troll the internet these days to protect the sexual virtues of the community rather than lean in car windows baiting people into buying sex. It should be legal anyway. Pittsburgh needs to have a regulated red light district where you might need to be on guard for some minor crime but are safe if you keep your nose clean.

But yeah, as for your actual point, now that it is mentioned I can see how that was an unwelcome atmosphere there. It still, from my anecdotal experience, wasn't mentioned in the same breath as Homewood area including East liberty or the Hill District among kids in my suburb...in fact, most kids probably didn't even know of it. Who knows what the adults thought, lol.

Originally Posted by selltheburgh

Regarding East Liberty;
There has been a lot of market rate residential development in East Lib in the past 5 years. ...

I stand corrected!

[stburr91]

Originally Posted by Clint.

I don't know a lot about how things were in the area 20 or 25 years ago, but it seems unlikely that some of those hoods really were ever that bad...like, it doesn't seem so much Lawrenceville was a ghetto and flipped, but that it was depreciating working class and it then started to reverse.
And then there is the Hill, which I've always thought should really be a premier location, but there is a lot of heavy lifting to do.

This is a good point, we haven't really seen much of the "ghettos" improve. This is a pretty clear indicator that demand hasn't increased all that much. It will be interesting to see if/when demand will be sufficient to move beyond only seeing improvement in the safe, stable, and predominately white neighborhoods.

Even with hundreds of millions of dollars (both public and private dollars, and who know how much in tax incentives) being invested in East Liberty, improvement has still been very slow. Improvement has been even slower outside of the commercial district.

Most of the low hanging fruit has been picked, now there will need to be some heavy lifting to be done. I'm not sure we'll see much investment in places like Homewood. Instead, investment will be focused in the Strip and Lower Hill District (which is likely to absorb much of the increase in demand for the city the next 10-20 years).

[aw_now_what]

[quote]I know my own tiny Polish Hill has changed dramatically in a very short period of time. In 2010 I rented my 1-BR apartment for $550/month and was told that was "just a tad high for the neighborhood" at the time by some who lived here. Now I'm paying $700/month[quote]


How is that an indicator of neighborhood affordability and change when you previously posted that your rent increased when you moved from a $550 1-bedroom to a $700 2-bedroom?

[Lock-Os]

I'm 20-something and nobody about my age lives anywhere NEAR me out here east of the city. I've had to look online for groups of people to meet, only to find out that everyone was 'hiding' south and west of the city. Honestly, I've been thinking of moving out to the other side just so I can make friends. It does not help that PennDot has both 22 and 28 under work, so getting downtown or to the waterfront is a pain.