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Location: Plum Borough, east suburb of Pittsburgh, PA
144 posts, read 224,527 times
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Originally Posted by SteelCityRising
What do others think? Is the success the city of Pittsburgh has been experiencing over the past decade sustainable, or will fickle people soon once again abandon the city in favor of the suburbs? Will Peters Township, Cranberry Township, Murrysville, and other car-dependent exurban areas be the "slums of the future?" I'm already seeing places like Penn Hills and West Mifflin, "desirable" in their heydays two generations ago, declining.
You want my non-professional opinion? If Pittsburgh continues to improve and becomes more desirable and important, than the more connected areas to Pittsburgh will do better. So I fell most optimistic about Cranberry holding its own. Peters and Murrysville, on the other hand, have those damn tunnels, which nobody wants to go through. Unless 376 can be majorly rehabilitated lest congestion getting ridiculous, then I think Peters and Murrysville will be more "niche" areas, essentially suburbs of other nearby suburbs, rather than directly being Pittsburgh suburbs. For example, Murrysville and North Huntington might cater to people who work in Monroeville, but not so much Downtown.
The thing about suburbs is they have an "expiration date." I mean, with a few notable exceptions (around here, Mount Lebanon, Sewickley, Oakmont, Aspinwall, etc) a suburb's appeal can be boiled down to four things.
1. Desirable housing stock (which for most people means fairly large and fairly new).
2. "Good schools"
3. Easy commutes - not every suburb has them, but they are a nice extra.
4. Low property taxes - again, not every suburb has them, but they're there.
Over time, as suburbs age, all of these change.
1. Generally speaking, modern housing stock only ages well if it's built on the high end to begin with. Outside of a few areas, Pittsburgh is not known for good Mid-Century Modern construction as well, and in general houses built between the 1960s and 1990s are now unfashionable just about everywhere. The McMansions of today are destined to be considered passe in time as well.
2. Good schools are mainly a function of demographics in the U.S. If a community's general desirability falls, more lower-income and/or minority students will move in, which causes school performance to drop. This in turn causes more highly educated parents to move out or move elsewhere, which continues a vicious cycle.
3. Unless you're talking about a metro like Detroit which is in free fall, commutes will never be as good as the day a subdivision is built. Over time additional development will cause congestion, and longer commute times.
4. Exurbs tend to have low property taxes because of lower legacy costs. Since they only boomed recently, they have far less retirees than long-established cities, meaning lower costs to maintain pensions and retiree health benefits. They also have newer infrastructure which initially needs less maintenance. given enough time however, expenses will rise, as will taxes. In some places suburbs can transform themselves into high-tax yet desirable areas due to solid reputations for their schools. But this is not universally the case.
Anyway, if you want my two cents, I see metros as being basically an "expanding donut." We're heading into a period where the city core, as well as neighborhoods immediately adjacent, are desirable. Then you hit a zone of outer-ring city neighborhoods and inner-ring suburbs which are less desirable. Finally you hit the second and third-ring suburbs, where desirability climbs again. Pittsburgh is a bit more complicated, because we have a "second core" (Oakland) which has impacted all of the neighborhoods nearby as well (hence why the East End has grown like gangbusters), but it generally keeps to the pattern otherwise.
As to the future of the region, I basically see the following.
North: The entire lower Northside is going to gentrify eventually, but the displaced population is going to have to go somewhere. I think it will initially be mostly confined to the outer Northside neighborhoods, but over time it will push into some of the nearby first-ring suburbs, like Ross, Reserve, and Shaler.
East: The east has been doing bad for so long I don't see too many major transitions happening. I do think that areas like Wilkinsburg and Swissvale will continue to improve, as logical extensions of the walkable urban fabric of the city of Pittsburgh. However, I would expect that you'll see a drop in desirability in places like Braddock Hills, Forest Hills, and Wilkins Township in turn. Penn Hills is so huge that it could continue declining at the current steady rate for decades before serious bleed-over into Plum or Monroeville.
South: The South Hills are pretty well inoculated from changes in Pittsburgh due to distance from the declining areas (except to a limited extent in Brentwood, Baldwin, and perhaps Castle Shannon). I spend a lot of time (in terms of the suburbs) out here due to my in laws, and I think it's more issues of bleedover from the Mon Valley than anything - which is why Mount Lebanon acts something like a firebreak in terms of desirability. I expect everything from Bethel Park on over will get less desirable, but that's not the same as a decline into ghetto.
West: The West End is an interesting mix, because most of the "first ring suburbs" are actually within the city proper, and then there's relatively little development until you get out to the Robinson/Moon area, where there is tons of new development. I don't see a happy ending here. A lot of the development out this way is suburban "garden apartment" style, and they tend to age even worse than new houses. I foresee a lot of those complexes will have the same somewhat checkered reputation you see South Hills complexes now having in twenty years.
The bolded is definitely right. People weren't bailing on Penn Hills starting in the mid-90s and especially early 2000s exclusively because Penn Hills wasn't the avant garde anymore, and they wanted to go back to the city, or to a later era suburb. If it were that simple, then why don't other suburbs of the same era, such as Shaler and Kennedy, have the same problems? To answer that, keep in mind what neighborhoods Penn Hills is right next to, and how dangerous they had gotten (much worse than they are today), so much that some of the crime just crossed the border into Penn Hills.
Moreover, it was ironically Penn Hills' and it's school districts desirability at the time (even when there was newer development in nearby Plum, for example) that caused it's current troubles. Kids from underperforming schools illegally went to Penn Hills High School for better education and to play football. Unfortunately some of those kids were bad news, which made residents not want to send their kids to school. A relative also told me that there were rumors about Penn Hills and Wilkinsburg (which was much worse at the time) merging, and that set some people off. This lack of confidence in Penn Hills School District, I assume, discouraged a lot of families that might have considered moving in.
Sometimes I wonder, if Penn Hills, instead of bordering Homewood and Lincoln-Lemington, bordered Squirrel Hill or some other good neighborhood? Would they have avoided their current problems?
Of course it wouldn't be as bad. However, every first-ring suburb in Pittsburgh (except for Mount Lebanon, and maybe Fox Chapel if you consider it first ring) has seen a drop in desirability since it was built up. Even places which have regained steam again, like Edgewood, are occupied by a lower economic stratum now than when they were built. The situation in Penn Hills turned out so much worse because the initial relative decline created an opening for middle-class blacks to move into the neighborhood in significant numbers, which ultimately triggered white flight from major sections of the municipality.
I think those first ring suburbs on the outskirts of the city stand to benefit the most from Pittsburgh continued improvement (aside from the city itself). A host of Places like Edgewood, Aspinwall, Bellvue/Avalon/Ben Avon, Crafton, Ingram, Mt Lebo, West View all offer old style suburban life with most of the benefits of being in the city proper. The housing stock is usually good, with well maintained homes from the early 20th century being the norm. I think these are the areas that will eventually attract some of the younger, upper middle class young city dwellers as they get older and priorities change. They might not want the long commute but may be attracted to better school, bigger lots, etc. I do see problems for those suburban areas with traffic issues that are stuck in the middle ground between high end and lower end development. This would include the usual suspects such as Penn Hills and West Mifflin along with other areas such as Bethel Park and Robinson/Moon. Robinson's saving grace may be the fact that many businesses either have set up shop in Robinson or plan to do so in the near future, along with existing development around the airport and RMU.
The communities that will suffer the most are not all inner-ring suburbs, but the first suburbs to be developed after World War II when the automobile became the predominant mode of commuting. Suburbs like Aspinwall or Mt Lebanon developed BEFORE this period, and therefore are more similar to Pittsburgh (i.e. discernible and walkable neighborhoods) than to the Penn Hills or West Mifflins of the world. This bodes well for Wilkinsburg but less so for places like Wexford in the long run. Both won't flip in the near term, but I wouldn't be surprised if Wilkinsburg will be more desirable than Wexford in 40 years.
The communities that will suffer the most are not all inner-ring suburbs, but the first suburbs to be developed after World War II when the automobile became the predominant mode of commuting. Suburbs like Aspinwall or Mt Lebanon developed BEFORE this period, and therefore are more similar to Pittsburgh (i.e. discernible and walkable neighborhoods) than to the Penn Hills or West Mifflins of the world. This bodes well for Wilkinsburg but less so for places like Wexford in the long run. Both won't flip in the near term, but I wouldn't be surprised if Wilkinsburg will be more desirable than Wexford in 40 years.
I just read with great interest an article in this morning's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review in which Leigh Gallagher, author of the book "The End of the Suburbs" profiles how shifting lifestyle priorities of a greater percentage of Americans may lead to an even greater resurgence of our historic cities in the future at the expense of today's autocentric newer suburbs and exurbs.
I was aghast to read that 3.5 million people in the U.S. now have a commute that is at least 90 minutes each way. The Pennsylvania Public Interest Research Group, based in Philadelphia, provided a study that indicated that Americans have been driving less, overall, for each of the past eight years as more people are moving to areas that are less car-dependent.
I'm inclined to disagree with those interviewed who cite ineffective reasons for supporting suburban/exurban living over urban living. Dale Walters, age 50, works Downtown as a software specialist and drives in daily from Murrysville. He says the city is, more or less, not rural enough. I live in a neighborhood adjacent to Downtown and have seen deer and wild turkeys. You can live much closer to Downtown than Murrysville---in places like Swisshelm Park, New Homestead, or Westwood---and still enjoy a lot of breathing room while not enduring an hour-long commute each way in gridlock. John Wyke, age 24, doesn't mind commuting from Penn Hills to Downtown and says the city isn't enough like Hoboken or Manhattan to convince him to leave Penn Hills. Having grown up less than two hours from "da city dat never sleeps" I was there frequently, and while he's correct in his overall assessment I'm incredulous that Penn Hills would offer a more chic, sophisticated, or urbane lifestyle than Downtown Pittsburgh, Shadyside, South Side Flats, Lawrenceville, or the Mexican War Streets.
As expected many of our own suburbanites honestly have no clue about the extensively diverse array of living options this city offers.
What do others think? Is the success the city of Pittsburgh has been experiencing over the past decade sustainable, or will fickle people soon once again abandon the city in favor of the suburbs? Will Peters Township, Cranberry Township, Murrysville, and other car-dependent exurban areas be the "slums of the future?" I'm already seeing places like Penn Hills and West Mifflin, "desirable" in their heydays two generations ago, declining.
Unless areas have great mass transit that provides an great alternative to driving, I don't see this happening anytime soon. Most parts of the country don't have great mass transit. So many will remain heavily autocentric unless the US makes a huge investment in improving mass transit throughout the nation.
Unless areas have great mass transit that provides an great alternative to driving, I don't see this happening anytime soon. Most parts of the country don't have great mass transit. So many will remain heavily autocentric unless the US makes a huge investment in improving mass transit throughout the nation.
Let us hope this happens before economic situations make it imperative. But investment in the future isn't our strong suit these days.
Wilkinsburg is probably a bit of a stretch. Places like Dormont, Edgewood, and Swissvale, sure.
Dormont, Edgewood, and Swissvale would be much sooner. I'd also argue they aren't undesirable as things stand, just not as desirable as other close-in places and more desirable than a number of city neighborhoods. Just think of how much things have changed in the last 40 years.
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