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My point is about realpolitik. The neighborhoods have declined so much, in both population and cohesiveness, that they really lack even the "pull" to put pressure on the levers of city power. Contrast this to Polish Hill (1,300 people) and Allegheny West (less than 500 people) which still have a collective voice, and can use this voice loudly and clearly.
If they got fixed up, sure, I'd take no offense, and I'm sure others feel the same way. It's not about redlining, it's about understanding what our limits are as a city in terms of neighborhood preservation and development.
I think you are putting too much weight on "collective voice" and too little on private initiative.
A world class public park could be built in Esplen, and the city could pave the streets so they are as smooth as a baby's behind, but that wouldn't turn around the area. Private investment, of individuals seeking to renovate properties, open up boutiques and fancy coffee joints, that's the only way it will really turn around and attract the young and affluent.
A lot of areas of the city never exercise a collective voice, yet are still nice areas.
Braddocc, Southern North Braddocc, Rankin, South Swissvale, 1-8th Wards of McKeesport, Duquesne, Clairton's Blair District, Walnut St area of West Homestead, Homestead & section 8 projects of West Mifflin area very plsuged by violence like the inner city top three tier ghettos (refering to my crime map). Those police forces are mostly inferior to Pittsburgh Police as much as I hate to say it... The community needs better programs for the youth in and out of the mostly poor preforming schools, and probably funding for better YMCA's and churchs. Arguably East Pittsburgh, Wilson District, Lower Munhall & Crestas Terrace are on their way to the list above. Yet Braddock Hills, Turtle Creek, Wilmerding, more of West Mifflin, other parts of North Versailles, Pitcairn, etc will be on this list too by 2035.
You have to look hard but the City has some places (East, West, North & South) where the white neighborhood crew is semi full (due to racial mixing)-full of hard core thugs who: inpregnate young women but don't raise their kids, sell dope to their own community, live a life of crime, sag their pants, throw up gang sings and get indicted to federal prison. The Mon Valley is the capital for this harsh labeling of people. Don't let the news fool you.
The criminals I grew up knowing from Kirsty Park McKeesport, 10th Ward McKeesport & Grandview District live the same blunts-bullets-bloody knuckles lifestyle as any real PGH, self proclaimed thug.
Under represented in coverage by the media, white on white drug crime is prevalent in the towns listed above and largely white towns like: Glassport, Dravosburg, Whitaker, parts of Munhall, Versailles, Swissvale and other areas
The criminals I grew up knowing from Kirsty Park McKeesport, 10th Ward McKeesport & Grandview District live the same blunts-bullets-bloody knuckles lifestyle as any real PGH, self proclaimed thug.
Under represented in coverage by the media, white on white drug crime is prevalent in the towns listed above and largely white towns like: Glassport, Dravosburg, Whitaker, parts of Munhall, Versailles, Swissvale and other areas
Are there as many homicides among the nogoodniks in these towns as there are in Pittsburgh's black ghettos? That's usually what gets the coverage, and there has been coverage in the past when guys involved in drugs like Brian Mirenna and Billy Kuhns were shot up in Carrick and the South Side.
So, is your point that a city can't function well with tiny, isolated neighborhoods, or that the neighborhoods are disadvantaged in some way?
More the latter. It's that it's not reasonable to expect Pittsburgh, a city with 90 neighborhoods, to be able to save all of them from slow decline into nothingness. Hays and Esplen, being small, blighted, lacking any sense of community, and geographically isolated are going to be among the least likely to survive. I mean, you can say a lot of terrible (and true) things about Homewood, but there are still people fighting their asses off to save the neighborhood - even bringing in a little bit of new development.
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Originally Posted by I_Like_Spam
I think you are putting too much weight on "collective voice" and too little on private initiative.
A world class public park could be built in Esplen, and the city could pave the streets so they are as smooth as a baby's behind, but that wouldn't turn around the area. Private investment, of individuals seeking to renovate properties, open up boutiques and fancy coffee joints, that's the only way it will really turn around and attract the young and affluent.
A lot of areas of the city never exercise a collective voice, yet are still nice areas.
I don't think this is quite true. The City didn't in any way plan for South Side and Lawrenceville to be successful it's true. But there's obviously been a lot of heavy lifting by both the city and nonprofits to get East Liberty back on its feet. I'd say the Northside historic districts made a big difference as well, as has the rebuilding of the Lower Hill. Numerous other neighborhoods have gotten some subsidized infill, to varying levels of success.
Esplen and Hays however will not get any non-market rate infill, because they don't have the pull, and quite honestly no one cares about rebuilding working-class white neighborhoods. Since they'll never get any market-rate infill either, their future is just slow decay, unless something dramatic happens like a new highway project, an industrial park, or expansion of city greenspace.
I don't think this is quite true. The City didn't in any way plan for South Side and Lawrenceville to be successful it's true. But there's obviously been a lot of heavy lifting by both the city and nonprofits to get East Liberty back on its feet. I'd say the Northside historic districts made a big difference as well, as has the rebuilding of the Lower Hill. Numerous other neighborhoods have gotten some subsidized infill, to varying levels of success.
I wasn't thinking about L'ville and South Side, because the South Side in particular, received a lot of help from the city and URA , particularly in the development and remediation of the so-called "brown fields" where J&L used to be. I was thinking more in the way of outlying areas that have maintained themselves pretty well in spite of the inversion that you're seeing in some city locations. Really hasn't been any city involvement in Westwood or out in Summer Hill- even when the mayor lived there, yet the areas seem pretty healthy on an economic basis.
I wasn't thinking about L'ville and South Side, because the South Side in particular, received a lot of help from the city and URA , particularly in the development and remediation of the so-called "brown fields" where J&L used to be. I was thinking more in the way of outlying areas that have maintained themselves pretty well in spite of the inversion that you're seeing in some city locations. Really hasn't been any city involvement in Westwood or out in Summer Hill- even when the mayor lived there, yet the areas seem pretty healthy on an economic basis.
South Side was gentrifying long before Southside Works was built. The first art galleries were there in the 1980s, and the Beehive opened up by 1990 or so.
As for Westwood and Summer Hill in particular, I think the relative isolation and high proportion of single-family homes. Both neighborhooda are more diverse than they used to be however - Westwood is 8% black and 6% Asian, and Summer Hill around 15% black. I wouldn't say this presages a move to ghettodom at all, but they're not going to be frozen in time by any means.
I do not necessarily advocate for the demise of any particular city neighborhood, honestly I just propose my ideas based on where I see the market leading these places over the next couple of generations. I'm bullish on Pittsburgh as a whole but I do not think every neighborhood can or will be saved. If people want to fix up some homes in Esplen and the city wants to invest in an awesome park or a similar venture there, more power to them all, I would hope that's something that everyone would support.
Sometimes it's okay to lose a piece of history. Look at the old photos of the point with its roads and railroads and industry etc...sure that all could have been restored or adapted in some way, but they created an icon in the process. Should we have kept all of the old steel mills just for old time's sake? Should future generations preserve all of the current blah architecture because by then it will be "historic"?
If I had to "choose a side", I'd align with PreservationPioneer every time, but if I'm predicting the future, I think you will remain the rarest of breeds and we will see continued decline in almost all of these places.
Esplen and Hays however will not get any non-market rate infill, because they don't have the pull, and quite honestly no one cares about rebuilding working-class white neighborhoods. Since they'll never get any market-rate infill either, their future is just slow decay, unless something dramatic happens like a new highway project, an industrial park, or expansion of city greenspace.
Uh, Lawrenceville, and the South Side were probably the premier rough, working class white neighborhoods in Pittsburgh. People want to see the Hill improve because it occupies such a prominent geographic spot in the city. Hays, and Esplen are out of sight, especially to visitors to the city. Hays could have some potential, but the creek, which could be an asset, presents such a flooding threat that it makes the area unattractive. If that creek were clean, with no threat of flooding, Hays could easily become a popular place. The area has a rough, village like charm to it, but not enough to overcome the flooding threat.
Uh, Lawrenceville, and the South Side were probably the premier rough, working class white neighborhoods in Pittsburgh. People want to see the Hill improve because it occupies such a prominent geographic spot in the city. Hays, and Esplen are out of sight, especially to visitors to the city. Hays could have some potential, but the creek, which could be an asset, presents such a flooding threat that it makes the area unattractive. If that creek were clean, with no threat of flooding, Hays could easily become a popular place. The area has a rough, village like charm to it, but not enough to overcome the flooding threat.
The situation in Lawrenceville and South Side is different, because the development there was almost entirely organic/market rate. I can't think of any "mixed-income" developments which took place in either neighborhood. I think there might be a few houses in Spring Garden and Deutschtown which might have had some HUD funding involved, but it's nothing like the scale of the black neighborhoods in the city.
FWIW, I actually agree with the idea that due to historical inequities and present realities, black communities should receive more than their share of public redevelopment funds. My point was only that if a working-class white neighborhood is blighted and failing, it typically does not have a strong constituency to get non-market rate construction within its borders, meaning little will change unless the area becomes fashionable on its own. Working-class white neighborhoods are, however, much more likely than black neighborhoods to gentrify, so they have a good shot in general. It's just that Pittsburgh has so many working-class white neighborhoods to go around that we can't expect all of them to be rebuilt.
If people want to fix up some homes in Esplen and the city wants to invest in an awesome park or a similar venture there, more power to them all, I would hope that's something that everyone would support.
I think you might be a little to cynical about the private investment that goes on in even some of the most depressed Pittsburgh neighborhoods. I remember, a few years ago, falling in love with a row of houses in Esplen that was in very deteriorated condition. It sold on Craigslist for less than the price of a used car, and somebody fixed them all up and rented them out. It happens all the time.
Here in McKeesport, and when I lived in Stowe, investors are / were constantly coming in and fixing up long-term neglected properties. I lived in a row house in Stowe, and sold it to an investor who bought up the rest of the row and fixed up all of the houses as rentals. They were not in good condition (aside from mine), and it was probably the worst street in the neighborhood, and yet he is renting out a house for $750 a month that I only paid $10,000 for in 2009, in a declining neighborhood!
McKeesport is seeing lots of rehabs, too. The other day, a lady saw me on my front porch, stopped her car, and started asking me questions about the neighborhood. She was an investor buying properties in McKeesport. Talk to anyone on this board and you will hear all about which neighborhoods will improve, and McKeesport will never be on that list. But that doesn't make public perception reality.
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If I had to "choose a side", I'd align with PreservationPioneer every time, but if I'm predicting the future, I think you will remain the rarest of breeds and we will see continued decline in almost all of these places.
It's very hard to predict which neighborhoods will remain stable, which stable areas will start to decline, or which depressed areas will continue to decline or begin to stabilize, or which stable areas will gentrify. I think it's okay for a city to have working class neighborhoods. Not everyone can afford to live in the trendy areas. Some of the depressed areas of the city, like Hays and Esplen, are actually pretty safe for someone of modest means to live in, and even own a house. That's the American Dream, in my opinion. How many cities have reasonably safe, urban neighborhoods with houses that you can buy for $30,000? There are certainly cheap houses, and cheap neighborhoods in major cities, but how many are as safe (presumably) as Hays? The only reason I wouldn't buy in Hays is because it's in a flood zone, and I suspect that is the real reason for its decline (although, to be fair, it actually seems like a pretty decent place). I would have loved to buy in Esplen, because I just love the river views. There's nothing as exciting to me as owning a house with a river view. There is a benefit to having neighborhoods that have not been gentrified!
Last edited by PreservationPioneer; 11-06-2015 at 11:52 AM..
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Crime in the Mon-Yough Valley (AGH side)
