Pittsburgh population loss and urban decay (Washington, Canonsburg: apartment, condos, crime)

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by corpgypsy

The original post poses valid issues; taking those along with the current Pittsburgh unemployment rate of 5%, job growth appearing mostly in lower wage areas and housing costs having reached absurd points, I am surprised that the only reaction is condescension as opposed to a meaningful discussion of the facts and possible looming problems for the region.

Originally Posted by erieguy

This^^^^

I'm not sure why truths of the area bring such "condescension" as until the truths are realized, there's not going to be anything done about those problems. I understand many want things to stay the same and aren't in favor of progress, but change is needed on many issues.

True. I've quite enjoyed the 5.5 years I've lived in Polish Hill thus far; however our city (and metro area) certainly aren't without fault. Instead of being a "great" area why not identify some problems in hopes of rectifying them and becoming an excellent city and metro area?

I'll say as a transplant some of the biggest challenges I see here are the transportation infrastructure (aging, antiquated, over-capacity, decrepit, crumbling, and only getting worse); socioeconomic segregation (albeit perhaps not on any worse level than other U.S. cities and metropolitan areas); and urban sprawl (erieguy can drone on and on all he wants about it being a "free country" and "Mainfest Destiny" and yada, yada, yada, but it's not sustainable when it seems like that's what EVERYONE ELSE also wants judging by the meteoric residential growth of Cranberry Township, Peters Township, Cecil Township, Murrysville, etc. while our city's population continues to decline).

What can be done?

1.) We need some politicians to GROW A SET. Instead of thinking the notion of pitching a nominal tax increase to improve REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION AND TRANSIT WOES would be "political suicide" why not see what happens? I believe you only live once. As such, why would I want to spend countless additional hours annually behind the wheel in gridlock when I could pay a nominal tax hike whose proceeds would FIX these woes and give me all that time back in my life to spend with loved ones instead of sitting on I-376 looking to my left and seeing someone in a GMC Yukon Denali resting their head on their steering wheel in frustration? We need to widen I-376 to SIX LANES between I-76 (Monroeville) and I-79 (Robinson). We need an east/west "T" line linking the airport to Monroeville via Downtown, Oakland, and the very populous East End neighborhoods. We could use a "T" extension to the north, too, up the median of I-279, with park & ride lots nearby. We should bring back streetcars to some congested urban areas. We need to pave nearly twice as many lane miles annually as we currently do in the city. We need to not just band-aid our bridges but replace MANY of them. For all the squawking people do about Governor Corbett I personally don't really mind that we pay exorbitant fuel taxes in Pennsylvania if it means that revenue will go towards putting a dent in our infrastructural MESS.

2.) I don't really know how to fix the issue of socioeconomic segregation. 99% of affluent people are going to want to settle among other affluent people (see Fox Chapel Borough). Even with incentivization I don't foresee Mr. GG wanting to trade his Fox Chapel abode for a rowhouse in Homewood. On the flip side I'm sure 99% of people in Homewood would LOVE to live in Fox Chapel if they had the means to do so. You can't just throw money at people to make their dreams come true, though. I've oscillated between varying states of poverty to upper-middle-class to lower-middle-class during my 29 years on this planet, and, as such, even if I do find myself to be financially successful someday I would have no qualms befriending and living among people poorer than I am. Are there enough people like me, though, to fill up mixed-income residential projects in the Hill District, Homewood, and Beltzhoover in the coming years, where I wouldn't mind paying market-rate to live beside someone being heavily-subsidized? I foresee us continuing to have the problems like "15208" in the coming years---so rich and so white in Point Breeze and so poor and so black above the Busway.

3.) Urban sp-r--a---w----l? It's the same story everywhere. It's every American's right, darnit, to swig beer while riding the John Deere across the half-acre lot that never gets used for anything other than aesthetics "cuz America". Some level of sprawl is inevitable. What I saw the other day while driving to Washington County, though, was depressing. Southpointe?! Wow! Why couldn't Mylan have instead built a mid-rise tower in Downtown Pittsburgh with its logo emblazoned on the top? Now any and all new talent has to live in car-dependent areas nearby like The Strabanes or Cecil in order to get to work in a reasonable amount of time.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by bradjl2009

LOL how can anyone act like 5% unemployment is awful? That isn't too far away from what many economists consider full employment for a metro area.

But as has been stated, in 1950, many homes had 6 or more people in them, today most households in the city have only 3 or fewer residents residing in a home.

I actually did a calculation at one point. Given the decline in household size, Pittsburgh would only need around another 110,000 people to have an equal number of households to 1950. Which shows two things. First, we're not as far off from our peak as we really believe we are. Secondly, if we were ever to become a city of 670,000 people again, we'd need to do a lot more than merely fill in the blighted bits of the city with a similar number of units to those that existed in 1950. We'd need to be structurally denser than we ever were before, turning quite a good deal of the city into apartment zones.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I actually did a calculation at one point. Given the decline in household size, Pittsburgh would only need around another 110,000 people to have an equal number of households to the number it had in 1950. Which shows two things. First, we're not as far off from our peak as we really believe we are. Secondly, if we were ever to become a city of 670,000 people again, we'd need to do a lot more than merely fill in the blighted bits of the city with a similar number of units to those that existed in 1950. We'd need to be structurally denser than we ever were before, turning quite a good deal of the city into apartment zones.

This city does have a plethora of large surface parking lots prime for residential high-rise development. The problem is NIMBYism. There was supposed to be a new residential tower being built on a parking lot next to the Savoy in the Strip, but people squawked about it being "too tall" and "affecting views". It's better to build UP in an urban area rather than OUT. Let's fit more people on less land and use the extra land for green space, shall we?

[Geeo]

I wouldn't want to see 676,000 people within the city limits again. It was a very crowded city back then, and some of those neighborhoods were bulldozed for urban renewal and highways, so there's probably less room now. And in 1950, everybody didn't have a car, and those who did more than likely only had one car per family, so traffic wasn't as much of an issue.

[Moby Hick]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

This city does have a plethora of large surface parking lots prime for residential high-rise development. The problem is NIMBYism. There was supposed to be a new residential tower being built on a parking lot next to the Savoy in the Strip, but people squawked about it being "too tall" and "affecting views".

There NIMBY issues, but the bigger problem is (was?) that rents had to first rise to a level that would support more dense building. If 2 bedroom apartments in good areas are going for $650, nobody is going to build a high-rise or mid-rise building because they can't do that and earn a profit on that kind of rent. Our "absurb" housing costs only recently got to the level that justified new building.

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

True. I've quite enjoyed the 5.5 years I've lived in Polish Hill thus far; however our city (and metro area) certainly aren't without fault. Instead of being a "great" area why not identify some problems in hopes of rectifying them and becoming an excellent city and metro area?

I'll say as a transplant some of the biggest challenges I see here are the transportation infrastructure (aging, antiquated, over-capacity, decrepit, crumbling, and only getting worse); socioeconomic segregation (albeit perhaps not on any worse level than other U.S. cities and metropolitan areas); and urban sprawl (erieguy can drone on and on all he wants about it being a "free country" and "Mainfest Destiny" and yada, yada, yada, but it's not sustainable when it seems like that's what EVERYONE ELSE also wants judging by the meteoric residential growth of Cranberry Township, Peters Township, Cecil Township, Murrysville, etc. while our city's population continues to decline).

3.) Urban sp-r--a---w----l? It's the same story everywhere. It's every American's right, darnit, to swig beer while riding the John Deere across the half-acre lot that never gets used for anything other than aesthetics "cuz America". Some level of sprawl is inevitable. What I saw the other day while driving to Washington County, though, was depressing. Southpointe?! Wow! Why couldn't Mylan have instead built a mid-rise tower in Downtown Pittsburgh with its logo emblazoned on the top? Now any and all new talent has to live in car-dependent areas nearby like The Strabanes or Cecil in order to get to work in a reasonable amount of time.

What you fail to realize is that just because you like city living, it doesn't mean it's the best for everyone and that everyone should like city living. Also, no matter what you do to improve the city, there will always be those that have no use for living there.

If you want more city population, which will eventually squeeze you out of your current lifestyle, you need to make the area more appealing to those that choose city living which will get current residents to stay and non-residents to move there.

Not sure what your issue is with a Yukon Denali, but unless it's an XL, it's not that big of a vehicle.

[Merge]

^erieguy dropping the "box score knowledge".

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by Merge

^erieguy dropping the "box score knowledge".

Don't be upset by your proven lack of sports knowledge(Crosby and the Pens in the playoffs for the 10th straight year and looking good right now)...and it doesn't take much in the way of stats in getting people to move to a desireable area. If it's desireable, they will come. If it's not, they'll leave and find somewhere else to live.

[Herodotus]

Originally Posted by corpgypsy

The original post poses valid issues; taking those along with the current Pittsburgh unemployment rate of 5%, job growth appearing mostly in lower wage areas and housing costs having reached absurd points, I am surprised that the only reaction is condescension as opposed to a meaningful discussion of the facts and possible looming problems for the region.

People were ticked off by the comment that we don't look "quite as bad" as Detroit. Most Pittsburghers would consider us to look significantly better than Detroit.

[Moby Hick]

There are very values of "X" where "but at first sight X doesn't look quite that bad" shouldn't be taken as condescension and replied to accordingly.