The neighborhood that used to be next to downtown (Pittsburgh: rent, lofts)

[squarian]

The Hill is not the whole. Whether the Lower Hill was inevitably doomed to Mordor-esque squalor or not, surely it wasn't necessary to tear down City Hall or the Post Office. What was the point of that, except that Victorian architecture was out of fashion at the time?

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by squarian

The Hill is not the whole. Whether the Lower Hill was inevitably doomed to Mordor-esque squalor or not, surely it wasn't necessary to tear down City Hall or the Post Office. What was the point of that, except that Victorian architecture was out of fashion at the time?

1. It was the fashionable, modern "urban planning" of its day.

2. Perhaps, and this is only a guess, the old City Hall and/or Post Office wasn't very funcitonal any more.

[squarian]

I'm not sure I can agree with you - demolishing entire neighborhoods was "urban planning". Destroying Victorian public buildings was vandalism. The Quai d'Orsay, the London Central Criminal Courts (the Old Bailey) and the United States Capitol are all approximately the same vintage, but they remained functional enough to leave standing. The present County Court House can hardly be much more functional than the old City Hall or the Post Office. A lack of functionality doesn't convince.

[sparrowmint]

Originally Posted by alleghenyangel

The difference is, by eminent domain, homes were taken from people who owned them in the 1950s-1960s, whereas nobody is taking away houses from people, regardless of their income level, today (foreclosures aside, which would be the owner's fault for not paying the bills). Apartments and Section 8 and such are temporary residences, anyway. They aren't like owning your house and having it taken away. What is happening in gentrifying neighborhoods today is rents are being raised, as appropriate to the demand to live in the neighborhood. That can happen to anyone and any neighborhood. It's not denying someone the right to their home, it's just being priced out. Personally, I don't see anyone getting priced out of East Liberty, with houses in Larimer selling for pennies...

Slightly off-topic, but over time, wouldn't gentrification hurt people who already do own homes in lower income neighbourhoods by way of increased property taxes? I own my cheap home in Penn Hills outright, and the property taxes are fairly cheap because it's not assessed at a crazy amount. Hypothetically, if there was a crazy boom because it became the hip place to be, wouldn't my property taxes skyrocket if other homes around me were snapped up at double, triple, quadruple the amounts? This is extremely unlikely to happen, but I'm sure it does in other cities where the housing market fluctuates to a greater degree.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by squarian

I'm not sure I can agree with you - demolishing entire neighborhoods was "urban planning". Destroying Victorian public buildings was vandalism. The Quai d'Orsay, the London Central Criminal Courts (the Old Bailey) and the United States Capitol are all approximately the same vintage, but they remained functional enough to leave standing. The present County Court House can hardly be much more functional than the old City Hall or the Post Office. A lack of functionality doesn't convince.

Calm down, my friend. I"m not supporting it. I was just giving a possible reason. Not everyone feels it is a crime to tear down a Victorian building that has outlived its usefulness, either.

[stburr91]

Originally Posted by sparrowmint

Slightly off-topic, but over time, wouldn't gentrification hurt people who already do own homes in lower income neighbourhoods by way of increased property taxes? I own my cheap home in Penn Hills outright, and the property taxes are fairly cheap because it's not assessed at a crazy amount. Hypothetically, if there was a crazy boom because it became the hip place to be, wouldn't my property taxes skyrocket if other homes around me were snapped up at double, triple, quadruple the amounts? This is extremely unlikely to happen, but I'm sure it does in other cities where the housing market fluctuates to a greater degree.

That does happen, and it will start to happen more here in Pittsburgh. It has happened to a small extent in Regent Square with some of the older residents on a fixed incomes. We'll see more of it in the coming year with reassessment.

[pman]

You dont have to be from pittsburgh to understand how these renewal projects were largely failures...in this respect pittsburgh is not unique. First, theres nothing wrong with eminent domain for the public good such as a road,etc but taking land because someone isnt rich enough and handing it over to your buddy? Wrong.
Id also add cities were quite fond of these projects because uncle sam bankrolled most of the land acquisition and site clearance. The fact that most went for public housing or politically connected civic projects that failed to reproduce any of the vitality shouldnt be lost on us. I think its a useful.excercise to look at comparables. Bostons north end, despite being sliced off by a highway, remained a mostly stable immigrant community until became more popular in the last 15 years or so.
Then look at philadelphia. Old city declined but eventually the old slums gave way to artists lofts. The neighborhoods ringing downtown were the first and fastest to be reinvented...particularly those adjacent to downtown not separated by a highway. For a time they were a liability for downtown but now downtown is turning them around. The more intact the neighborhood the faster it turned around. Small structures allow people to take small risks. The massive parking lots will take large scale developments to turn them into functional parts of the city. I dont buy the parking arguments as the most successful cities are those where its hardest to park.
I think the article does a good job painting both sides but its hard to argue the city is better with an asphalt wasteland than a vibrant neighborhood. I think viewing these redevelopments as good is borne mostly of nostalgia.

[Katarina Witt]

Actually, the nostalgia seems to be for a neighborhood most posters never knew. 1961 was 50 years ago.

[rr61]

Originally Posted by alleghenyangel

If you had to compare the Lower Hill then to a current city neighborhood, which would it be? (in terms of vibrancy, housing stock, conditions, etc.)

housing : My memories of the streets closest to where I lived are most vivid. Brick houses (I don't remember wooden houses or siding, etc), no lawns, no porches - in good weather people were always out on their steps (stoops) , no garages or off street parking, party walls with a narrow walkway between houses every so often. Stores with apartments on 2nd and 3rd floors. Some existing blocks with houses that remind me of home are : a block of Penn Ave in the Strip out beyond the shopping area , maybe around 29th St., Forbes , in what we called Uptown rather than Bluff as I see it called on this forum. There are a couple blocks there that bring back memories - around Van Braam and Miltenberger and the block after Jumonville. I'm glad to see some of that neighborhood still exists. I took a walk around there recently on the side streets like Gist and Tustin and got sentimental from the memories. .................................................. ................................. About the Bluff (what we called the Bluff - the area between Forbes and Blvd of Allies between Mercy Hosp and Duquesne. Of course that's all Duquesne now): Back then, that area very nice. All residential and I don't mean Duquesne students. The houses along Bluff street and the Blvd had fantastic views. Bluff and Vickroy were probably the nicest streets in the whole Uptown, Bluff, Lower Hill area. That area was not part of the Lower Hill demolition. It survived until the Duquesne expansion. In the 50s Duquesne occupied only the very western end of the Bluff. .................................................. .................................................. ...... By the way, someone in this thread mentioned a hospital as a good that came from the redevelopment. Am I missing something? Mercy was right there where it is now way back then. Yes, it did expand a bit taking a couple blocks of housing around Pride and Marion for expansion and parking. But that wasn't part of the Lower Hill demolition. .................................................. .................................................. ........... I think some who imagine the Lower Hill as a dangerous hell hole that needed to be destroyed should know that it, along with the other two areas I mentioned above, was filled with families and kids. Two Catholic schools, Epiphany on Washington and St Peter's on Fernando were steps apart. The public schools were Forbes, a huge, beautiful historic stone building replaced by a parking garage (yuck) near Mercy hospital, and Miller and Letsche, both just a bit outside the area that was torn down, but serving kids who were to displaced. That's a lot of schools for a lot of kids. .................................................. .................................................. ....... My friends and I roamed all over the place without fear. We were never cautioned by parents about about avoiding any blocks or areas. It was a great place to be a kid. .................................................. ................ As Bob Hope sang: Thanks for the memory. ( I know I'm probably overly sentimental - and maybe a little bitter when I hear pleas to keep the arena for its historic significance - I want it gone) .................................................. .......................( I don't know why I couldn't put spaces between paragraphs. What a pain to have to do this.....................................to separate things. I'm glad I previewed the post to see the lack of spacing.)

[Q-tip motha]

Originally Posted by alleghenyangel

On the other hand, the Lower Hill, if it still existed, might look much like the Bluff does today. However, I think the disastrous urban renewal in the Lower Hill is largely responsible for the way the Bluff looks today. It's connected to the Hill, and has the feeling of a neighborhood people gave up on.

I highly doubt that. People like to place blame on a particular thing for causing the decline of a neighborhood, when the reality is that it probably is the cumulative effect of a number of occurences.

Its like blaming the Allegheny Center for the problems that the North Side has, when equal blame can be put on the construction of I279 north of the city (and how the city handled that at the time), as well as a number of other things.

I don't think building the arena helped that much, but caused the current state of the bluffs? I highly doubt it.

Heck, the current state of the Hill District has very little to do with the construction of the arena as well, although many will disagree with this based upon their own personal bias. No one wants to point fingers at the Bedford Dwellings, and everyone tends to forget that we had a major economic collapse of the area's most dominant industry that coincides with the decline of many of these neighborhoods. If you want to give anything the lion's share of the blame for the decline of these neighborhoods its the death of American steel that deserves it. Everything else hasn't helped, but it was the loss of jobs and people leaving the area that caused the current state of these neighborhoods. Not some failed public works project.