Attempt to catagorize official Pittsburgh neighborhoods (Map) (West Mifflin, Washington: real estate, renters)

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by interested_burgher

Whatever, this is pointless. Neither one of us is going to change the other's mind. You're an East end apologist. I'm a realist.

And what section of the city do you see undertaking a revival?

[escilade18]

Originally Posted by eschaton

And what section of the city do you see undertaking a revival?

Come on now, you know it is all about the new exurban development.

[interested_burgher]

Originally Posted by eschaton

And what section of the city do you see undertaking a revival?

The city? I don't think any area of the city will undertake a revival of any significance long-term. It's unfortunate, but taxes are too high, services are terrible, and it's not worth the risk of capital.

It's the exact reason suburban malls, as characterless as they are, took all of the retail business from downtown starting 30-40 years ago. The city, through it's ineffective leadership, couldn't manage a lemonade stand and make it profitable. Instead, they try to cherry-pick selected areas, throw money at them, and hope they end up semi-viable. Meanwhile, 95% of the rest of the city is neglected. If the city could produce some leadership that doesn't penalize investment, all of this targeted forced development wouldn't be needed. It would just happen organically.

Heck, anywhere you go in the city, you're practically raped to park your car. What's the point of dealing with that headache in and of itself let alone risking your own capital? At least Target offers free parking. But they're an exception to the rule.

The schools are dreadful as well. Why would anyone willingly send their kids to the Pittsburgh Public School system? It's a joke.

[ferraris]

Originally Posted by interested_burgher

I'm not saying Carrick is paradise, but it's nowhere near as bad as Garfield. These minimal traces of revival in Garfield you speak of are exactly that, minimal, and will be confined to a couple blocks on Penn if anything substantial even happens. Nothing will branch off from that. There's not going to be the business development there that East Liberty has had......nowhere close.

Penn Avenue in Garfield is actually nicer than Penn Avenue in East Liberty in my opinion. When was the last time you were in Garfield? There's lots of development and businesses along Penn. And as I said in my earlier post, there's a lot of construction and renovation going on in the interior of the neighborhood, as well.

I understand that money has been put into East Liberty, but it is still plagued by enough crime that a lot of people will avoid it.

The impressions that most people have quite simply don't matter very much. There are and will be enough people willing to fill in East Liberty as it continues to redevelop. There's still people that are scared of the War Streets, but that doesn't stop it from being a desirable area to the people who live there. Someone is buying the quarter-million dollar homes, even if there are still people who avoid the area entirely.

[PreservationPioneer]

Originally Posted by interested_burgher

It's the exact reason suburban malls, as characterless as they are, took all of the retail business from downtown starting 30-40 years ago. The city, through it's ineffective leadership, couldn't manage a lemonade stand and make it profitable.

Name one large American city that did not lose downtown retail business to shopping malls decades ago. It's not a Pittsburgh problem, it's a nationwide problem.

[escilade18]

Originally Posted by alleghenyangel

name one large american city that did not lose downtown retail business to shopping malls decades ago. It's not a pittsburgh problem, it's a nationwide problem.

nyc?

[interested_burgher]

Originally Posted by ferrarisnowday

Penn Avenue in Garfield is actually nicer than Penn Avenue in East Liberty in my opinion. When was the last time you were in Garfield? There's lots of development and businesses along Penn. And as I said in my earlier post, there's a lot of construction and renovation going on in the interior of the neighborhood, as well.



The impressions that most people have quite simply don't matter very much. There are and will be enough people willing to fill in East Liberty as it continues to redevelop. There's still people that are scared of the War Streets, but that doesn't stop it from being a desirable area to the people who live there. Someone is buying the quarter-million dollar homes, even if there are still people who avoid the area entirely.

I was in Garfield and East Liberty on Sunday. Upon about 500 feet of entering Garfield, there was a street fight taking place. I'm not kidding.

[PreservationPioneer]

Well there are different ways to compare neighborhoods. You can compare current conditions of the neighborhood, and by that measurement Carrick is probably nicer than Garfield. However, Garfield is positioned to benefit from the revitalization of surrounding communities, whereas there isn't much momentum in the South Hills. All of the energy seems focused on the East End, unfortunately. I would love nothing more to see revitalization projects happen in the western and southern city neighborhoods. But these neighborhoods never fall as far as East Liberty or Larimer. I think a neighborhood has to hit rock bottom before people think of turning it around, and Carrick is far from rock bottom. I wish people would work to fix their neighborhoods before they become abandoned warzones, but that doesn't seem to be the American way. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. What are we doing to prevent or stall decline in our neighborhoods?

[interested_burgher]

Originally Posted by alleghenyangel

Well there are different ways to compare neighborhoods. You can compare current conditions of the neighborhood, and by that measurement Carrick is probably nicer than Garfield. However, Garfield is positioned to benefit from the revitalization of surrounding communities, whereas there isn't much momentum in the South Hills. All of the energy seems focused on the East End, unfortunately. I would love nothing more to see revitalization projects happen in the western and southern city neighborhoods. But these neighborhoods never fall as far as East Liberty or Larimer. I think a neighborhood has to hit rock bottom before people think of turning it around, and Carrick is far from rock bottom. I wish people would work to fix their neighborhoods before they become abandoned warzones, but that doesn't seem to be the American way. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. What are we doing to prevent or stall decline in our neighborhoods?

Yeah, I think you're right on there.

What I'm saying is that if there weren't so many barriers to progress within the city because of the shackles local government has put on free enterprise, development would occur throughout the city. When government picks winners and losers, it eventually ends in failure.

Remember the millions wasted by the Murphy administration downtown in the 80s when they forced functioning businesses to close in favor of luring huge department stores like Lazarus into the downtown area via corporate welfare essentially. How long did they stay? 10 years? That pretty much put the nail in the coffin for downtown retail.

The population decreases in this region weren't solely because of steel leaving. Much of it was due to over-taxation of businesses, property, sales, and income. These city workers live like kings with their pensions that are funded at about 30%......the worst in the country. That's the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about. We have PAT bus drivers who think they should be paid like CPAs, doctors, and attorneys.

We spend money on a tunnel to a casino rather than a connector from downtown to Oakland and the East End for that matter, etc. That's something that could have spurred some development on it's own. But no, politicians got paid off to award a casino license to a guy with no money rather than having the project bid on. So then, the so-called conservative Rick Santorum, procured hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government to build the useless tunnel with cost overruns beyond comprehension.

I'm going off on a tangent. I digress.

[ferraris]

Originally Posted by interested_burgher

I was in Garfield and East Liberty on Sunday. Upon about 500 feet of entering Garfield, there was a street fight taking place. I'm not kidding.

Ahh, well that would certainly sour my opinion on the place if I saw that. Last time I was there a block and a half of N. Fairmount had no parking, probably due to Verde and Salt.

Originally Posted by alleghenyangel

Well there are different ways to compare neighborhoods. You can compare current conditions of the neighborhood, and by that measurement Carrick is probably nicer than Garfield. However, Garfield is positioned to benefit from the revitalization of surrounding communities, whereas there isn't much momentum in the South Hills. All of the energy seems focused on the East End, unfortunately. I would love nothing more to see revitalization projects happen in the western and southern city neighborhoods. But these neighborhoods never fall as far as East Liberty or Larimer. I think a neighborhood has to hit rock bottom before people think of turning it around, and Carrick is far from rock bottom. I wish people would work to fix their neighborhoods before they become abandoned warzones, but that doesn't seem to be the American way. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. What are we doing to prevent or stall decline in our neighborhoods?

I think you're right about this. It's unfortunate. Why do you think that is?

Obviously rock bottom neighborhoods are cheaper. Maybe people would rather spend 15K in a rock bottom neighborhood than 35K in a struggling neighborhood. Worst comes to worst, they know they can get their money back on the house in the rock bottom neighborhood at least. In the struggling neighborhood, it could continue to decline and eventually hit rock bottom while they are there, and they could lose 20K in home value on top of that. I wonder if there's also an element of people wanting to feel like they helped "rescue" a neighborhood.