Downtown Population increased 25% since 2000 (Pittsburgh, Butler: safe neighborhood, trendy, housing market)

[Evergrey]

Why don't you try Esplen, SCR?

[eschaton]

I'm sorry SCR, but I think you're wrong here. It's been different in other cities, but on the whole, gentrification has been a great thing for Pittsburgh.

Look at it this way. Say twenty years ago developers in Pittsburgh came to bat with thousands of reasonably affordable rentals in Shadyside/North Oakland/Squirrel Hill. I daresay as a result you wouldn't have seen as much improvement in Friendship or Highland Park, which would also mean East Liberty wouldn't have turned around. The South Side's gentrification might have been stuck in the transitional "artists and gays" phase for longer, which in turn would mean Lawrenceville was still a yinzer neighborhood with a lot of heroin.

But instead, you ended up with prices climbing enough that the old middle-class enclaves couldn't fit everyone any longer. So gentrification spilled wider and wider, until today, when it's arguable that half of the city (certainly by population, and perhaps by neighborhood count as well) is either in an already gentrified or gentrifying neighborhood.

If you get pushed into Brightwood, that's great...you'll help make it a great neighborhood again. They're beat down as hell, but there are several old business districts in the neighborhood which could make a comeback. Keep in mind that gentrification or not, the population there is shrinking rapidly due to old people dying off and abandonment. If the choice is between gentrification, and slowly getting demolished, gentrification is better - at least if you care about keeping historic urban fabric around. Some people will get displaced, but they won't be mostly to places like Homewood, which are still shedding population rapidly - they'll be to suburbs and old mill towns, many of which would have even further declines in population themselves without a new influx of residents as well.

The only thing that is certain in life is change my friend. Embrace it.

[I_Like_Spam]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

So I'm supposed to keep "neighborhood-hopping" every two to three years as gentrification chases me around like an SCR whack-a-mole game?
?

If you move to an area that you think is going to improve, and you are right, your rent will definitely be going up.


Would you be happier if Polish Hill had remained a dumpy working class community, where you were one of the only out of towners, no boutiques or coffee shops, have hard boiled eggs, beer nuts and cold iron at Sarney's when you want to dine out in the neighborhood.

If you want to exercise control over your housing costs, you need to buy.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by I_Like_Spam

If you move to an area that you think is going to improve, and you are right, your rent will definitely be going up.


Would you be happier if Polish Hill had remained a dumpy working class community, where you were one of the only out of towners, no boutiques or coffee shops, have hard boiled eggs, beer nuts and cold iron at Sarney's when you want to dine out in the neighborhood.

If you want to exercise control over your housing costs, you need to buy.

What's wrong with not wanting every neighborhood to double in median rent each five years as a new yoga shop, coffee shop, and pet poodle psychotherapy clinic opens up annually? There was once a point in history when someone could live in a place like Polish Hill, work a 40-hour work-week, and live comfortably, raising their families within walking distance of a dozen (or more) useful businesses, not to mention their workplace in the Strip District. Those useful businesses weren't considered "luxuries". They were normal. Landlords in 1910 didn't charge my tenement home's tenants a premium because they were around the corner from a butcher, a baker, and a candlestick maker. Today they do. I don't understand when "walkability" went from being "normal" to being "fancy". Suburbia really did turn this country upside-down, didn't it?

I don't know why working-class has to mean "dumpy". I'm working-class. My partner is working-class. We take good care of the property we rent from a mentally-unstable absentee landlady. We have a lot of working-class neighbors who also take good care of the properties they rent or own. I think I'm just living in the wrong era. I'd love to live in an era when it wasn't "trendy" or "fashionable" to live in a city. I'd love to have lived in an era where it was NORMAL to live in a city and ABnormal to live in suburbia.

Some of us don't live in cities because we want to be "trendy". Some of us live in cities because it's the ecologically-responsible thing to do. Pardon me for being concerned that in 1910 people were paying 20% of their income on rent here and now I know a lot of people who are paying around 40% of their rent to live here while the neighborhood has simultaneously become more abandoned and devoid of commerce. Paying an increasing share of wallet towards rent just means you have less money to spend to stimulate the local economy.

P.S. You own a house. Eschaton lived here and bought in Lawrenceville before the bubble began to rise. Most on here who are homeowners bought in their neighborhoods bought prior to this recent rapid wave in housing value appreciation and don't understand why today's 20-somethings and 30-somethings struggle to afford to pay twice as much to purchase their same homes as they did a decade ago while having a real income that is roughly the same as they were making a decade ago due to the Great Recession. For example, maybe Eschaton and his wife were making a combined $50,000 when they bought in Lawrenceville. Someone making $50,000 today couldn't afford Eschaton's house because it has since appreciated beyond $150,000---more than thrice that person's salary. I'm not jealous or anything. I'm just dumbfounded that current homeowners who have been riding a wave of appreciation can't understand why those earning flat salaries are struggling to buy those same appreciated homes TODAY.

[theta_sigma]

I'm new here and don't know you at all SCR, but how old are you? Because I grew up in Pittsburgh in the 70s and 80s when it was not trendy to live in the city and it kind of blew.

You can still buy in Pittsburgh for under $100k (small starter houses on my street in Stanton Heights still do) , but it won't be in a community with cute coffee houses and yoga studios and art galleries and it probably won't have super easy walking/biking access to the parts of town where the people who make a lot of money work. People who can afford it pay a premium for convenience, news at 11.

ETA: I sympathize. We don't make enough to pay $300k for a home and our house has not appreciated much past what we paid for it in 2007 because, while it is in the East End, it's not a trendy neighborhood. We'd like to move to a bigger house now that we have a kid and we're priced out of vast swathes of the East End even though this is where I grew up and have lived nearly my entire life. But this is not a problem for Pittsburgh as a city, it's just a problem for me. (Well, I will sign on to the idea that salaries need to come up and employers need to stop calculating them as if this is a bargain basement place to live any more, but that would have a knock-on effect of creating even more demand in the real estate market.)

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

Eschaton lived here and bought in Lawrenceville before the bubble began to rise. Most on here who are homeowners bought in their neighborhoods bought prior to this recent rapid wave in housing value appreciation and don't understand why today's 20-somethings and 30-somethings struggle to afford to pay twice as much to purchase their same homes as they did a decade ago while having a real income that is roughly the same as they were making a decade ago due to the Great Recession. For example, maybe Eschaton and his wife were making a combined $50,000 when they bought in Lawrenceville. Someone making $50,000 today couldn't afford Eschaton's house because it has since appreciated beyond $150,000---more than thrice that person's salary. I'm not jealous or anything. I'm just dumbfounded that current homeowners who have been riding a wave of appreciation can't understand why those earning flat salaries are struggling to buy those same appreciated homes TODAY.

To this I say the following: I had no idea when I bought in Lawrenceville it was going to take off. I didn't know much about the neighborhood at that time. I had been frequenting 80s night at Belvideres and I think Remedy had just opened up when I moved here. There were already some boutiques and a few eateries (Picolo Forno, Coca Cafe) in Lower Lawrenceville, although they weren't my scene, so I didn't spend much time in them. But on the whole, there was maybe a quarter of what there is in Lawrenceville today regarding "hip" things to do. I would have preferred to buy a house in Bloomfield at the time - closer to Brillobox and the Quiet Storm. I looked in Lawrenceville because I could buy a brick rowhouse cheap, and ride my bike into Downtown. I expected some gentrification (or at least to make back the money put into the house), but I didn't expect the craziness that happened.

My point here is yes, Millvale and Troy Hill might seem semi-lame today. But they might be Lawrenceville in another 5-10 years. My former neighbors (who were renters, and 20somethings) just bought a house in Millvale. I hope it works out for them.

[JoeP]

The core area being expensive does not = sprawl. Lawrenceville is one neighborhood and one can't take the neighborhood of the context of what made it gain in popularity.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by eschaton

My point here is yes, Millvale and Troy Hill might seem semi-lame today. But they might be Lawrenceville in another 5-10 years. My former neighbors (who were renters, and 20somethings) just bought a house in Millvale. I hope it works out for them.

What about those of us who want to buy in Millvale but don't want it to become "the next Lawrenceville"? I like Millvale just as it is but balk at buying there because it's not part of the city limits. If I buy a house in Millvale in 2015 for $50,000, and if I sell it in 2025 for $60,000, then I'd be overjoyed because I made a $10,000 profit while making minimal improvements to the property while the property could then still be purchased at an affordable price point for a next generation buyer. I don't want to buy for $50,000 in 2015, make minimal improvements, and then sell for $150,000 in 2025 because the surrounding neighborhood became "trendy". I'd want to sell my home to another working-class first-time home-buyer, just like me---not an attorney or an executive.

I guess I'm just different than most people on this sub-forum because I view housing as a basic need (i.e. "shelter")---not a "portfolio addition"; "strategic investment"; or whatever else you (not necessarily you in particular, Eschaton) homeowners are calling them nowadays. I think it's selfish to want to price people who were just like you when you were house-hunting out of a housing market so you can run with the profits to Punta Cana or buy a yacht with it.

Maybe I'm a socialist?

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by JoeP

The core area being expensive does not = sprawl. Lawrenceville is one neighborhood and one can't the neighborhood of the context of what made it gain in popularity.

Yes. Yes, it does. The city's core becoming more and more expensive means more and more people will be moving to outer fringe areas that are car-centric, thereby increasing the region's dependency upon fossil fuels. How's that a positive thing?

[AaronPGH]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

What about those of us who want to buy in Millvale but don't want it to become "the next Lawrenceville"?

So find a non-trendy, cheap neighborhood that is as far away from trendy neighborhoods as possible. Buy a cheap house, stay there, and be happy.