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A lively discussion emerged on a local email group this week on whether the Northside, particularly the Central Northside, was becoming gentrified. After-all, we do have a handful of coffee houses now and in some places houses are selling for a pretty good clip. Still, as I follow my flash light through yet another $5,000 house, I remained with my doubts. Besides, there's still no Starbucks.

There are a good many that live around here who don’t want what they think of as “gentrification.” It may result in lessened diversity certainly in economic if not racial terms. People who like cities in general often like them because there are lots of different people around and when you walk around, which a city is generally well suited for, you can meet them. To accomplish this you need a variety of housing stock.

I went onto dictionary.com to try and find out just what gentrification might mean, although I suspect its connotations carry much more weight than any definition. “Gentrification,” in a literal sense means “Very or excessively refined or elegant,” or “improved.” Well, you can call the Northside a lot of things, but Allegheny West house tours not withstanding, as a whole excessively elegant may not always be one of them. From the discussion I imagine depending on the listener, “improved” could just as easily be termed “destroyed.”

The discussion started when I posted a response to a recent City Paper article on the pending Federal Street Townhomes project scheduled for groundbreaking just before the publication of December’s Chronicle.

The article had a nice graphic showing a home on Jacksonia Street labeled the “Jacksonia” for $60,000 and a rendering of a new home labeled the “Jacksonian” for $120,000. I responded to the writer with several additional points and a correction.

First, I pointed out that houses that sell for $60K or less in the War Streets are not always in livable condition (at least there’s some work to be done). I also pointed out that these low-priced homes to represent great opportunities for those willing to put sweat equity into them to benefit. Not a fair comparison really.

The article contended that many of the neighborhoods residents may not be able to afford the new homes. I pointed out that there aren’t many new houses out there to be had for $130,000 especially ones being that close to downtown. Rebecca Davidson-Wagner, Community Development Specialist for the Central Northside Neighborhood Council wrote in saying she had spoken to the author about the article. Davidson-Wagner said the article failed to mention the project also has 39-42 low income rental units, along with single story "affordable flats" that will be priced lower than the most affordable unit. More, with the URA deferred mortgage of up to $50,000 the new houses will be around $80,000 for a 3 bedroom 1 and 1/2 bath with off street parking. That’s a new house for a few thousand more than one that could need lots of work.

In fact there are a wide range of prices in the Central Northside with or without the planned construction. Looking at sales between January 1, 2005 and October 31, 2006, sales ranged from $7,000 to $301,000. By my calculation the average home price in the year from Jan 1, 2005 to Oct 31, 2006 was about $127,000 making the lowest price new homes more affordable than the average. The median is actually higher, around $170,000.

That may sound like big money to some long-term Northsiders, but remember that is the area popularly known as the Mexican War Streets, which while being “discovered” now, has been in the eye of preservationists since the 1970s. Many of the comments to the board seemed to lament that after all these years of waiting (the Federal Street project has been on the board for more than a decade) to make progress an article comes along and takes a big swipe with the nasty word “gentrification.” One resident replied with “we should be so lucky.”

To those who do worry about the affordability of houses, feel fortunate you live in Pittsburgh where a population decline has left far more houses than people to fill them. More, a recent ranking in Smart Money magazine said Pittsburgh remained “undervalued.” Housing here, the magazine figures, is almost twenty percent less than it should be. While getting a house exactly where you want it for the price we want to pay (hey, we’d all buy that $20,000 house in Shadyside if it existed), there is no shortage of affordable houses in nearby neighborhoods and our houses have a lower median price than other comparably sized cities including Cleveland, Cincinnati and Chattanooga.

Plus, for those with lots of energy and time, yes there is even an occasional $5,000 house.

If you’d like to participate in these online email group discussions, I’d recommend the East Allegheny Group where recently the topic has been does Pittsburgh have enough culture (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eastallegheny ) and also the Chat Northside group where the discussion on gentrification took place at ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chatnorthside ). It’s a great way to meet neighbors and know more about what’s going on.