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Unthawing Pittsburgh’s Potential: Two stories about two different parts of the continent caught my eye recently. The first was about an Alaska town that offered free land to anyone willing to submit a $500 deposit and build a 1,000 square foot house within two years. There were no shortage of takers, in fact folks from Oregon, Idaho, Florida, Wisconsin and Washington were camping out in frigid temperatures for a chance to build a warm house on the cold tundra.

The second story was about a place with slightly worse prospects: Detroit. The headline about that city said cars there are now more expensive than houses. That’s not the entire story, however, while a foreclosed Detroit bungalow recently sold at auction for less than $2,000, a new condo in a downtown high-rise fetched seven figures through traditional channels. More, the long vacant and deteriorating Cadillac Hotel in downtown Detroit is being restored with the upper floors being converted into condos.

I recall reading an interview with Robert Toll, the luxury homebuilder as his company moved into the arena of developing downtown. He wasn’t sure the downtown craze would spread that far, from New York and Philadelphia into urban Detroit. Apparently he underestimated America’s new urban condo craze.

In Pittsburgh downtown condos are also coming into their own. Traditional urban neighborhoods like the Southside Flats, Mexican War Streets, Lawrenceville and Deutschtown are also holding their own, but its not hard to find the bargains mentioned in the Detroit article around here. In fact, the article mentioned in the first paragraph that homes in Motown could be had for $26,000 or less. My thoughts: Why is this news? They’ve been available here for quite some time.

Pittsburgh has had more houses than people for many years now and while people tend to cluster in certain areas keeping those values up, they don’t want to be in other places where you tend to find the $25,000 or less houses. From my general observation urban homebuyers now want to be where they can have the benefit of a walk-able neighborhood with a healthy mix of retail and residential. Urban suburbs that require you to drive everywhere are less popular.

In any case, I’d venture that most any affordable house in Pittsburgh has more going for it than a like one in Detroit or some icy Alaska land.

This hasn’t brought us to Alaska yet, but we’re getting warm.

If Pittsburgh is filled with not only vacant lots, but vacant lots with vacant houses on them, many of which are owned by the city and never reach the icy temperatures of that rocky shrubgrass is Alaska, why wouldn’t homesteaders take Pittsburgh up on such an offer? It could be a boon to the population and the tax base, not to mention the public relations value.

Of course these things are always complicated, but if its news that Detroit has affordable housing and people are flocking to Alaska in hopes of obtaining a frozen rock or two, I’ve got to think Pittsburgh has a lot more work to do getting the word out.