If you've been listening to Lynn Cullen this morning, there's been a great discussion about gas prices, mass transit and how its going to impact the suburbs. Also in my Small House Talk email I received this link to an article that could just be outlining a double wammy for the suburbs The incredible shrinking house

I heard recently about a University graduate who was hired by a company which opened an office in Pittsburgh for no other reason than the fellow they hired didn't want to move. That says a lot for Pittsburgh and a lot for the importance for companies in being somewhere employees want to live.

Along those lines, I had an interesting exchange with someone in Memphis, Tennessee recently. We were discussing Memphis and its attributes. This person seemed to like her city, but it couldn't, in her opinion, top Pittsburgh. "I love Pittsburgh," she said, "though Memphis has its charms I can't imagine someone trading Pittsburgh for it."

This person obviously had been to Pittsburgh in recent times as it was clear any opinions she had weren't outdated. As I've discussed before, there are lots of people out there who love Pittsburgh and would love to live here if the opportunities were presented. To many of those moving here it might be the lure of an affordable market, yet here was someone in an equally affordable market who still thought well of Pittsburgh and its possibilities.

There are some out there with enough wealth that they can move here and have enough of a financial cushion that finding purposeful employment can take sometime. Still, most can't be lured by cost of living or even quality of life alone. They need an opportunity to bring them here. Its only when an opportunity in Pittsburgh can be weighed with an opportunity elsewhere that we'll get a substantial number of people looking at Pittsburgh as a real option.

For this reason, research should be done on just how well potential residents like Pittsburgh and the results presented to companies who need to be where employees want to live.

If your house is listed at the high end of the pricing range and it hasn't sold, never fear--it could sell soon. According to an article in today's Post-Gazette, appreciation last month in the region topped fifteen percent. Sales, however were down. Is there a mass rush to buy property in Pittsburgh? There's some of that, but I suspect because of a tightening by lenders means the median price may be up because the middle and upper range houses are selling faster than those on the lower end of the price range. This reminds me of a cartoon I saw on a placemat in an East German restaurant in San Francisco. A girl sat slouched on a rock under sunshine and surrounded by flowers thinking about how to mentally make sunshine and flowers a bad thing. Yes folks, fifteen percent appreciation can't be all or even half bad.

On an urelated matter copper theives are still at it and now targeting Mount Lebanon and some other suburbs Watch the news story

Buy a Copper-Free Sticker for your window

Yesterday Pop City Media was host to a panel discussion dealing largely with the reality and future of Pittsburgh. While each panelist had interesting insight, nothing could make ears perk up like they did when Warhol director Tom Sokolowski stood up and said something to the effect of Bob O’Connor’s death having been the best thing to that's happened to Pittsburgh. Unfortunately Sokolowski didn’t have the microphone when he was making his comments, but I would love to have heard more of what he had to say and hope he’s invited to a future panel.

O’Connor’s name was first brought up by Michael Edwards, president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership. Edwards applauded the former mayor’s simple vision of a clean and safe city. He also echoed a notion I’ve had for some time, that there’s nothing wrong with native Pittsburghers leaving. It’s only with the experience of other cities that many come to realize what a great city Pittsburgh is. The problem for us is a lack of energy and talent flowing in to replace them.

Lenore Blum, a professor of computer science at CMU seemed to disagree with Edwards when she lamented that only five percent of graduates stay in Pittsburgh, a percentage much lower than say Stanford. I suspect there was not the disagreement there might have appeared to be as it seems Edwards and Blum were talking about two different groups of people. Edwards might have meant the children of Pittsburghers and Blum students born elsewhere.

All the panelists seemed to agree there’s a buzz of sorts in Pittsburgh now we haven’t felt before, at least not recently. We’re on the verge of being in a happening place. I have myself observed that ten years ago it was hard to find a student or young person who didn’t want to move from Pittsburgh. I remember reminding one acquaintance of the availability of affordable housing here maybe ten years ago, to which I heard “you have your house, I’ll have a life.”

We don’t live in that Pittsburgh anymore. Now I hear many students—familiar with San Francisco and New York-- and young people say they would like to stay in Pittsburgh if the opportunity presented itself. Google recently opened its office here and gave as a reason that its employees wanted to live here. We may not realize it, but we’ve won half the battle already. Yet we continue to aim marketing efforts at students, when perhaps we’d get further by trying to get across to companies that the educated workforce that’s often tough to entertain likes Pittsburgh. With CMU ranking at the top of computer science schools to some degree the new Pittsburgh is here, they want to stay, but are often forced to leave. If we could get the message out to corporate America that potential employees want to live in Pittsburgh, that could at least put us on the radar for location scouts.

This could be a worthwhile project for Carol Coletta, President and CEO of a group called CEOs for cities. The only one to travel for the presentation, Coletta advocated catering to the retiring boomers, who large in number, also like much of what young workers like—condo life and a lively downtown. More, Coletta noted Pittsburgh's head start in green building, but sadly a fact that's been lost and the image shed to other cities "because your mayor is not engaged."

Oh, Blum also noted that to her knowledge, the CMU campus has never been visited by a Mayor. Mr. Ravenstahl may take note that it might be a good start to ask them to stay.

Finally Dr. Eric Beckman, the Chief Science Officer for a company he founded called Cohera Medical talked about a Silicon Valley misnomer-that the tech companies exist there because of advances made at Stanford. Beckman says instead its because Stanford teaches scientists to be entrepreneurs, that the region provides ways to connect scientists with business people and because there’s financing for projects that may not be much more than an idea scribbled on a napkin.

Grant Oliphant moderated the event and started out with a monologue on how we as Pittsburgh see our self. He quoted Jospeh Jaworsky from his book Syncronicity “We do not describe the world we see, but we see the world we describe.” That may sound like power of positive thinking garble, but with that in mind let me end with a quote from Lewis Mumford: "Mind takes form in the city; and in turn, urban forms condition mind."

Oh, and thank you Eve Picker for arranging such an important discussion.

Bicyclists don't want to live on the hills. Young homebuyers are often without autos--foot and bike primarily and if necessary transit. They want to live where they can get around town easily on a bike. No matter what the price, homes on a hill are out of the question.

Tonight at a meeting of the Pittsburgh Climate Change Initiative I heard of an innovation I was not aware of... a pully system to get bikes up hills. "They have them in Europe," I was told.

This would completely open up new worlds for Pittsburgh's bicyclists and bring more affordable housing within their reach.

If you have a climate change suggestion, there are several meetings coming up. Visit the Pittsburgh Cliumate Change Initiative on the web

Western Pennsylvania and Ohio dominate a new list of the most affordable towns to live in. This ranking doesn't deal with cities specifically. Smaller communities near Pittsburgh include Penn Hills, West Mifflin and Brentwood. Maple Heights, Ohio
outside Cleveland also made the list as did towns in New York State and Michigan. My advice? Why live in Penn Hills when the City of Pittsburgh is so affordable? As Ed Koch once asked, "Have you ever lived in the suburbs? It's wasting your life."

If there could be a better choice for a show to be the first performed in the Garden Theater since closing as an x-rated movie venue, it may be possible conceive of what, but I can't imagine conceiving of how. Quantum Theater's performance of the Collected Works of Billy The Kid was superb. I also enjoyed being in the audience and seeing inside the Garden for the first time in my life (I am telling the truth!!). I had anticipated getting a bite to eat at Max's before the show, but it was getting late and if its busy in there it can be slow. So we drove to Giorgio's on Western Avenue and then back. I didn't park near the Garden, I drove back home-- just to experience for the first time walking out my front door and down to the Theater. I am used to walking downtown for a show, but today I had the opportunity to go directly West toward the bright lights. I had a friend visiting a few years ago who saw the lights down the street. I told him it was a porn theater and he said "I'll be back." He returned sooner than I thought and lamented, "it's closed. What kind of porn theater closes at nine?" We blamed it on Pittsburgh.

Just now I bit on the skin between my thumb and pointer finger and then reminded myself I had just returned from the Garden. I don't think I touched much of anything, except a plastic wine glass and the sink faucet. The sink faucet? Ugh. From the bathroom stall I heard someone say "I think this is one place it might be better not to wash your hands!" Yea, the Garden was pretty dirty. Cobwebs are in place, plaster is falling off the walls and the lights are dim as ever (as ever I imagined they were of course). The audience couldn't sit in the theater seats, to the relief of many--it wasn't built for plays anyway. A steeper seating area was built near the front and we all got to sit on folding chairs.

Sure, maybe they should have cleaned the place up first, renovated it and had a grand opening. There's something endearing about having the Garden Theater appear in the event listings almost immediately after ending its former life, however. Continuity, continuance. That's good--unusual even. I can always tell when you walk into a house that has continuity. There's a lot that's lost when you walk into a place that's been gutted and rebuilt. It just doesn't have that organic feel that one that's been lived in for fifty or a hundred or more years has. The Garden has been there for a long time, and tonight, there we were. You couldn't help but think about what had gone on in there.

It's kind of like looking at a photograph of Billy The Kid. There he is, or was, and there we were. There's some truth to every tale, but much of it is imagination. After such a long time waiting, it was wonderful tonight to walk down the street towards the lights and imagine.

On the way out I took a photo of the seats. "The good old days," someone joked.

The Why of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh is the most livable city again, at least according to Places Rated. It's also been listed as number three in a list of cities of the future. I remember once a few years back being told by a fellow in the Bahamas that I was from the "future" when I told him I lived in San Francisco. Now San Francisco is only second most livable and doesn't even rank on the cities of the future list.

The rankings that place Pittsburgh at the top are actually pretty consistent. Pittsburgh has never ranked lower than 14 and been named "most-livable" twice. Just last year the Economist Intelligence Unit named Pittsburgh, tied with Cleveland, as the most livable.

So how do we explain the frequent response of "why" when local find out they have a visitor in their midst.

They know why, we don't.

I guess if Pittsburgh were a laundry detergent, the most popular would be the most sold. That's apparently not the case with cities though. It was only a few weeks ago the news came that some sixty thousand people voted with their feet and left Pittsburgh between 2000 and 2006. Had they stayed to see the rankings they might still be here. Despite last year's rankings, folks also left Cleveland.

Maybe they didn't know what they had.

While many are leaving, or dying, others are coming in. I see them all the time in the real estate industry. Folks from California, Maine, Florida, Maryland, New York and elsewhere, in numbers are looking at Pittsburgh. Just because the population numbers are going dowwn, doesn't mean tumbleweeds are going to be blowing along Grant Street. Its just that the number coming in isn't at a point where the tide will turn and result in a net increase yet.

Those coming in know the why of Pittsburgh. It's certainly got a look to it. Streets wind up and down green hillsides the sun rises over three rivers and shines on a cluster of steel and glass skyscrapers. Neighborhood streets and a downtown theater district bustle with activity. Housing is inexpensive and it has some of the best sports teams and cultural institutions in the world.

I stopped by a house on Troy Hill a friend (from Oregon) had bought. They were energetically tearing it apart. "This is great," my friend said. "Thanks." I told them Pittsburgh has a lot of neat stuff, like houses and infrastructure, it just needed more people with some energy.

They know what they have.

It's hard to keep that energy level when you've been here a few months or years, and that's our challenge. Sometimes folks who have been here for years look at the energetic newcomers and shake their heads. They know how it is and their quiet world is interrupted. Sometimes Pittsburghers ask "why" when they should be asking, "why not?"

Hey folks, we gotta believe, we gotta be welcoming, and we gotta change.

Each time I travel I am re-energized about Pittsburgh--I am reminded of the why of Pittsburgh. I'm writing this from Nashville, Tennessee. Its sunny here and the city has a lot of energy. There's no shortage of construction--the number of condos going up in downtown Nashville make the construction in downtown Pittsburgh look pale in comparison. Parts of the downtown are lively and there's a beautiful park along the Cumberland River. Still as I walked along Broadway (Nashville's Broadway), past the concert stage, Tootsie's Orchid Lounge and looked out at the General Jackson paddle boat on the Cumberland, I couldn't help but think experience lacked something compared to what I see leaving Heinz Hall and walk across the Roberto Clemente Bridge towards a late game at PNC Park. Even better are the nights when the symphony runs long and you can hear the boom of fireworks from inside Heinz Hall.

A few blocks from PNC Park and I'm in some of the best neighborhoods in most any city in the country. Row after row of Victorian and even civil-war era townhouses, brick and stone, a beautiful Art-Deco hospital, all surrounding a park bigger, even if less appreciated than Boston Commons. These are features the urban Nashville wannabees can't dream of having.

Just looking at data, all this may not have ever been seen by the folks who named our city most livable once again. Yet we're still #1!.

We don't always see what we have from inside. To us its just Pittsburgh. Its the tunnels and the bridges and the Steelers. Wake up! Pittsburgh really is a livable city, even the most livable city-- more than we could ever expect from a city of its size and cost is here and somehow it gains the recognition as most livable sometimes in spite of ourselves. They know the why of Pittsburgh. We need to rediscover it.

A little more on Allegheny CenterThe urban-renewal experienced by urban America from the 1950s onward is generally accepted today as failed policy. Where once urban streets were closed off to auto traffic and traffic loops and underground garages added, a new paradigm would bring back a street grid. Today “restoring the grid” is an often-heard catch phrase when taking about re-revitalizing urban areas.

Allegheny Center in Pittsburgh is one such place. In the 1960s, the “center” of a city once known as Allegheny was redeveloped. All but a few buildings were removed and replaced by apartment buildings, office towers and a retail mall. Allegheny Center was to be a city within a city.

The street grid was removed from Allegheny. Through-traffic was prohibited, instead directed onto a circle that swept around the center. The center then was a park-like space. Apartment residents and mall residents could access the mall, and keep their cars in lots on the outer-edges of the circle. Those who were not residents of Allegheny Center could access the retail mall either by walking into the park area or by parking in a garage located under the retail mall.

While Allegheny Center today is far from vacant, the city within a city is without retail. Most of that had closed by the early 1990s. By the turn of 21st Century talk began of opening the East-West axis in the center to vehicular traffic. More recently proposals to “restore the grid” have come forth. In the case of Allegheny Center, a full restoration of a grid would mean significant demolition of buildings that are occupied, generally attractive, in good repair and not a half-century old.


Original plans for the City of Allegheny show a checkerboard of sorts of squares placed some distance from the Allegheny River. The layout of Allegheny appeared to be a fresh breath of order in a chaotic landscape, especially when looking across the river to the chaotic street patterns of rival city Pittsburgh.

The center four squares of the thirty-six square grid were reserved for public use and included a park, a space that would come to be occupied by a neo-classical city hall. The idea of public use was strong and one of the squares seemed well-suited to Andrew Carnegie’s desire to construct the first public library in the United States. The fourth square would for many years be occupied by a market house.

In contrast to many of its eastern counterparts and cities along the Ohio River, Allegheny resembled a New England town, complete with a public square and public buildings at the center. It stood in contrast to the chaotic, commercial cities with irregular street grids and commerce and industry as their central focus.

In the 20th Century Allegheny grew to be more like neighboring Pittsburgh. More and more of the squares came to be occupied by commercial buildings and the density increased to the point to where any resemblance to a New England town was lost. Department stores, diners, theaters and other commercial enterprises served the needs of the growing city.

Today when nostalgic talk about “restoring the grid” is uttered, it’s the commercial Allegheny that’s referred to, not the spirit of the original city.

Yet as we see with retail development today, the places it occupies go in and out of fashion. Entering a department store our grandparents might have known is an anomaly. When city planners started looking at Allegheny in the 1950s, many of the stores had become vacant, underutilized and deteriorated. This is a normal process in the retail cycle. Likewise the mall that was to replace the commercial Allegheny Center existed for some decades before its time too had ended. We look at it today as a failure, yet the mall at Allegheny Center lasted longer than many of the strip mall businesses in our suburbs and longer than many of the businesses in our downtown—without the street grid. Its this portion of Allegheny Center that most needs attention rather than the entire complex.

That doesn’t in any way negate the value of the street grid. The parts of the Allegheny City Center grid designers wish to restore today are in fact still in place. The issue is not the grid exactly, but the facilitation of automobile traffic through the grid. Part of the grid is off limits after mall hours (the mall is now an office building) and that is indeed an impediment to the vitality of Allegheny City Center.

A testament to the value of such a grid design with central squares is the fact that remarkably, despite attempts of complete destruction by powerful forces, the central four “public” squares of Allegheny essentially exist today. More it should be added that the original plans for Allegheny did not provide for interior intersecting “streets”. Any sort of vehicle it appears would have had to go around the central four squares in a diamond pattern.

The original Carnegie Library building is still there. While the city hall was demolished when Allegheny was annexed by Pittsburgh, a planetarium was built in its place and now is occupied by the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum. The square that was home to Diamond Park is still a park space, although the current design aesthetics are less than appealing to those with classical sensibilities. Sadly the space formerly occupied by the Market House is now partially occupied by an apartment building, but there is ample green space around the building to preserve some sense of it as a public space. The center of the space is a crossroads for pedestrians visiting the center, from apartment dwellers to visitors to the Children’s Museum, the adjoining New Hazlett Theater and the various office buildings.

Its not so important to "revive" the Allegheny City Center of any specific time period. While the retail portion needs work, it is important to recognize, however that the original Center of Allegheny for a large part is intact. It just needs some refining and reaching for its aesthetic roots.

An article from Bankrate.com has some advice quite a few folks moving to Pittsburgh have taken. If you live in a high-priced market, especially one with dropping prices, get out! Take your equity and run.

"Extra equity is an added benefit to the American dream. You can manage this equity in one of several ways. You can sit on it and hope that the real estate market in your area doesn't tank. You can tap your equity and use it -- generally not a good strategy since you have to pay it back. Or you can cash it out and move to an area where the housing dollar buys more for the buck."

Many who have cashed out ended up with enough equity to pay cash for their new home. A mortgage-free lifestyle is great for those who wanted to have more travel time, create artwork or even start a business.

"A low or nonexistent mortgage also provides lifestyle benefits such as the ability to pursue a hobby, travel or simply the luxury of working less and playing more. Two-income families with children may consider having one parent stay at home."

Pittsburgh isn't the only place where you can buy a home for less, but when my friend asked me the other day what would be my favorite city to live in the U.S., I hesitated responding with New York. "What if you factor in cost?" Then I'd have to answer that what Pittsburgh offers is pretty close to the top. I suppose factoring in cost, that's why I am here.

It’s a curious name, the Shrinking Cities Institute. Kent State University near Akron recently founded this initiative which is expected to address the problems of the minority number of big cities which continue to shrink rather than grow.

As you might have heard, Pittsburgh falls into this category.

A commentary by the Rand Institute’s Barry Balmat and Peter A. Morrison that appeared in the Post-Gazette in 2004 observed that Pittsburgh's population declined nearly 10 percent during the 1990s, in sharp contrast to the 13 percent nationwide population increase. Since 2000, the city's population loss has continued unabated.

That’s just the facts, not the commentary, however. The juice of the story is that it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

We’ll get to the why of that in a bit, but first a little on the thought about what to do with shrinking cities.

Pittsburgh has its problems, and those problems are exemplified in our neighbor, Youngstown, Ohio. Like Pittsburgh over the past half-century Youngstown has been presented with dramatic population loss. Unlike Pittsburgh which had somewhat of a diversified economy, when the steel industry left, the economy left with it. When officials released the Youngstown 2010 Plan (the last plan updated a 1951 plan in 1974) it didn’t cover the usual growth management, rather covering “managing decline.”

Finally, someone says it. The emperor has no clothes. It’s time to “begin drawing the map of a smaller city.”

The movement now barely known as “Shrinking Cities,” started in Germany. It wasn’t the slow decline of the steel industry there, rather the removal of a certain long-standing wall that left many East German cities virtually vacant. It gave Youngstown an idea American cities never had on their own. Why not shrink?

What does that mean exactly? A web page on a “Shrinking Cities” conference at Cleveland State University offered some insight. Shrinking a city could include the demolition or dismantling of under-utilized housing and other building stock, the removal of redundant streets, and downsizing of municipal infrastructure to correspond to declining population.” In Detroit, Saint Louis and other shrinking cities that may mean cutting off services to underutilized areas and giving people there incentives to move out then returning them to nature. In Youngstown that means considering relaxing zoning rules to allow small horse farms or apple orchards and offering incentives for people to move out of abandoned areas.

Is Shrinking something for Pittsburgh to think about? I don’t know the complete answer to that, but I could point out many streets where there are houses you can’t give away. I’ve spent several afternoons on the phone looking for someone to take a free house and have not yet been successful at finding a taker. Do we need so much space for so few people? Can we encourage “clusters” of nice urban areas and leave unused space for wildlife or even farms and orchards?

In Pittsburgh the downtown population is increasing even while the city and region continues to shrink (we’re apparently the only shrinking region these days—in other places only the cities shrink). That means people are moving around inside the region and the underutilized areas are continuing to depopulate. It would be an attractive option in my view to start returning some of these areas to nature.

What Shrinking Cities should not mean, however is a “suburbanization” of the city by tearing down every other house. That’s no more sustainable than a suburb or under-populated city. Cleveland had the right idea when it started to concentrate development in nodes like the Euclid Avenue district. Youngstown has gone a step further with a comprehensive plan for the nodes and the spaces in between with the goal of improving the sustainability and quality of life.

Back to the Rand Institute commentary mentioned at the beginning. Pittsburgh shrinking leads optimists to project a shortage of as many as 125,000 workers in metropolitan Pittsburgh as early as 2008. “What's noteworthy is that Pittsburgh's unfolding demographic future does contain opportunities.” Could that mean we will need the empty houses?

If we start eliminating homes there will be fewer and any economist will tell you smaller supply means more demand and higher prices. On the other hand, The Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania estimates there are approximately 18,000 vacant properties and land in the City of Pittsburgh, about 11.5% of the total housing units. If we start now to reclaim some of the land by “shrinking,” it would take quite some time to get to a small portion of the 18,000 houses.

Shrinking isn’t necessarily a solution, but could prove to be a practical and attractive component in preparing Pittsburgh for a new era as a smaller city.

Changing demographics and preferences may come to favor North City housing in the coming years. Smaller household size, rising gas prices and highway congestion may all add up to an increased popularity of urban housing that’s in close proximity to what the city has to offer. Along with these trends is another emerging factor, more and more workers can go where they want independent of employment.

A recent survey by a group called CEOs for Cities found that two-thirds of highly mobile 25- to 34-year-olds with college degrees say that they will decide where they live first then look for a job.

Two-thirds of them choose place before job, and this preference was true across all life stages and genders (male, female, single, married, with children, without children). Women place greater emphasis on the location decision than do men, although a majority of men also say they choose place before job.

That’s not only important in terms of attracting people, but also in attracting companies who often base location decisions on where employees want to live. More, technology advances allow workers to stay connected from almost anywhere and employees are less loyal to companies, allowing them to move.

It’s critically important now that we build and work to meet these trends. A city’s best chance to attract these workers, the report said, is to focus on the most mobile of the group, those 25 to 34 years old.

Are our neighborhoods prepared to meet this demand? In some ways the answer is clearly yes. In others, there’s work to do.

For one segment of the population, we won’t have to do anything. It’s not hard to find people out there in other cities who want to live in Pittsburgh, if only they had a job. As employment becomes more mobile, it’s logical a portion will gravitate to Pittsburgh. The survey indicated young adults have a strong inclination to live downtown or close to downtown. That in itself would seem to favor our neighborhoods, especially Deutschtown, the Mexican War Streets and Allegheny West.

More, these young, mobile workers want a place that feels welcoming, offers professional opportunities, has reasonable commute times, access to excellent schools, is a great place to raise children, is a place people are proud to say they live in were among attributes young people looked for in a city.

On most of these counts I think we do fairly well. However, I was discussing the topic of “Pittsburgh Pride” with my marketing guru of a sister. She mentioned research that suggests the image of the city fluctuates significantly with the performance of sports teams. This is of course good when the Steelers are winning, however I’m not alone in recounting the times a Pittsburgh visitor has been asked “why?” as the first question from a local. I’ve lived in a number of cities and I’m here to say a large segment of Pittsburgh has no idea what it has: a beautiful, affordable metropolitan city with world-class architecture, art and culture art and as icing, great sports teams. If we don’t know why, we should have left a long time ago!

Self-image not the only area I see as needing improvement, however.
Te study also found that basic quality of life issues safe, clean streets and neighborhoods, can afford to buy a home, lots of parks and green space) ranked highest among attributes that young people looked for in a city. We don’t do bad on crime or green space, but general maintenance and cleaning could probably be improved. I recently created and posted a video on YouTube.com (search for newcolonist) of a walk up some of our city steps and walkways. The weeds were enough to scare off any visitor or potential resident. If we don’t care, why would anyone else? If a neighborhood looks nice, it is nice in a visitors mind.

Lifestyle attributes are also important to this demographic. “They prefer places where they can connect with others and have meaningful social interactions; that are interesting and diverse; and are environmentally responsible,” the survey found.

The most diverse parts of our city are the college areas of Shadyside and Oakland.

We may have an instinctual reaction that tells us college students are not interested in the Northside. We fail to realize the potential of significant transportation links to not only Oakland, but South Side, the Strip and Bloomfield.

The 500 and the 54c buses provide direct links to the Pitt Campus and a short walk
downtown can allow access many more routes.

Finally, and perhaps the most critical factor, “knowledge of city attributes is limited.” Young adults rely most heavily on personal stories from friends and family to form their perceptions about a place. They also use the Internet and personal visits to shape their opinions.

The internet presence of our neighborhoods is limited at best, leaving out perhaps the most important tool we have to attract the attention of this demographic segment. We can build all we want, but unless we tell them what’s here and why it’s great, they’ll never know.

New urbanist principles would have it that you can get everything you need within a five-minute walk. Most of Pittsburgh's city neighborhoods would not currently fall into this category. The exceptions of course are the city's most popular neighborhoods including Squirrel Hill and to a lesser extent Shadyside. Downtown seems to be quickly progressing to this level as well, however.


The developments on the North Shore, at least West of Federal Street are not shaping up this way. Many times housing has been mentioned as part of the mix, and all the proposed developments are certainly exciting, but housing hasn't played into the mix since the Heinz Lofts and Lincoln at the North Shore. That's unless you count Hotels as housing, which you really can't because the vacancy rates fluxuate with events limiting the extent to which we can achieve 24-hour neighborhoods.


Post-Gazette article on North Shore developments.

An engaging conversation can be found in the archives on the East Allegheny Yahoo group about zoning (and libertarianism). I'd like add at this point that that in some cities (San Francisco comes to mind) zoning is used (intently or indirectly) to make landowners rich by controlling and restricting development. This keeps prices high and favors those who got in early. It seriously restricts the market and hinders its functioning. The larger issue I have with zoning however is that it encourages a car-oriented society just as the construction of highways does.

James Howard Kunstler is a good resource on this and I'll summarize his points here (all quoted from article linked below):

• For the previous 300-odd years of American history we didn't have zoning laws.


• If you want to make your community better, begin at once by throwing out your zoning laws. Don't revise them -- get rid of them.


• Replace these things with a traditional town-planning ordinance that prescribes a more desirable everyday environment.


• After the Second World War zoning began to overshadow all the historic elements of civic art and civic life.


• Shopping was declared an obnoxious industrial activity around which people shouldn't be allowed to live. This tended to destroy age-old physical relationships between shopping and living, as embodied, say, in Main Street.


• What zoning produces is suburban sprawl.


• The model of the human habitat dictated by zoning is a formless, soul-less, centerless, demoralizing mess.
  
  Here's Kunstler's article

Pittsburgh transit riders are upset. PAT, the agency that runs the bus and light-rail system, is out of money and proposes to cut almost half the routes. Some of these routes connect two of the three biggest trip generators in the state, downtown Pittsburgh and Oakland.

It was less than two years ago that Mayoral hopeful Bob O’Connor, unveiling his first major economic proposal, suggested building a new streetcar line connecting downtown and Oakland.

Today it’s a different world-view. The cuts proposed by PAT threaten to confuse if not strand riders who have few options to get to their destination, must add considerable time to their trips or face parking in places with limited parking and less than affordable parking rates.

Changing bus routes also impacts development and the viability of neighborhoods. The 500 for example provides direct access from North neighborhoods like Bellevue and Brighton Heights to Oakland and downtown. Those neighborhoods are not as attractive without that route.

This gets back to the basics of transit. Once the spine of American cities, our web of streetcar systems has been replaced over the past fifty years with a system of buses. These buses can easily be rerouted or cut entirely. They don’t require any capital investment other than the bus itself. Streetcar systems on the other hand require significant capital investment, but once in place they provide cost-savings, but more importantly transit that can not only be relied on by riders, but by developers, businesses and homeowners who can with much reassurance know that the transit line is likely to be there and running indefinitely into the future.

Mayor O’Connor was right. It’s time to look downtown again and time to look at streetcars again. It’s time to find dedicated funding for transit and time to make transit systems a permanent part of our cities, so cities can be built around them.
It’s also time for Pittsburghers to begin asking “Who can rely on the bus?”

The first time I saw a Katrina Cottage I thought "wow, that would look great on Spring Hill." Spring Hill is a neighborhood in Pittsburgh that has many "shotgun shack" type houses on the sides of the hill where mill workers and others once lived. These were built in the Victorian era and often had ornamentation not unlike the painted ladies in San Francisco.

I also can't help but think that the same folks who want small condos and apartments might be persuaded to have an apartment with a little lawn otherwise known as a Katrina Cottage.



An article from a Congress for a New Urbanism explains: "Quality small-scale housing represented by Katrina Cottages is a much-needed alternative in communities determined to address affordability issues without downgrading the architectural character of neighborhoods. Together, these cottages can work as clusters and bungalow courts that can enrich old and new neighborhoods and provide safe, affordable housing for people who might not qualify for quality architecture in larger scale. Yet conventional zoning often precludes this alternative because of setback, lot size, and other restrictions that force only larger homes on larger lots."

I still have images of little Victorians lining Pittsburgh stairways with landscaped edging that would make for a great place to live and walk and really help redefine Pittsburgh as a walking city. Its hard for a city with Pittsburgh's geography to be a walking city, but hey, how many people walk all over Telegraph Hill? Is Fineview or Spring Hill so different? Not at all. A few flowers and some Katrina Cottages and our stairways would be a better, even great place to walk.

Jerry Brown wanted to liven up the streets of Oakland and had to find a way to measure success. Brown, the former governor of California, was elected to the job of Mayor of Oakland (the city across the bay from San Francisco, not the place where you go on the 500 just in case there's confusion), came up with the "Starbucks Scale." At that point Oakland already had a Starbucks, a milepost in itself. The "Starbucks Scale" would use the number of hours that the coffee shop stayed open as a measure of the city's vitality. The longer Starbucks brewed, the better things would have gotten.

A few years back when Seattle's Best opened in PNC Park, I thought I would start to keep track. There wasn't much to track. If Seattle's Best was to be used as a measure of the North Shore's vitality, it soon added ice cream to become a confusing mix of hot and cold then joined the ranks of what used to be. Since then the North Shore has come along, and there may be a day on the horizon where there's brew available there to measure vitality, but for now, no java.

If coffee is a good measure, the area North of the expressway is actually ahead of the game. There's still no Starbucks (I just heard two locations were opening in Altoona soon and I never thought they'd have one first), but there are several coffee shops. The Vault (Brighton Heights) was first, followed by Charles Street Cafe, Beleza (War Streets) and most recently by Amani (East Allegheny). There are other places here to get coffee including the Priory Pastries, Cool Beans in Allegheny Center, the coffee cart in Allegheny General and in fairness to the North Shore, the Andy Warhol Museum Cafe. If hours are also a measure, Beleza has added more since opening this summer.

But what's so important about a coffee shop that it can be used as a measure of vitality anyway?

Coffee shops are something academics like to call "third places." The number three is attached as they follow the first place of home and the second place of work. Like cities, they are places where people go to interact and where ideas are likely to come together.

Sometimes those ideas focus on art, sometimes politics and sometimes business but in all cases they become a center for these areas. Writer Jack London lived in Oakland, CA and apparently liked coffee shops, but may not be so happy about Brown's use of the corporate green to measure his city's energy.

A socialist at the age of twenty, if London were alive today he might not be hanging out in his square. In fact, London ran unsuccessfully as the high-profile Socialist nominee for mayor of Oakland in 1901 (receiving 245 votes) and 1905 (improving to 981 votes), toured the country lecturing on socialism in 1906, and published collections of essays on socialism ( The War of the Classes, 1905; Revolution, and other Essays, 1910).

The first record of a public place serving coffee dates back to 1475 Constantinople. Apparently at that time it was legal in Turkey for a woman to divorce her husband if he could not supply her with enough coffee. Misbehaving in coffee shops was also punishable by death.

Chalk one up to Starbucks, politics aside, sometimes coffee is all about business. The Turks, filled with ideas, imported theirs to a few European countries including England where a small coffee shop run by Edward Lloyd in 1668 was such a business hub, it eventually became the still-operating Lloyd's of London insurance company.

In the American colonies the coffee house was also a hub for the business (and revolution). While we may have thrown the tea back to England, the coffee was here to stay. Business and coffee are so intertwined that the original location of the New York Stock exchange was the Tonine Coffee House. The earliest coffeehouses, in New Orleans were known as 'exchanges' where bankers and importers would meet to share information and ideas to further economic development. All this before anyone heard of Seattle of Starbucks.

Yet, the original "coffee houses" were similar to those today - a gathering place for conversation, entertainment and the exchange of ideas. Coffee houses may now prove of equal importance and purpose in North City neighborhoods, becoming gathering places for artists, business people and those with political ideas and ambitions. Since the opening of Amani I have met several neighbors I knew of only as names in email groups and met others to talk about business or ideas.

Many trace the start of change on the South Side to the opening of the Beehive Coffee House, which still retains its title as the city's best and most important social center. Once opened 24-hours any vitality meter would have gone off the scale. I can't help but think with the rise of North City coffee culture there's more brewing than beans. Here as elsewhere, coffee is bringing people and ideas together and that more often than not that results in art, politics and business.

To that point, Jerry brown is right, the longer the coffee brews, the better off we'll be.

this article previously appeared in the Northside Chronicle

In response to reader comments on the Pittsburgh art scene, the scene here is alive and well. The affordability factor of Pittsburgh enables creative types to be able to live as working artists here, sometimes starving, but just as often thriving. Pittsburgh is home to many well-respected and internationally-known working artists. Pittsburgh is home to the Warhol Museum, but perhaps more importantly the Mattress Factory, a world famous destination for installation art. Andy Warhol left Pittsburgh for New York, but if he were alive today he may not be so quick to split. Pittsburgh is also a city of asylum for artists unable to work in their home countries. There's no shortage of things happening for artists and art afficianados either. From the Garfield Glass Works to galleries on the South Side and on Penn Avenue--its just amazing what you can find and the calibur of art you find. On many Fridays I walk downtown to the symphony and take in the art walk activities in the Cultural District. I also understand space for shows and work space are both very affordable, especially the former. Need I mention Pittsburgh is also home to the Carnegie Museum of Art and a short drive from most of the great Art Museums in the U.S. including the National Gallery, Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Met and more. The Cleveland Museum of Art is very close and comes close to surpassing anything available on the West Coast.

It looks like condo sales to boomers in New Jersey have been slower than expected? Why? Because they can't sell their single-family homes. In what looks more and more like the reverse of the suburban movement in the 1950s, the urban lifestyle continues to increase in its popularity. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal even has McMansion builder Toll Brothers following the affluent from suburbia to city. You might also recall the recent Brookings Institution report that finds just as many poor live in the suburbs as in the city at this point in time.

That's great for cities of course, but what's to become of all the suburban houses? Robert Toll is quoted in the WSJ article as saying he doesn't foresee the shift amounting to more than ten or fifteen percent. That's predictably less than the urban to suburban movement of earlier years, enough to lessen or eliminate the onslaught of articles about suburban sprawl.

More Toll didn't think the trend would spread from Manhattan to downtown Detroit anytime soon and he didn't think it was happening because folks were tiring of long commutes. Perhaps a busier lifestyle, an increase in single or two person households and a sense of being disconnected are driving the trend. City life is more attainable where there is the vibrant city to be in. Building vibrancy from scratch is much more difficult than adding some condos to the mix.

More, increasing numbers of immigrants who don't fancy suburban life is helping. Here in Pittsburgh sales of downtown condos have been robust and more developments including a number of rental units are planned or underway.

So, I still didn't answer the question, what's to become of the suburban houses even if we're only talking about ten or fifteen percent? The answer is unclear. One possible answer is "the same thing that happened to the urban houses when the more affluent moved to the suburbs--the price will drop and they will become more affordable to those displaced by the move of the more affluent to the city." This of course reverses the transportation problem for lower-wage workers who might now live in the city and travel to a mall or airport for employment. Still at the same time it could increase the quality of housing available to lower-wage workers.

That's not likely to be the entire picture we see however. The population today is rising at a faster rate than in the 1950s, creating more demand for housing in general. Theoretically, a fifteen percent increase in population could offset a fifteen percent population loss in the suburbs (unless the increase in urban residents exceed that). Also working against the suburbs, the city is a mixed-use environment by its nature. Unlike the suburbs, its easy to build rental units near for-sale condos in the city, rental units that are more affordable and attractive to lower-wage workers. If the city boom continues, there will be more of a push to develop a wider circle around downtowns, creating and improving other urban housing. It may also bring about the conversion of other city housing from multi-units to single-family units as those who enjoy the single-family home lifestyle look for it closer to the city.

This may to some degree bring about the conversion of suburban homes into multi-family units, but that is likely restricted by municipal ordinances. Failure of suburban homes to sell could result in pressure to change these ordinances to allow owners to receive rental income if they can't sell their homes. This could result in a more dramatic suburban value loss. Trends are in no way clear enough to make any such prediction, however. Today even while we see an urban boom, suburbs remain extremely popular with certain population segments. How far the branch grows from the tree remains to be seen.