I recently wrote an article for the Northside Chronicle about pre-industrial Pittsburgh. In it I imagined that if our existing population lived in the physical pre-industrial Pittsburgh we might fit better. This was perhaps the second or third time I had thought about shrinking cities physically when the population shrinks.

Today I was alerted to a USA Today article from another web site. The article, published last December is titled (link) As older cities shrink, some reinvent themselves. Among the cities mentioned are Cleveland, Detroit and Richmond.

I have mixed feelings about the idea, which may be the subconscious reason why I hadn't more fully explored the idea when it sparked before. In the pre-industrial Pittsburgh article the notion was mostly romantic as I was imagining Neo-classical farm houses fronting green fields where decaying Victorian-era houses now stand.

To some degree these decaying, or at least in less than ideal condition homes, are a burden. To some degree they are an opportunity. Pittsburgh's population is older if not still aging. The youthful energy needed to rehabilitate these homes is just not there. The population to fill these homes might not be there anytime soon either. For sure it would seem there is a trend toward urban living, but the new urbanites populating our cities seem to want condos more than single-family homes.

Still, if one thing is certain it is change. When the condos are full, some of the condo owners will certainly yearn for a bit more space and these hillside homes, some with views, may call out. I've recently watched several neighborhoods be flushed of these ultra-cheap homes as they are repaired and lived in.

Higher gas prices and other factors may also serve to create new demand for these homes in the future. Plus, too many houses helps keep prices low, and opportunities such as these, perhaps coupled with incentives, are just what's needed to attract more youth and immigrant energy to our city. Bulldozing houses and replacing them with green space will raise the prices, lower density, decrease efficiency and create a "suburbanization" of urban America. Do we really want that? Is it good for our cities or their populations?

Of course, this may be a dumb way as opposed to a smart way. I'd like to hear details about a smart way that can preserve density, efficiency and affordability, but my guess is that's not easy if at all possible.

It's nice to think of the romantic side of a pre-industrial, smaller, simpler city, but then that wouldn't be as much of a city, would it?

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

The market in Pittsburgh is expected to increase 3.3 percent in 2007. This is assuring and predictible as Pittsburgh has long been known as a stable market more immune to dramatic shifts in price seen in Boston, San Jose and other markets. Fortune Maganize has some details on what cities are expected to gain and lose in 2007.

I've been keeping an eye on "Cleveland's equivalent of Allegheny City" for some time now. I was in the Ohio City neighborhood just yesterday and on each trip it seems to improve significantly. Ohio City is like Allegheny City in terms of having been a seperate city, in that both areas have a collection of historic homes and both have, or in the case of Ohio City had a struggling commercial district.

Today I found I could buy a Cuban Sandwich, artifacts from Thailand, furniture (at real prices, not the kind you rent) and the widest possible array of meats and vegetables. The meats and vegetables category was available before, as Ohio City is home to Cleveland's market house. (It also appears a Target store is opening as an employment center has set up in a storefront on the main street).

The housing stock in Ohio City has nothing on Allegheny City, however. What they do have has been nicely restored and a variety of infill housing that actually seems to represent a higher-density building model than the existing housing is cropping up. There's even a variety of stores mixed in with the housing on the back streets, including a Sushi restaurant.

Ohio City, like Allegheny City is in close proximity to downtown and residents of both locals can walk there. Unlike Allegheny City, Ohio City has a rapid transit station that allows convenient access when its not nice enough to walk, or if you can't walk. Allegheny City will have this in a few years as well, but it won't come close to residential parts of the area, unfortunately.

Ohio City also has a large, modern grocery store called Dave's if one was needed in addition to the wonderful market house.

If you've never been to Ohio City, make a point to visit. Here's a short slide show of some Ohio City and Cleveland photos...

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.

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.

Before I moved back to Pittsburgh from San Fran, I traveled back and forth. There were two solid houses with panoramic views on Dunloe Street that were somehwhat deteriorated. The council was looking for someone to rehab them. I told some friends in CA about them and one or more came in to see them. No one bought them in the end and they were demolished. One friend tried to buy a house from the city but was told he was not eligible because he never paid taxes to the city. Go figure. I am telling this because more houses are demolished from neglect than are saved by young people with energy. A $120,000 house that one can move into will spend less time on the market than a $5K house that needs everything. I'd venture the same is true for a $50,000 house that needs some things.

Luckily we have a market and many people have spent a good portion of their lives fixing up houses in the War Streets and elsewhere. It has been a labor of love--love of old houses, love of community, and well many just can't stand to see the city they grew up in (or moved to) deteriorating. Today we're pretty far along and what some would call "gentrification" is part of a national trend in American cities to see the core come alive again. Gentrification or not this is a good trend in the sense that every urban house represents one less being built on a former Cranberry farm. City living is good for the environment and good for humanity because people of diverse backgrounds --and incomes--actually meet each other on the street. Many are out there working hard to imporve access to quality affordable housing as this trend progresses.

Of course the more people who want to live in great city neighborhoods like Central Northside, the more expensive houses there will become. The $5K house market is especially limited--there is absolutely no way to increase the supply!!! As I mentioned before, few people with jobs want to rehab a house. Some do it for a living and they make money from it--good. Otherwise some of these homes would end up being razed--and guess what, every house that's razed reduces the supply and pushes prices further upward.

Luckily we live in Pittsburgh where people have been leaving for 50 years. While the supply of homes for rehab, or just inexpensive homes may be dwindling on the flats, there are plenty on the Hills, as well as Sharpsburg, Wilkinsburg, Millvale, etc (and even Marshall-Shadeland which is still relatively flat and close).

There's an old house, actually a pair of them, that sit along Rt 28 near the Heinz Factory. They are likely some of the oldest homes in Pittsburgh. I currently have some friends and community stakeholders engaged in discussions about saving them. If you'd like to be kept up to date or know anything about these homes, please join the discussion group on yahoo groups. Just go to this link and click on JOIN.

I also recently wrote an article about pre-industrial buildings in Pittsburgh. It's posted at legnth at The New Colonist. Check it out.

The topic of this post is gentrification. A reader had sent an email to the TNC (The New Colonist) Pittsburgh email group asserting that I was a proponent of gentrification. That's been a hot button topic in urban situations for some time. It's also a hard one to get a handle on.

First, you can't stop a neighborhood from changing. It either gets better or falls apart.

We'd all like neighborhoods to be cheap and cool forever, but that's not reality anywhere. (Name one that has been cheap and cool for more than a decade or so!) Urban neighborhoods stay cheap and cool for a while until the houses start falling down or the crime rises beyond the tolerable level for most people. Or in the other direction, it becomes unaffordable, or at least living in a big space becomes unaffordable so we'd have to change our lifestyle to live there. Sometimes people move into an urban area in the second half of a "gentrification" process and then scream that they don't want gentrification, which really means "more gentrification," ie "post me" gentrification.

Originally the focus of preservation, the Mexican War Streets neighborhood for instance has been in a slow general upswing since the 1970s. Like other North City neighborhoods it would seem now (and now is not the first time) the neighborhood could become really popular really fast.

This is not only the result of people coming in and gentrifying the place. It's a result of changing demographics, high gas prices, longer working hours and other factors that are making urban neighborhoods more attractive. Since the movement started with preservation, preservation is also to "blame" for gentrification. Preservation costs money and so naturally, barring subsidies, leads to some degree of gentrification. If that process had not begun in the 1970s, it's likely much of the War Streets would have been demolished as the buildings would have deteriorated to a point of being unsafe.

This process is not exclusive to urban neighborhoods either. Many suburbs today are faced with "monster houses" being built where small post-war homes used to stand.

Urban areas are unique in their potential to preserve diversity and bring together people from a variety of backgrounds, economic levels and interests. In fact, many urban neighborhoods consist of primarily wealthy minorities and working class whites. Even if an area reaches the highest level of "gentrification" (think Shadyside), there are still a mix of races and incomes because there are apartments of all sizes, condos and small houses (sometimes alley houses) mixed in with the larger townhomes. (so if you've recently moved into an urban area and want gentrification to stop, make sure you work to save the small alley houses rather than make parking places. Developing apartments and condos in addition to single-family homes can also help.

This issue came up back in the late '90s when I started "the New Colonist" with Rick Risemberg. "New Colonist" represents a return to urbanism from suburban-style
living. City living is good because:

1. It's healthier (walking)
2. Economic integration is good
3. It's easier on the planet
4. It has a unique ability to foster diverse, virbrant neighborhoods.

Bob O'Connor did a lot for Pittsburgh during his short service as mayor. We saw in him a man who believed in Pittsburgh. He gave us the confidence to believe in it again too. He loved Pittsburgh. We saw that and so remembered Pittsburgh as a city worthy of love. To those who would dare ask "why Pittsburgh?" O'Connor might ask "why not sooner?"

It might seem today that Mayor O'Connor was an unucky man. To borrow from "Meet me in Saint Louis," it would seem to be an early stroke of luck to be born in his favorite city. More than that, Bob O'Connor wanted to be mayor of his favorite city and became mayor of that city. During those few short months it was a city at its best. The Steelers won and Pittsburgh cheered. Bob O'Connor cheered with us.

It was just before the world came to watch the All-Star game when the city looked its best that the dark cloud started to form. It's hard to believe such a bright star could fade so fast. But here we are. It's hard to see much light today, but in coming days I hope we can go forward with the energy and optimism of our great mayor who didn't so much energize us as show us the good in our selves.

When homebuyers come to Pittsburgh and search for a city home, they more often than not look to the areas with strong retail districts, primarily Squirrel Hill and Shadyside, and to a lesser degree South Side, then come to North City neighborhoods because of price. To get over our next hurdle to become a primary destination for homeowners, we have to have that strong retail in place.

If all of the businesses I have heard are coming actually open, we may be well on our way there. A new and rather large coffee shop is planned for the West Deutschtown section of East Allegheny. Nearby the former James Street may reopen as a Bistro. In the Mexican War Streets, home of the new and successful Beleza Coffee House, a cafe and book store are planned for Monterey Street. True, an upscale bar on Western Avenue recently re-opened as Nuance.

Even more out of the way neighborhoods like Charles Street Valley and Brighton Heights have seen the addition of coffee shops in recent years. On the shores, the Heinz Lofts Cafe and the Andy Warhol Cafe add lunch stops and a plethra of new restaurants are planned for the North Shore (it pains see to see that Soho bar in the new Marriot hotel, however. I expect a Caribou or Starbucks could open somewhere on the North Shore or in the new condo building on Fort Duquesne Boulevard).

Talk is also filling message boards about a potential food co-op coming to one of the flats neighborhoods. The prime choice may be the War Streets, but potential commercial locations may send them to East Allegheny or Brighton Road.

Interestingly, most of the new retail developments are not coming to the three main retail districts in the North City, East Ohio Street, Federal/North and Western Avenue (If you count North Shore, that has quickly become the main business district in North City.

The North Avenue business district of course has been boarded up and locked up in court for more than a decade. The remaining part of the Federal Street district continues to survive and should be helped by new housing (planned but eternally delayed) for the area and a potential new library. Western Avenue struggles along (quite a few retail buildings are now for sale, so change could come fast) and East Ohio Street continues to change at a snails pace.

Perhaps the prime retail district, East Ohio Street has become the target of efforts by the Northside Leadership Conference. Some new businesses and renovations have come in recently, including Priory Pasteries, a Cricket store and a dollar store. The street also has a colection of long-time businesses to build on. Some buldings are for sale and others are held by speculators or remain in poor condition.

The new retail additions are a welcome event that could make great strides in terms of changing the attractiveness of North City as a great place to live. The real task will come later-- to continue construction of North City retail and bring it to the three main retail districts.

New Census data had some colorful light to shed on our demographic situation.

Pittsburgh is still losing people, that's the bad news, but...

"The city of Pittsburgh's share of new residents, about 4 percent, was in the middle of the pack of 198 U.S. cities, higher than New York, Los Angeles, Chicago -- and Cleveland, where new residents make up a paltry 1 percent of the city's population," reports the Trib.

Hello? We have more new residents as a percentage than New York and LA???? If it's accurate, it's big big news.

Also, the data shows Pittsburgh's small Hispanic population is growing--about 12 percent of Hispanics in the city last year lived outside of Pennsylvania the year before.

In other good news, the Post-Gazette says "Pittsburgh has cracked a national business publication's top 10 U.S. metropolitan areas as a potential site for companies looking to expand or relocate.

The bimonthly magazine Expansion Management ranked the region ninth among 362 metro areas in its fourth annual list of the best places to locate a company."

We now rank with such hot spots as Austin and Seattle!

If you read any national newspaper you undoubtedly know the housing market is cooling off. If you live in Cranberry, your story is no different. However Western Pennsylvania in general and Allegheny County in particular are faring much better.

According to a recent Tribune-Review article, there has been a surge of about 40 percent in housing permits issued in Allegheny County, and a 27 percent decline in permits in Butler County, where Cranberry has seen its total slip to about 31 single-family units, from about 76 single-family units a year ago.

It wouldn't suprise me if a micro-look at other housing markets revealed similar trends. Gas prices are up, households are smaller and more and more of us are tired of the traffic and commuting. A video on ABCNews.com web site reveals the monster houses are falling hardest.

If you're afraid of the big bad bubble, look for reasonably sized urban homes.

Pre-industrial Pittsburgh is hard to imagine. In fact, it's almost as hard as getting the world to realize we're in post-indutsrial Pittsburgh. We still celebrate our industrial heritage. Smokestack's line the parking lot by the Homestead Waterfront. The U.S. Steel Building still dominates our skyline. Our Steelers, by winning the Superbowl, reminded the world "Pittsburgh" and "Steel" are forever linked.

There is a certain beauty to industry. The smoke, the fire, the molten liquid and the I-beams that now hold up the Empire State Building and the Golden Gate Bridge. Those are pieces of Pittsburgh and they can never be forgotten or removed from our memory.

Yet there is a pre-industrial Pittsburgh that remains to be rediscovered. Before railroads, there were canals, before canals there were trails. Before smoke filled the skies there was clean air and a natural beauty that brought artists here to capture.

We may not notice them, but there are remains and reminders of a pre-industrial era around us. One is a street on Spring Hill named "Hetzel." It's named for the family of "Scalp Level" landscape painter George Hetzel. Today Hetzel's work is well represented by the Westmoreland Museum of Art in Greensburg.

George Hetzel was born in France, but would leave his mark by painting Western Pennsylvania. He lived in Allegheny City and traveled to Johnstown to paint the landscape, long before Steel came to likewise define that city.

If you look closely you may find some buildings that existed in the pre-industrial days of Pittsburgh. Many are found in East Deutschtown, then a German community in the City of Allegheny. Although Hetzel claimed to be French, German was the family's native language (Another claim to Germany, he studied at the Dusseldorf Art Academy).

One such pre-industrial Pittsburgh building is the Block House at the Point. It's unlikely many noticed it in those days, however, and a miracle it survived. Many buildings built during Hetzel's life he may have actually visited also remain standing. Many of these are threatened by years of neglect.

This has been owned for years by PennDot with long-ago dismissed plans of building a 28-279 connector.

Today we're continually faced with the option of embracing our industrial past or rejecting it. Pittsburgh is emerging as a very different post-indutsrial city, yet the Pittsburgh of tomorrow may be able to embrace the natural beauty of our landscape as much as the steel might of our more recent past. So little of pre-industrial Pittsburgh remains to be preserved, however, and what is left isn't well prepared for the future. Even in the City of Allegheny, outside of a few homes on Spring Hill (which don't need preserving), there's little beyond East Deutschtown George Hetzel would recognize. We need to save East Deutschtown before only structures from the age of steel are left to define the history of our city.

My sister told me about an article over the weekend. It's one of the most exciting statements about Pittsburgh I've heard in a long time. The Clark Building (downtown) was recently sold for $22 million. The buyer isn't looking at conversions to housing as many have been looking at in downtown recently. No, the Clark building was bought with a look forward to new industry that could rival the age of steel and put Pittsburgh in a new category. Here's a quote from the Pittsburgh Business Times article:

"Gorman said he's bullish on Pittsburgh because of the high-tech companies coming out of Carnegie Mellon University.

'I believe that Pittsburgh is going to be the center for artificial intelligence and robotics. Within 10 years, that will be one of the biggest businesses in the world," Gorman said. "Pittsburgh will be to artificial intelligence what Silicon Valley is to chips.'" Link to article

In the past few months we seem to have really increased our momentum here in Pittsburgh.

I think this is the first day of "All-Star" week and I'm not sure how good of a start we're having. This is a big day for Bob the Mayor and I'm sure it could've beenone of the highlights of his life to cut the ribbon opening the ceremonies, but instead, he's in the hospital. I also remember reading several new restaurants would be open on the North Shore in time for the week, but I suspect they're not going to make it.

Oh well, on July 4th I noticed the banners on the Roberto Clemente Bridge. They look great, and Pittsburgh has been looking better all the time. I don't imagine the mayor's cough or the fact that visitors can't go to a restaurant they didn't know existed will matter much.


I also had my first real visit to the new Schenley Plaza. I remember this was kind of pushed through by former Mayor Tom--with great results whatever your view on the politics. It's amazing how this wonderful plaza could have been a parking lot for so long.

Finally, I'd like to comment on my favorite topic, the Garden Theater block. For years I have been advocating selling off the buildings individually to private developers. For more than a decade the URA has been holding the buildings for development at the time the last is acquired. The last of course is the Garden Theater and it's still a hold-out. Well, at this time the largest of the buildings, the Masonic temple is advertised on the URA web site as available. This could be the beginning of something really good.

North City fared well in a recent magazine article about neighborhoods. Pittsburgh Magazine recently re-emphasized the affordability factor and noted that Pittsburghers want a bargain. Northside is one place homeseekers can find such a bargain. (The magazine defines that bargain as a home for less than $75,000).

What else to homebuyers want? An easy commute, a coffee shop and good shopping. No suprise here. My customers ask for the same things.

Brighton Heights won the most prominent spot among North City neighborhoods in the article with the median home price hitting that bargain barometer at $75,000. I also suspect it may not have made the magazines list if it wasn't for The Vault, a coffee shop on California Avenue.

I don't think it's the coffee shop itself that many homebuyers want, as the article infers, it's the "third-places" where people can connect with neighbors.

Brighton Heights also offers some shopping opportunities with a modern, full-scale pharmacy, butcher shop and other stores. North City neighborhoods may benefit in the future as both downtown shopping improves, and perhaps more importantly (and perhaps at the expense of downtown) Ross Park Mall solidifies its position as the regions premeir shopping mall.

Observatory Hill was mentioned in a sidebar labled "Seven Neighborhoods On The Rise." A lack of immediate shopping options or a coffee shop, I suspect kept it from making the main article. East Allegheny was also mentioned in the seven, although the median price listed of $33,000 is first unrealistic and second could actually scare away lookers. Those familiar with East Allegheny know the bargains are on the East side of the highway. Neighborhood group feuds (along with the highway) have in some minds created two neighborhoods (although with only 800 or so residents I can't imagine the benefits of an even smaller city neighborhood(s).)

What do we draw from this? Things are getting better and people are noticing. More, we know where we need to build, coffee and shopping. Read The Article