PITTSBURGH | Development Rundown II

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Related to this, I've been arguing for awhile that I think Pittsburgh's zoning code should be amended to basically preclude the subdivision of any old residential structures, but to allow a very free hand in building new apartment buildings. I see no reason why having an area zoned R3-M should simultaneously allow for the subdivision of existing housing into three units, as well as the construction of new three-unit flats.

Seems like a good idea to me!

As long as health insurance is tied to jobs, there is going to be big resistance by employers to shortening the work week

It really should not be tied to jobs. The notion that employers are necessary and effective purchasers of health insurance for their employees is no longer valid, and otherwise putting them in that role causes way more trouble than it is worth.

To be clear, I wasn't talking about urban demand in general, I was talking about student demand in particular. Student demand should be somewhat limited, because it is based upon enrollment, which is increasing over time, but doesn't build upon itself organically.

That is a helpful clarification, but I am not sure it matters much to the greater picture I described. Concentrating just students in Oakland would not suffice to end the need for direct historic preservation efforts throughout the East End as non-students are supplying a lot of that demand. Meanwhile, students can and do support amenities and jobs which can induce demand elsewhere nearby even among non-students. I understand that the subdivision of homes specifically might be a little less common if there was more inexpensive student-focused housing being built in general, but that is not a point limited to Oakland.

But speaking from an urban planning perspective, the best commute is a walking commute, and to the extent we can put dense rental housing aimed at students within reasonable walking distance of Pitt's campus, that's better than putting it in Baum-Center corridor towards East Liberty/.

Biking commutes are good too, of course.

That said, I recognize there is a valid issue here, but it isn't that destroying historic homes in Oakland or its most immediate surroundings (call that Greater Oakland) will lead to more historic preservation elsewhere. Rather, it is that destroying historic homes in Greater Oakland might serve the different value of allowing more students to have a walking commute. But if that is the argument, then we must make sure destroying the historic homes is actually necessary to that end. Which I would suggest is not really the case, because there are still a large number of surface parking lots, lots with low intensity uses like standalone fast food restaurants, and so on in Greater Oakland. Once all that land is redeveloped, we can perhaps look at land occupied by valuable historic structures.

There's also one more thing to consider - the "virtuous cycle" you outlined doesn't always work for college students. One of the reasons that Oakland morphed from being the center of social life for young urbanites in the 1990s to student ghetto today is that most people do not want to live around the average undergraduate renter.

I actually don't think that is quite true. The underlying explanation for "student ghettos" is that landlords lack the incentive to invest in maintenance and improvements when they have a captive market. And many students are willing to temporarily put up with squalid conditions for the sake of convenience.

So other people with more locational flexibility, and who are looking for a more long term residential location, may be turned off by those squalid conditions, but not necessarily by the students themselves.

Indeed, there are in fact students living all over the East End, and while there are occasional clashes of the kind you describe, for the most part it is unproblematic. And the answer for those specific problems is better property management and better police enforcement.

Student ghettos, meanwhile, are not inevitable. First, you often can do more to enforce better behavior by landlords (more active and effective code enforcement, for example). Second, things like improved transit, biking infrastructure, and so on can disperse students, and it just has to be enough of a dispersal to make it a losing strategy for landlords to bank on just attracting students.

Again, this dispersal may mean fewer students have walking commutes and more use transit or bike. But maximizing walking commutes is not necessarily a higher goal than reducing the student ghetto effect, which causes a variety of problems we should seek to reduce (crime, safety, environmental, and so on).

To the extent they can be contained somewhere more convenient, all the better for the rest of us.

Personally, I think it is a bad idea to start thinking of students as an Other Group, versus part of the normal urban mix. People come and go in cities, particularly young people. Students, while they are here, support amenities and jobs. And then some of them convert to longer term residents. And others go elsewhere for a while, but then come back. And others never come back, but serve as ambassadors for the area, or eventually invest here, and so on.

Meanwhile, students deserve safe, healthy places to live, just like everyone else.

So I don't think encouraging an even larger student ghetto effect in Oakland is actually desirable. Inevitably lots of students will want to live in Oakland, but we should be trying to prevent that from creating a student ghetto. Meanwhile, we should embrace the students who are fine with a bit of a transit or biking commute.

Going big picture again--I actually think a huge part of the problem here is that there is a real lack of quality transit service to Oakland. BRT might help a bit, but that is part of why I really think we should be looking at an aerial gondola network centered on Oakland. Such a network would be relatively cheap to build and operate, and specifically could easily operate late/early hours at very little marginal cost. And while such a system isn't suitable for super long distances, it could make it a lot easier for students, or Oakland workers, to live in places like the North Side, Millvale, South Side Slopes, and so on--places quite close to Oakland as the crow flies, but with topographic challenges in the way--all without needing expensive new bridges and tunnels.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Urbana

I will probably keep my day job.

I think you at least did a great job suggesting how such a building could relate to the Cathedral of Learning, and Oakland in general. It just takes a little imagination to then fill in some of the admittedly more attractive examples posted up thread.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

Nice work. I'm just glad people can at least slightly understand what I was going for. I am just fantasizing. I want Pittsburgh to be one of the best cities in the world.

I don't think it hurts to sometimes dream big around here. And you never know--I think fundamental forces are moving in the direction of Pittsburgh becoming more ambitious with this stuff in the future.

[JVC]

East Liberty's Hotel Indigo given deadline to develop design plan for wall

http://www.post-gazette.com/business...s/201507210069

"At the time, several members complained about the design, with one saying the building had a “real plain look.” The commission ultimately ordered the owner to return within a year with a plan for the wall."

[qwho]

Since I work very close to them, I'll keep an eye out for any changes to those lofts in north Oakland.

No real activity up there yet, except for a sign on Bigelow saying there are only 5 lofts left. Up closer (couldn't take a picture some nice gentleman was tailgating me on upper Melwood) there is nothing going on at all. It appears there isn't really much room up front, it drops to a single lane, and I'll have to take a picture or two up there so you all can see the conditions along the road.





Bonus pic from my cubicle.

[BrianTH]

Strong (preliminary) jobs report for June--2.0% year over year growth:

http://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.pa_pittsburgh_msa.htm

Pretty diversified, although as usual government is shrinking.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

That said, I recognize there is a valid issue here, but it isn't that destroying historic homes in Oakland or its most immediate surroundings (call that Greater Oakland) will lead to more historic preservation elsewhere. Rather, it is that destroying historic homes in Greater Oakland might serve the different value of allowing more students to have a walking commute. But if that is the argument, then we must make sure destroying the historic homes is actually necessary to that end. Which I would suggest is not really the case, because there are still a large number of surface parking lots, lots with low intensity uses like standalone fast food restaurants, and so on in Greater Oakland. Once all that land is redeveloped, we can perhaps look at land occupied by valuable historic structures.

Of course I would prefer to see the under-utilized parcels in Oakland redeveloped first. But you cannot force the owners of under-utilized parcels to sell to developers. Putting limitations on apartment development in a highly-desirable area for apartments will most likely slow down development in general - not cause development to proceed at an identical pace in a smaller subsection of parcels.

Originally Posted by BrianTH

I actually don't think that is quite true. The underlying explanation for "student ghettos" is that landlords lack the incentive to invest in maintenance and improvements when they have a captive market. And many students are willing to temporarily put up with squalid conditions for the sake of convenience.

So other people with more locational flexibility, and who are looking for a more long term residential location, may be turned off by those squalid conditions, but not necessarily by the students themselves.

I think you're concentrating too much here on the poor maintenance side of student ghettos. Probably as important is the overwhelming preponderance of renters, who are quite often in the sort of units which should not be rented out in large numbers (e.g., houses, sometimes subdivided, sometimes not.) In addition, the combination of a large rental population and a student-heavy population means heavy turnover from year to year. This leads to a large proportion of the residents not giving a shit about their neighborhood. I think it's telling that in the Oakland 2025 plan, they were unable to involve any Oakland community groups because none existed.

Regardless, I think what caused Oakland to develop in as bad a way as it did residentially was the neighborhood was unfortunate enough to have a downward turn right as Pitt's enrollment was spiking. As a result, for a sustained time period the houses were worth more to slumlord renters than they would have been sold on the open market. Now it's become increasingly hard to protect the last remaining homeowners on the fringes of West, Central, and South Oakland. Even where the zoning precludes subdivision houses are bought and rented out to large numbers of tenants who illegally split the rent. I know I have read articles off and on in the Post Gazette over the years about young families who tried to buy in Oakland due to the positive amenities (walkable, close to their work, good feeder patterns for schools, etc) and they were essentially chased out of the neighborhood by rowdy student neighbors - in some cases actively targeted after they began complaining about loud parties to the police.

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Going big picture again--I actually think a huge part of the problem here is that there is a real lack of quality transit service to Oakland. BRT might help a bit, but that is part of why I really think we should be looking at an aerial gondola network centered on Oakland. Such a network would be relatively cheap to build and operate, and specifically could easily operate late/early hours at very little marginal cost. And while such a system isn't suitable for super long distances, it could make it a lot easier for students, or Oakland workers, to live in places like the North Side, Millvale, South Side Slopes, and so on--places quite close to Oakland as the crow flies, but with topographic challenges in the way--all without needing expensive new bridges and tunnels.

I do have to say I'm always shocked at the large number of students I see get on the 71A in the Baum-Negley corridor - often so many that the bus becomes too full to accept any more riders, even when it is an articulated bus. I mean, I know it goes to Oakland, but many of them are a block away from the East Busway, and the P3 is just so much faster.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Of course I would prefer to see the under-utilized parcels in Oakland redeveloped first. But you cannot force the owners of under-utilized parcels to sell to developers. Putting limitations on apartment development in a highly-desirable area for apartments will most likely slow down development in general - not cause development to proceed at an identical pace in a smaller subsection of parcels.

Maybe, maybe not. The problem is developers know we don't take historic preservation too seriously around here. So we get to this point and it becomes historic preservation versus desirable development, and they know they will likely win.

If you take a couple steps back and make it clear to developers that we will enforce historic preservation codes, then maybe we don't get to this point, maybe in fact they do buy other parcels to develop. That may cost them a bit more, or again maybe not so much (note they are being held up for a premium in this case anyway).

I think you're concentrating too much here on the poor maintenance side of student ghettos. Probably as important is the overwhelming preponderance of renters, who are quite often in the sort of units which should not be rented out in large numbers (e.g., houses, sometimes subdivided, sometimes not.)

These are not really distinct concepts. You can get away with packing renters into cheaply subdivided houses, or a bunch of non-family renters into an undivided house, because of the captive market situation.

In addition, the combination of a large rental population and a student-heavy population means heavy turnover from year to year. This leads to a large proportion of the residents not giving a shit about their neighborhood. I think it's telling that in the Oakland 2025 plan, they were unable to involve any Oakland community groups because none existed.

I think you are overemphasizing the role of the residents and not giving enough blame to poor property management, poor code enforcement, and often poor policing. There are always going to be a few bad apples, but if you actually make an effort to deal with those bad apples, I think you will find it is not in fact a large proportion of residents contributing to these problems.

Regardless, I think what caused Oakland to develop in as bad a way as it did residentially was the neighborhood was unfortunate enough to have a downward turn right as Pitt's enrollment was spiking.

That might have contributed, but student ghettos are a problem in a lot of places.

Even where the zoning precludes subdivision houses are bought and rented out to large numbers of tenants who illegally split the rent. I know I have read articles off and on in the Post Gazette over the years about young families who tried to buy in Oakland due to the positive amenities (walkable, close to their work, good feeder patterns for schools, etc) and they were essentially chased out of the neighborhood by rowdy student neighbors - in some cases actively targeted after they began complaining about loud parties to the police.

So again to me this looks like a failure of property management, code enforcement, and policing.

The bottom line, though, is that none of this is a desirable outcome. The value of a few more students having walking commutes versus transit or biking commutes does not outweigh the problems associated with student ghettos, and rather than encouraging this outcome we should be looking for aways to alleviate it.

I do have to say I'm always shocked at the large number of students I see get on the 71A in the Baum-Negley corridor - often so many that the bus becomes too full to accept any more riders, even when it is an articulated bus. I mean, I know it goes to Oakland, but many of them are a block away from the East Busway, and the P3 is just so much faster.

I'm not sure why the P3 is not used more, but it doesn't help that it is just a normal bus once it exits the Neville Ramp. This is part of how successful BRT implementation could, perhaps, help.

[Evergrey]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Strong (preliminary) jobs report for June--2.0% year over year growth:

http://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.pa_pittsburgh_msa.htm

Pretty diversified, although as usual government is shrinking.

So close to 1.2M non-farm jobs... I can almost taste it...

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by George Woods

Oh, don't be such a doormat—if your sister insisted on going to Tokyo with you and your husband, she's the one who should've felt like a third wheel.

LOL. Good point. I guess i am just TOO thoughtful.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by qwho

No real activity up there yet, except for a sign on Bigelow saying there are only 5 lofts left.

"Only" is a bit of false advertising, considering there are six lofts in the building.

[Evergrey]

https://www.bostonglobe.com/business...blN/story.html

Harbor advocate Vivien Li to leave for Pittsburgh

By Dan Adams GLOBE CORRESPONDENT JULY 21, 2015
Vivien Li, for nearly a quarter-century the unofficial mayor of Boston’s waterfront as head of the powerful Boston Harbor Association, revealed Tuesday that she is leaving Boston to lead an ongoing revival of Pittsburgh’s riverfront.

Li was instrumental in the dramatic transformation of Boston’s waterfront, lobbying effectively to clean up the harbor’s waters and then working to preserve public access to the shoreline amid the development that followed. Her blessing was highly sought by the developers building a skyline along the city’s waterfront.

“Anytime someone’s doing something major, we reach out to get her comments, and we listen to her very seriously,” said a longtime Boston real estate executive, Robert Beal. “She’s done a wonderful, wonderful job in overseeing our city and in articulating how we have to be concerned about Boston Harbor.”

The 61-year-old Li said she will leave in September to become head of Riverlife, a public-private partnership charged with redeveloping Pittsburgh’s extensive riverfront properties.

“The harbor today is cleaner and the waterfront is in many ways at the center of civic life, and Vivien played an important role in making that happen,” said Bruce Berman, a leader of environmental group Save the Harbor/Save the Bay. “She’s got lots to be proud of, and Pittsburgh is lucky to have her energy.”

...

The challenge she faces in Pittsburgh seems an echo of her early work in Boston.

“When the headhunter approached me in May, it was the first time I really thought about doing something different and leaving Boston,” Li said. “I was intrigued by Pittsburgh, because it’s an old steel city in the Rust Belt, and they have a lot of former industrial land on the rivers there.”

Li will guide a number of projects in Pittsburgh, which sits at the confluence of the Allegheny, Ohio, and Monongahela rivers, including the redevelopment of former industrial properties similar to those in Boston’s Seaport.

...

[TBone7281]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

Great pic! What lessons do you think a mega city has for a city like Pittsburgh?

I almost went to Tokyo for 2 weeks in about 2008 with my sister and husband but i didn't want to be a 3rd wheel.

I won't judge.


Sometimes I think it's hard to make direct comparisons to the really big cities... my favorite cities in general are NYC and Tokyo, so sometimes I have a hard time with the crap that we have to deal with in Pittsburgh. I realize that some of it has to do with the sheer scale and availability of resources (i.e. $$$) but a lot of it is in planning/details too. Specifically, I'm thinking of the public transit systems and the subways in particular. I did the Night Run 5K this weekend and in doing so, I met up with 2 of my friends on the other side of the city. It was a total cluster.

I live in Plum and drove to one friend's house who lives in Kennedy Township to meet up. From there we drove to the third friend's house who lives in Bridgeville/USC. From there we drove to the Upper St. Clair T Station and took that in to town. I've only ridden the T a handful of times even though I've lived my whole life in the area. (I'd say less than 5.) I get that if you ride it every day, everything becomes second nature, but it just seemed really confusing. New York and Tokyo's subway systems are exponentially bigger, yet I never had any trouble using them. Look at the map, pay the price, be on your way. Tokyo's is in effing Japanese and I could still figure it out.

Random observations:
1. Why isn't ticketing fully automated? We had to go to a machine, get our ticket... then hand them to a guy sitting in a booth. As near as I could tell, his job was to yell at everyone.
2. Zones. WTF.
3. Red and Blue line... yet there are actually 2 different blue lines? Don't get on the wrong one, I guess. Why can't you just use 3 colors, or something similar.

On the positive side, we were able to ride and get change back if necessary. Apparently, this wasn't the case in the past... if you didn't have correct change, you just paid more.

[BrianTH]

I've been pretty impressed with what I have seen in Boston lately, and Li sounds like a real asset. Along the theme of Pittsburgh maybe becoming more self-confident and ambitious, it would be cool if she was constantly pushing plans and projects in that direction, rather than settling just because it is Pittsburgh and not Boston.

The fundamental problem with the T is that it is really just a lightly modified streetcar system. It is better than nothing, but doesn't come anywhere close to a heavy duty commuter rail or metropolitan rail system. That's part of why I often get nervous when people talk about investing heavily in expanding the T--it really isn't the right technology for most of what people are talking about in those contexts.

That said, the other problem is that unless you invest very heavily in bridges and tunnels, or use aerial gondolas, straight routing of transit for more than short distances is largely impossible here. So even just the core rapid transit map is always going to be pretty confusing.

Edit: Here is the system map. They are trying to do that thing where you straighten segments and standardize angles, but it is still pretty baffling:

http://www.portauthority.org/PAAC/Ap.../SystemMap.pdf

However, if you know Pittsburgh topography, you know what is happening is those lines are tracing various river banks, valleys, plateaus, and so forth.

Here is what the T actually looks like:

http://www.portauthority.org/paac/apps/maps/TLines.pdf

You can see the problem underlying the two blue lines issue. They are trying to communicate that you can use all of those trains for destinations up to Washington Junction, but there it splits off into two directions. If you gave them different colors it would shift the emphasis to the fact it eventually splits, but then you would lose some clarity about being able to use either group of trains before the split.

Just in general, the conventions for naming urban rail lines kinda break down when you have all the trains sharing a route for a while, then they split into two groups, then they come back together but one part of one of those groups terminates, then one part of the other group splits off, but now the second part of the second group actually remains joined up with the second part of the first group . . . yikes.

Meanwhile, the East Busway is not straight, but at least it is pretty simple:

http://www.portauthority.org/paac/ap...EastBusway.pdf

But as soon as you contemplate adding an additional East End BRT network--which we should totally do--it looks something like this:



Uh-oh. We're back to the problem of buses sharing routes, then diverging, then coming back together, then diverging again in different ways . . . yikes.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by TBone7281

I won't judge.


Sometimes I think it's hard to make direct comparisons to the really big cities... my favorite cities in general are NYC and Tokyo, so sometimes I have a hard time with the crap that we have to deal with in Pittsburgh. I realize that some of it has to do with the sheer scale and availability of resources (i.e. $$$) but a lot of it is in planning/details too. Specifically, I'm thinking of the public transit systems and the subways in particular. I did the Night Run 5K this weekend and in doing so, I met up with 2 of my friends on the other side of the city. It was a total cluster.

I live in Plum and drove to one friend's house who lives in Kennedy Township to meet up. From there we drove to the third friend's house who lives in Bridgeville/USC. From there we drove to the Upper St. Clair T Station and took that in to town. I've only ridden the T a handful of times even though I've lived my whole life in the area. (I'd say less than 5.) I get that if you ride it every day, everything becomes second nature, but it just seemed really confusing. New York and Tokyo's subway systems are exponentially bigger, yet I never had any trouble using them. Look at the map, pay the price, be on your way. Tokyo's is in effing Japanese and I could still figure it out.

Random observations:
1. Why isn't ticketing fully automated? We had to go to a machine, get our ticket... then hand them to a guy sitting in a booth. As near as I could tell, his job was to yell at everyone.
2. Zones. WTF.
3. Red and Blue line... yet there are actually 2 different blue lines? Don't get on the wrong one, I guess. Why can't you just use 3 colors, or something similar.

On the positive side, we were able to ride and get change back if necessary. Apparently, this wasn't the case in the past... if you didn't have correct change, you just paid more.

The bigger the subway/mass transit system the easier it is to use too. More direct lines.

[Don't Be That Guy]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

I've been pretty impressed with what I have seen in Boston lately, and Li sounds like a real asset. Along the theme of Pittsburgh maybe becoming more self-confident and ambitious, it would be cool if she was constantly pushing plans and projects in that direction, rather than settling just because it is Pittsburgh and not Boston.

The fundamental problem with the T is that it is really just a lightly modified streetcar system. It is better than nothing, but doesn't come anywhere close to a heavy duty commuter rail or metropolitan rail system. That's part of why I often get nervous when people talk about investing heavily in expanding the T--it really isn't the right technology for most of what people are talking about in those contexts.

I've heard the T described as, "having all the cost of light rail and efficiency of a bus."
It's the worst of both transit forms, and it runs on a non-standard rail gauge, so of course that's what we have here in Pittsburgh.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Don't Be That Guy

It's the worst of both transit forms, and it runs on a non-standard rail gauge, so of course that's what we have here in Pittsburgh.

Short form of the story--we could have had Skybus, but it was an elitist and/or socialist plot, so we ended up with the T instead.

[Urbana]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Short form of the story--we could have had Skybus, but it was an elitist and/or socialist plot, so we ended up with the T instead.

Over 90 miles of innovative rapid transit could have been ours.





The study in question with a lot of cool maps and figures.

http://www.briem.com/files/skybus.pdf

[Evergrey]

A dedicated line just for Etna... *le sigh*

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by Evergrey

A dedicated line just for Etna... *le sigh*

There were even dedicated trolley lines throughout Aliquippa opened in 1910. 105 years later, it it amenity-less.