Quote:
Originally Posted by BrianTH
I'd say that is near the outer boundary of what is possible. For another 100,000 in population you are probably talking over 50,000 more in occupied housing units, which would put the City right about where it was in terms of peak housing units historically (we hit that mark with much less than peak population thanks to fewer people per household these days). New housing units are bigger on average today so that's a problem, but on the other hand we have a lot of industrial brownfields and such that provide more land we can now use for residential. But we probably would use fewer slopes. And so on.
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I think it's doable with blight infill plus the redevelopment of brownfields (for example, fitting 20,000 people in the Strip District, which should be feasible). I don't think it's doable without the brownfields though.
In many ways, we have less developable space for residential than in 1950. First, we've seen the loss of some areas due to highway expansion. Secondly, while some brownfields can be repurposed, other large acreages have been snapped up by institutions (universities, hospitals, and stadiums) in prime areas, such that they will not be residential areas again in our lifetimes. Then, as you note, there's the factor that we don't build on slopes. The city still had greenfield land back in 1950 in portions of the city as well, but that's pretty much done except for that hilltop in Hays. Finally, from a density standpoint, the infill which has gone into formerly blighted neighborhoods leaves much to be desired, along with basically precluding somewhere like Crawford Roberts ever becoming higher density in our lifetimes.
On the flipside, there's many neighborhoods that, under current zoning, it just isn't realistic will ever grow in terms of number of housing units. My new(ish) home of Morningside is a good example. The neighborhood is 99% intact, and zoned for single-family attached or detached except for a few streets near Highland Park. There are plans for some senior apartments in the old Morningside elementary school, but the neighborhood is basically built out, meaning the population has nowhere to go but down. This is just one example though, but the same thing is largely true for any neighborhood which either was never particularly distressed, or which didn't have a substantial non-residential component.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkMyWords
When you think that, as late as 1960, the population within the city limits was double what it is currently, I would think it would be easy to accommodate that many more people. And that would even be with maintaining a more "relaxed" density overall. But to avoid single family homes popping up everywhere and ruining the hillsides, we are talking about multi-family dwellings.
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As BrianTH intimated, the vast majority of Pittsburgh's population decline was due to declining household size, not shrinkage in the number of households. I crunched the numbers a few years ago, and if we gained 110,000 people, we would have an equal number of households to the what the city had at its peak, despite still having a population which was more than 250,000 below peak. Of course, since modern households are smaller, they could theoretically fit on much less land. But still, if you wanted the city to get anywhere close to 670,000, you'd certainly need to demolish many of the single-family housing areas and replace them with apartment buildings.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkMyWords
Which raises another question I have long had in my mind, but haven't really investigated - how does Pittsburgh compare with other cities when it comes to proportion of residents in multi-family housing? Or is there some kind of bias (economic, social, cultural, etc.) against folks living in multifamily housing? I've often wondered why there just hasn't been ANY attempt to build high or mid rise buildings on the north shore or other locations to take advantage of the views toward downtown. (And no - Trimont doesn't count!) Or is the superfluity of views from the various hills factor into that? Just wondering.
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Pittsburgh has never been much of an apartment city. In the 19th century, as with Philly, the norm for the working class was to live in a modest rowhouse, or rent out a room if they were too poor for that.
The first real apartments built in Pittsburgh to any degree were built out around 1900-1910. They have nearly identical designs, and are most prominent in
Oakland, but can also be found in
Bloomfield and
Highland Park. There was then a period of sustained and varied apartment building from the 20s to the 70s, which was almost entirely focused on North Oakland, Shadyside, and a few enclaves in Squirrel Hill South. I think it's fair to say the city is now in its third period of apartment building, although it's hard for me to pin the exact project which spearheaded this movement.
In terms of larger apartment buildings, my understanding is the economics just don't work right here. Prices per square foot are just too low for the rental market, to the point where it would be essentially impossible to build steel-framed residential high rise and make a profit. Rehabs of old buildings, of course, are much more feasible.
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