Yesterday's Pittsburgh-Post Gazette offered an interesting cautionary tale. It comes with the headline, "Eastside project builds a bridge between Shadyside and East Liberty: Pedestrian overpass to link rich, poor neighborhoods."
Hmm. Why were these neighborhoods separated in the first place? Perhaps the people who built them were racists who designed them that way. Or maybe a big, nasty corporation did it. Or maybe... Well, let's let article answer:
For decades, Shadyside and East Liberty have lived like the Cold War's two Berlins. One thrived, one didn't. One had and one had less.
The side-by-side neighborhoods are divided by a sunken rail line that two bridges spanned until the early 1970s. When the forces of urban renewal removed the bridges, the neighborhood border was studded with dead-end streets and fences that blocked passage.
A traffic circle that discouraged trade increased East Liberty's isolation. One slim span, a truss on Highland Avenue, bridges the neighborhoods. Sided by chain-link fence and sloped enough to block sight lines, it is "a study on how to make people feel unwelcome," says Rob Stephany of East Liberty Development Inc.
The divide also served the condition of racial isolation with its physical barriers to movement between the two neighborhoods. Planners, merchants and most residents want to bridge the gap. A symbol of this will be a pedestrian bridge from Shadyside to the Eastside construction project along Centre Avenue east of the Whole Foods Market.
Yes. Access to outrageously expensive organic food is what East Liberty needs. Who knows. I am open to that. It's the source of the solution that gives pause. Pittsburgh is STILL relying on the "forces of urban renewal," as defined by a host of convoluted partnerships, despite the fact that these were the same forces that tore the bridges down in the first place. Weird.
Then there is this:
Part of the plan is to redesign housing stock. Liberty Park and Eastmall high rises are being replaced by traditional, mixed-income houses, for which ELDI is "working hard to preserve affordability. That's a promise that must be kept," Stephany said.
Anyone know what "working hard to preserve affordability" looks like? In Silver Spring, Maryland, where I lived until recently, a glittering new condo building recently opened. My wife and I were very interested because it was so new and the rent was so low--about $500 a month less than similarly outfitted places. We thought that meant they were simply cheaper. But they were not cheaper--at least for us. We called, only to discover that our income was about $5000 a year TOO HIGH for the place, despite the fact that she was a waitress/student at the time and I was a writer. That is, we could rent there, but we would have to pay more.
I can't tell you how much resentment that caused. People struggle for years to get a leg up. They take on enormous debt so they can get through college. (Not everyone is a trust fund baby.) They take night classes. They put their kids in daycare so both parents can work. All so they can make that extra $10,000 to $15,000 a year. Only to discover that the person who did not make those sacrifices pays $6,000 a year less in rent.
I am not saying that I have not had advantages. And I am not saying that a lot of people don't deserve some help. But it is important to note ahead of time that these schemes often CREATE the very kind of class tension they are designed to counteract. Notice that in the Silver Spring scheme, someone who paid the same amount of rent as we did, but made a little less money than we did, would enjoy a noticeably higher quality of life in the form of a MUCH nicer, larger and newer apartment in a much better location. Do you think people didn't notice? Maybe the Eastside project will find a magic bullet. Still, given the city's track record in this regard--every city's track record, in fact--perhaps it is time to take all these promises with a grain of salt.
Remember, the bridges were already there and we paid planners to come up with a scheme that tore them down. Now we are paying them for a plan to put them back up. Sounds like a high-dollar bait-and-switch to me.
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