Building Condominiums for... Whom?

The Post-Gazette is reporting that Pittsburgh's population tumbled by another 4,000 or so between 2004 and 2005.

Forget about political ideology and all that: Given this continued slide, does it really make sense to be subsidizing the construction of new housing?

I am sure that proponents of downtown living will argue that the subsidies are MORE necessary: How else to stop the slide?

But I think there is a real conundrum here. The city has obviously failed to halt the population loss, and I don't think anyone in his right mind thinks that a few extra granite countertops in the Forbes/Fifth corridor are going to do the trick, either. Think about it: 4,000 people would have to move here just to get us back to the 2004 level.

And again, where are all these people who are supposedly going to move downtown going to come from? If I were a property owner in Squirrel Hill or Shadyside I think I would be raising hell right about now. The market is already working against me. The last thing I need is Governor Rendell making it worse by giving my competitors $90,000 worth of upgrades free of charge.

Comments

[sean mcdaniel]

sam,
the market is always working for you in s. hill and shadyside. try selling a fantastic house in brighton heights if you want to see what tough is. there are houses there on streets that would fetch $300,000 in those east end neighborhoods. on the far northern limits of city, that house will for $175,000 at best. i've been watching far too many houses for sale in that neck of the woods sit for months and months, with "price reduced" signs on them. why? cause they aren't south side, shady side, s. hill or the mexican war streets. even worse looking house on worse streets sell faster and for more money in lawrenceville and allentown because they're close to walnut street, or carson or downtown.

i know you're a sincere guy, but you really have to get to know this town better. shady side and s.hill will always be hot markets. downtown isn't hurting them.

so here's my question...if the 4000 people move here...was that $90,000 worth it? won't there be long term gains? when NYC's east village rebounded...did the population just shift...or was it new blood? do think many columbus ave. types left their central park west digs for the oh so trendy alphabet streets? sometimes, you do get a new deck of cards to play with instead of just reshuffling the same hand over and over.

[Jonathan Potts]

Let's not forget that the subsidized housing Downtown will also be competing with the subsidized housing on the North Shore, parts of the South Side, East Liberty, Washington's Landing, Summerset at Frick, etc. Yes, all different neighborhoods, but there is bound to be significant overlap in the markets for each.

[Sam M]

Agreed on most counts.

Sean: The "deck of cards" analogy is an interesting one. Unfortunately for Pittsburgh, we are currently playing with about 26 of the suckers if you count our highest historic population as a "full deck" of 52.

But I honestly don't think we are all that far apart here. I agree that Shadyside and Squirrel Hill are "hot markets." Jonathan named a few others.

But that's exactly why I think property owners/landlords in those areas have reason for concern. That is, there are fewer and fewer people in this city all the time. And only a small percentage of that shrinking number can afford to rent a condo that goes for $4,000 a month, or buy one that goes for a cool million. Etc. Those are the hot young creative types the city wants here. Those people are scattered around a bit, but there are a few "neighborhoods" that currently count as "hot."

And yet the city is currently in the process of offering huge subsidies to someone who wants to build ANOTHER such neighborhood.

Maybe there is some kind of "synergy" here. Creative types beget creative types and all the landlords in Squirrel Hill and Shadyside and the new Downtown and the lofts at Southside Works and the Northshore all win.

But those population numbers...

It seems to me that there are fewer and fewer people competing for more and more condominiums. Which amounts to a buyers' market. If I am one of the sellers--especially if I am one who was not favorerd with a subsidy--I am going to start asking questions.

The long and short of it, in my view, is this: If you are going to subsidize something, subsidize something that the city needs. That's what subsidies are for, right? Seems to me that Pittsburgh already has housing and neighborhoods in spades. We know there is plenty of the former because it is dirt cheap. And we know there are a lot of the latter because everyone keeps talking about how this is a "city of neighborhoods." I agree.

So why pay for more of either?

Yeah, Shadyside is probably going to be doing a lot better than Braddock for a long time. But that does not necessarily mean that heavily subsidized apartments downtown won't hurt landlords on Walnut Street. Or at least put a lot of price pressure on them. More interesting than that in my mind is the "quality pressure." I just made that up, but stick with me.

Let's say I have $5 million to invest in five apartments. I do it in unsubsidized fashion and build five really nice places.

So the guy with the $90,000 subsidy can cut costs and only pay $910,000 each. In that case he can pocket the difference, pass the savings on to buyers, or split the difference. Or he can add an extra $90,000 in amenities to the place, something that would be very attractive to very amenity-conscious consumers.

Either way, he's way ahead.

[JoeP]

I think that there are different elements at play here. Downtown housing isn't = to Shadyside. While some people could take either, some might prefer to have options among the Triangle's skyscrapers, and some not.

Options have to be there and pumping some life into downtown isn't a bad thing. Questioning the subsidized buildings is legitimate, but the need for new housing stock (and in this case housing stock period for downtown) is a given.

[sean mcdaniel]

sam,

i hear what you're saying. agreed, the unsubsidized developer might be at a disadvantage against the guy with government money in his pocket. however, that really doesn't stop people who are willing to take a calculated risk (which probably rules out you, me, j. potts, j. barnes and others. we don't have the money or the mindset to gamble like that).

now i don't have tons of stats to back up this claim, but if we're losing so many people, why is there so much residential and commercial development going on? I don't mean downtown or cranberry or squirrel hill. I live in the n. hills and there are new housing, condo and apts going up wherever developers can find 20-50 acres of free land. and these places fill up quickly. maybe the rest of you guys can help me think this one through. because if so many people are leaving this area, why are so many new places to live being built...honestly, the conventional wisdom doesn't seem to match up with what i can literally see...and please don't tell me that folks migrating from braddock or beltzhoover are buying these $250,000 to $500,000-plus homes.

[Jonathan Potts]

The population loss doesn't seem to be just "conventional wisdom"--it is based on U.S. Census Bureau estimates. Now, the PG story to which Sam linked leaves open the possibility that some of the loss comes from the dying off of an aging population. A net loss is still a net loss, but it could explain why there is demand for the high-end housing you are talking about.

Of course, although the population of the entire metro region appears to be declining, you could also be witnessing the migration of upwardly mobile city dwellers to the suburbs. Maybe people from Braddock or Belthoover aren't moving in, but it's possible that people from Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, Stanton Heights, Highland Park, etc., or even from Brookline are. We'd need a lot more data, looking at which communities within the region are gaining people, where they are coming from, as well as vacany rates region-wide.

[Adam]

How many of the 4000 are people moving out of the city to the suburbs? How many are people moving out of the area? How many are deaths (I'll bet a good number)? And remember that's net: so assume 6000 left (one way or another) and 2000 moved to the city. To which neighborhoods did the 2000 move to? Where did they move from? From outside the suburbs of Pittsburgh or from outside the area?

If downtown condos can entice suburbanites from SW PA and young professionals and empty-nesters from other metro areas to live in the city when they relocate here, great. If the empty nesters and yuppies are moving from Shadyside/Squirrel Hill downtown, not as great although not terrible in that a lively downtown makes a better impression on visitors than a lively Squirrel Hill or Shadyside. (And I'm not worried about the long-term viability of Sq Hill or Shadyside as residential areas. The question is what downtown development does to other "downtown"-style neighborhoods like the South Side or Oakland).

Does anyone have the kind of data that can help sort out these questions?
(I'm looking at you Chris Briem.)

[sean mcdaniel]

J. Potts,

I don't see a lot of empty houses in the neighborhoods you've mentioned. if anyhing, more people are buying long neglected places in those areas and moving in...and hoping to make a killing in a few years.

sure, i've seen some of the numbers...but i also see the new housing units (not to mention the retails centers) springing up everywhere. somewhere, something doesn't add up.

[Jonathan Potts]

Chris Briem has some thoughts:

http://nullspace2.blogspot.com/2006/06/ever-shrinking-city.html

[Sam M]

Interesting comments all around, but I am still looking for someone to explain this... as stated by Adam...

"If downtown condos can entice suburbanites from SW PA and young professionals and empty-nesters from other metro areas to live in the city when they relocate here, great. If the empty nesters and yuppies are moving from Shadyside/Squirrel Hill downtown, not as great although not terrible in that a lively downtown makes a better impression on visitors than a lively Squirrel Hill or Shadyside. "

I understand that to mean a lot of different things. But one of the central ideas is that it would be a good thing if people move from Shadyside, etc., to downtown. Or if people from outside the city move to downtown instead of Shadyside.

I just really, really don't understand why. Adam says that one reason is that it would "maker a better impression on visitors." Would it? Professors visiting Pitt or CMU? Doctors considering a job at Childrens' or Presby? Or are we talking about tourists? Because if we are, I think it's time to start thinking about whther we have spent enough hundreds of millions of dollars "impressing" those people. We have the convention center, Heinz Field, PNC Park, Point State Park, Gateway Center, etc. etc. etc.

So how do you go about "impressing" the people I am taking about? How do you get people to move somewhere? In my mind, one way is to talk about these things: cost of living; crime; jobs; education;health care. You know, general stuff that most people agree governments are supposed to do. Picking up trash.

Problem is, we have spent about seven decades engaged in "redevelopment" that makes those things harder to accomplish, mostly because we have used TIFs to defer taxes, or redirected other public money to other stuff. So what did we get for bankrupting the city? A few stadiums. And a Cheesecake Factory. Are professors from NYU going to be beating down the door at Pitt because we have a Cheesecake Factory?

And why are we doing all of this? Again, it appears to be to get people to move downtown. But again, why? How many people do you know who have moved to New York City? Of those, how many moved to Wall Street? I don't know a single one. All of the monied "creative" types I know moved to the Village or SoHo or Tribeca. The ones without money moved to outlying hipster enclaves. Like, er, Shadyside.

How many friends do you have who moved to DC? Of those, how many moved down by the White House? Probably none. Because the probably moved to places like DuPont Circle or Adams Morgan, etc.

So would it make sense for NYC to spend hundreds of million in public money to shift people from the Village to Wall Street? Or people in DC to spend hundreds of millions to get people to move from Dupont Circle to Pennsylvania Avenue downtown? Well, why in the world would they?

And why would we?

[sean mcdaniel]

i say it again...even if the new downtowners are from shadyside, s. hill, regent square...there are more than enough people willing to move to those "hipster" enclaves to replace the departees. hell, a real mass migration might knock down the prices enough for me to get a place. imagine, sam, the two us as neighbors.

"but that's not the point. and another thing that's not the point is comparing downtown pittsburgh to any part of nyc or dc. here, it's an effort to create a neighborhood where there hasn't been one in 140 years or so. in nyc and dc, it's a matter of transforming neighborhoods (by the way, more and more people are moving to the wall street area. you might have noticed how many residents in there were put out of their homes by the 9-11 crashes. remember that one?)

as for your question:

"How do you get people to move somewhere? In my mind, one way is to talk about these things: cost of living; crime; jobs; education;health care. You know, general stuff that most people agree governments are supposed to do. Picking up trash."

other than the trash issue, which far too many of fellow citizens generate faster than it can be picke up, pittsburgh does pretty well in the areas you mentioned (crime is low too, if you're not living in homewood, the hill, st. clair village, etc). so a glittering downtown would be the jewel on the crown.

i had a chance to move to des moines IA a few years ago. it has great schools, low crime, affordable housing, clean and safe streets and a downtown so dead on the weekends you could ran grand prix races on the streets without disrupting anything. hell, even the job offer was good. but it had no symphony, no opera, no cultural district, few restaurants, coffee shops or much else. hell, it didn't even have anything that resembled the strip, shadyside, bloomfield, southside or whatever. instead, it was basically one big cranberry twp encircling a less than vibrant city center. a little bit of life in the city might have enticed me to stay...but that lack of things that impress helped me decide to say no to the job.

all that being said, why in the hell did you choose pittsburgh if it sucks so goddamn much (remember, kid unfriendly, no parking during TRAF, inept govt for 70 years, subsidies, and whatever else)?

[Sam M]

Sean,

For the record, I never said Pittsburgh sucks. I happen to like it a lot. Unfortunately, it seems that the things I like are not at the top of the redevelopment list. Believe me, had I wanted a Cheesecake Factory and a Max & Erma's, I could have picked a lot of other places. Just about anyplace, as a matter of fact.

But since you asked, when applying to schools my criteria were: an MFA program in creative nonfiction.

And a low cost of living.

That is: I guess I could have applied to Columbia, or NYU or a bunch of places in Boston, etc., for the CNF. But I knew I was never going to go to a place where I was going to have to fork out $4,000 a month for rent.

And guess what? Pitt has the oldest and largest CNF program in the country. And it's cheap.

That's what I like about Pittburgh.

There's other stuff, too (it's closer to my family, I like the neighborhoods, I like th size, etc.) but such things were ancilliary. As a matter of fact, all of these things were, and remain, negative for my wife. She hates it here. The weather. The hills. She likes shiny and new instead of "character." It's farther from her family.

But she came anyway. Because it's cheap. That's the one thing she loves about it here.

And i suppose, in the end, that I could conceivably benefit from the drive for downtown housing. Say everything comes true and 10,000 people move out of Shadyside and Squirrel Hill and Oakland to live downtown. I suppose that will drive down the price of places in Shadyside, Squirrel Hill, etc. Which will make them affordable for me and my wife and we can all go there and enjoy the shiny new stuff.

Great for me.

I just don't see why that's good public policy.

[Sam M]

And just a thought: if it's so all-important to have a "vibrant" downtown with people living in it, why don't we just do something arbitrary like call the Oakland/Shadyside/Bloomfied footprint "downtown." We can change the name of downtown to something else.

Presto. Downtown is a vibrant residential hub.

[Adam]

"If downtown condos can entice suburbanites from SW PA and young professionals and empty-nesters from other metro areas to live in the city when they relocate here, great. If the empty nesters and yuppies are moving from Shadyside/Squirrel Hill downtown, not as great although not terrible in that a lively downtown makes a better impression on visitors than a lively Squirrel Hill or Shadyside. "

Since I wrote it, I'll try to explain what I meant. Of course, I wasn't so successful the first time apparently.

"If downtown condos can entice suburbanites from SW PA and young professionals and empty-nesters from other metro areas to live in the city when they relocate here, great."

That is, some people in this world want to live in a lively downtown: tall buildings, cool views from their high-rise apartments; theatres and symphony halls--whatever. They have their reasons. (This is why you can't just rename Shadyside "downtown" but I think you know that.)

Currently, Pittsburgh doesn't have this. If Pittsburgh had this, the thinking goes, perhaps some people would a) relocate to Pittsburgh from other places or b) would finally sell that house in Mount Lebanon and move to the city rather than saying, why should I sell my house in Mount Lebanon and buy a house in Squirrel Hill.

Obviously the folks in group (a) won't relocate here without a job offer or prospects. But the point is to make the city as attractive as possible to people considering a move.
You want hipster enclave? We got Lawrencville.
You want Brookline (MA)? We got Squirrel Hill
You want Center City Philadelphia? We got Downtown.

By the way, the comparison to Adams Morgan vs. 16th and K or Tribeca vs. Wall Street misses the point (or the Point?). The central area of DC has both 16th and K and Dupont Circle. We just have 16th and K. Our Dupont Circles are too far from the CBD for most visitors to notice. Take Philadelphia as an example: other than a few blocks around Market and JFK Blvd west of City Hall, pretty much all of Center City is "mixed-use": offices, retail, entertainment, housing. As you get south of Spruce, it's pretty much residential other than South Street. If we can make Downtown Pgh into a mini version of Center City Philly, that's good. If we hadn't destroyed the Lower Hill, we might have had the kind of contiguity between residential areas and business-only areas that DC and Philly have that would allow the Golden Triangle to remain an all business area a la 16th and K or Boston's financial district.

"If the empty nesters and yuppies are moving from Shadyside/Squirrel Hill downtown, not as great although not terrible in that a lively downtown makes a better impression on visitors than a lively Squirrel Hill or Shadyside."

Ok. This was badly phrased.
I would rather not see downtown development come at the expense of Shadyside and Squirrel Hill. Hence my comment: "not so great." (But I'm not worried that this will happen.)

But I'll stand by the last comment: Squirrel Hill and Shadyside are great neighborhoods. Squirrel Hill, in particular, is actually something unbelievable in this day and age. When you get to the nitty-gritty of recruitment (to Pitt, CMU, the hospitals, etc), Squirrel Hill is a great recruitment tool. But it's not on the radar of "visitors." Which "visitors" do I mean?
--tourists
--convention-goers
--journalists covering sports events or conventions or other happening s downtown

These folks see downtown. (They might see Oakland and they might go out for dinner to the South Side or other hip areas.)
We're not talking about recruiting all of these visitors to live in Pittsburgh. We're talking about having them go home and say: "that Association of Finnish Studies meeting in Pittsburgh was great. What a lively downtown. Much better than last year in Des Mointes."

Is good buzz going to lead to a chicken in every pot and a rebound of population in the Pittsburgh MSA? No. Is it a substitute for municipal consolidation, reform of tax structures, infrastructure investments from the state, more entrepreneurship in technology transfer from the universities, etc. etc. etc? No. But it can't hurt. And it may help.

[sean mcdaniel]

and i'll call myself lance armstrong and get a million bucks from nike. or i'll announce to the world that i'm 7'2" and sign with the miami heat. or i'll tell steven spielberg i'm tom hanks and he'll give me $25 million for my next movie...

...or i'll call you bob o'connor and you can fix all that ails the city.

hey, one thing you didn't mention about your wife coming to pittsburgh that surprised me...YOU!

ain't it funny how much that character can cost you in NYC and Boston?

by the way, what does CNF stand for?

gotta go, frederique 977k wants me to check out her hot pix on her new web cam!
by the way, what's CNF stand for?

[Sam M]

Sean,

Sorry. "CNF" is "creative nonfiction."

I seem to have already caught one of the worst grad student diseases: Overuse of Abbreviations (OoA).

[Sam M]

Adam,

Thanks for the extensive response. I agree with a lot of what you say, but at the end of the day I am still not convinced that the city should be engaged in any of this. That's not to say I don't think people should think of ways to make downtown interesting. I like downtowns as much as the next guy. But to your points specifically:

"That is, some people in this world want to live in a lively downtown: tall buildings, cool views from their high-rise apartments; theatres and symphony halls--whatever. They have their reasons. (This is why you can't just rename Shadyside "downtown" but I think you know that.)"

Yeah, the renaming Shadyside thing was tongue in cheek. Thanks for noticing and not taking me to task for it. But I hasten to add that downtown DC has no tall buildings. In fact, it is hard to identify as a downtown at all. And hardly anyone lives there.

Dupont is sort of close to it. But Adams Morgan is a haul on foot. And the residential keeps getting further and further away from downtown. But it doesn't strike me that anyone cares. Because no one really wants to live downtown there.

Also, I do understand that people have "their reasons" for wanting to live downtown. And that's great. They should live downtown. They should call up Jack Piatt and have him build them the world's greatest condos, with views of the Point and easy access to the theaters and stadiums and work, etc. My question is whether or not a city that is in really deplorable financial condition--in at least some measure because of spending on previous development schemes--has any business dangling tens of thousands of dollars in front of people who are already quite well off in order to get them to switch zip codes.

I have a broader problem with that. But even if I didn't, doesn't Pittsburgh's financial straits make it even dicier? There just seems to be something unseemly about a cash-strapped city pitching in millions of dollars for millionaires to live in million-dollar condos. Maybe that's just the populist in me, but it smells bad.

You wrote: "Is good buzz going to lead to a chicken in every pot and a rebound of population in the Pittsburgh MSA? No. Is it a substitute for municipal consolidation, reform of tax structures, infrastructure investments from the state, more entrepreneurship in technology transfer from the universities, etc. etc. etc? No. But it can't hurt. And it may help."

It may? I just don't think Pittsburgh is in a position to be rolling the dice like that. The city is broke. I don't think it can afford to buy granite countertops for people. And I don't think it makes sense to spend tens of millions on "image" when basic services and infrastructure have gone wanting.

But perhaps most important to me is this: In a way, you are right. Conventional wisdom says that downtown residential is the way to go. But whose conventional wisdom? Pittsburgh's downtown has been "saved" about three times in the past 70 years. And all we managed to do was destroy the Lower Hill, a move you say really set us back.

Well, now who are we trusting to decide which conventional wisdom to follow? The URA? The Allegheny Conference? City Council? I think those are the same people we trusted the last three times. And each and every time they came armed with the latest "conventional wisdom" about reviving downtown. Today Richard Florida's ideas hold sway, in downtown Columbus and Hartford and Cleveland and etc. etc. etc.

The problem is, conventional wisdom can be wrong. And expensive. Ask Robert Moses. Or anyone who used to live in the Lower Hill.

I know I run the risk of coming across as a cynic. And I know that a lot of the problems this city faces would have arisen whether urban planners had their way or not. I am just concerned that in Pittsburgh, the only myth larger than the one surrounding Big Steel is the one surrounding the "Renaissance." Everyone just "knows" what a fantastic turnaround the city has seen.

Only half the people are gone. And they are still leaving. And the people in charge of fixing the problem are the same ones who have been in charge of it forever. And they are always, always wise in quite conventional ways.

[sean mcdaniel]

oh no...CNF = LGD...lee gutkind disease...well, now i at least understand where you ideas are coming from!

[Adam]

Sam,

To be honest, I haven't made up my mind about subsidies. Part of me thinks agrees with your line of thinking. Part of me thinks that if we don't do it and Cleveland does, Cleveland gets the good buzz.

As for DC, though, I must say a few things:

1) There is a downtown. Actually there are two downtowns: "Old downtown" running roughly north of Pennsylvania Ave between the Capitol and the White House, north to about Mass Ave; and "New downtown" which is what I was calling "16th and K" and is basically everything west of the White House and south of Dupont Circle toward Foggy Bottom and the West End. Everybody in DC calls these areas "downtown" and have for at least half a century of more.

2) There is housing "downtown." And I'm not including Dupont Circle, Capitol Hill, or the West End when I say that although all of them are broadly speaking in the central part of the city. There is a fair bit of housing development in "old downtown" near the convention center and especially running along Mass Ave. Dupont Circle, the West End, and the Mass Ave corridor are all walking distance to the major employment center near the White House. I'll agree with you that Adams-Morgan is a hike, but it's still walkable to "downtown." (However, my sense of what is walkable is out of sync with about 90% of my fellow Americans.)

3) DC is getting better buzz now that there's housing in and next to "old downtown." On the other hand, DC probably doesn't need buzz the way Pittsburgh does.

4) Yes, there are no tall buildings in downtown DC. If you really like tall buildings and want to live in the DC area, you have to live in Rosslyn. But I'm not sure Rosslyn has any housing and why anyone would want to live south of the Potomac river is beyond this native of the Maryland suburbs of DC. (If you really like really tall buildings you shouldn't live in DC.)

[Sam M]

Adam,

I am right with you on the "90 percent" walking issue. I lived right off Meridian Hill Park (or Malcolm X Park, depending on your leanings)and worked right beside the White House. I walked every day. Columbia Heights had a Metro, but I would have had to switch lines. In retrospect, I guess I could have taken a bus. But that had not occurerd to me. And driving was out of the question. So it was about a mile and a half in, and a mile and a half out. Uphill in the afternoon. Oy. People thought I was nuts. Literally. They thought I was certifiably insane.

My last point: I am not at all certain Pittsburgh needs any "buzz" at all. At least not the kind approved and generated by focus groups, bureaucrats and other "establishment" types. Honestly, if that would do the trick Pittsburgh would be swimming in creative, cash-mad wheelers and dealers. Because Pittsburgh appears to have pioneered the idea of urban renewal. We've been at it since the 1940s. The Renaissance is a model that other cities follow. Etc. Etc. But has it worked? Have any of the multitude of civic boosters actually delivered on their promises? Has the convention center saved downtown? Have the stadiums? Did Gateway center? I don't think so. Becvause it obviously still needs saved. How many times are we going to have to pay for a redesign? OK. I admit that it's hard to answer completely. We don't know what Pittsburgh would look like today has the Allegheny Conference never existed. Or if the Renaissance never happened. But we do know that the city has half as many people in it. And that the the Hill District is devastated. Etc.

My question, I guess, is whether or not "buzz" ever really fools anybody. I mean, the kind of people we want coming here are cutting edge tech people and artists and entrepreneurs, right? Are these the kind of people that need walked around by the hand? I don't know. But if they are all they are cracked up to be, it seems to me that the opposite should be happening. They should be coming in to Pittsburgh and discovering opportunities. Building on them. Did NYC lead people by the nose to Williamsburg, etc.? Or were these places "discovered" and "developed" organically? And is that what Pittsburgh wants to be? Does it want to be Rosslyn, VA? Chantilly? The Inner harbor? How many condos are enough? How many Max & Erma's? And is it really all that clear that whatever downtown becomes, Bob O'Connor is the person we want guiding it? Or jack Piatt, even? Why does it have to be a centralized decision? That is, why don't they just auctionthe properties off to people who have a use for them? So people with the inclination to live in a Rosslyn or Inner Harbor or anything else can build it and be done with it.

Why not just get out of their way? Sure, have some brochures. Have some tours. Have get-togethers.

But as it stands it looks to me like we are bribing them. That is, these are the kinds of people who can afford $1 million condos. And we are saying, "Please move here. Please please please. If you do we'll throw in $90,000 so you can add Tuscan tile to your entryway and granite to your countertops. And maybe a few stainless steel appliances."

Or worse, they are blackmailing us. Saying, "OK, Pittsburgh. You have cheap places to live. Hell, I can live in a huge loft there. Tell you what, you throw in a hundred grand and I will grace you with my presence."

No, these words aren't actually being spoken. But I don't know how people who have lived here for generations (I am not one) can feel good about the situation. Remember, a lot of families in this town live in houses that cost less than $100,000. And that's what the basic SUBSIDY amounts to on a lot of these fancy apartments.

You want to talk about "buzz." But I hear something different. And it sounds like a lot of really insecure people rattling on, hoping beyond hope that the cool kids will call us and invite us to their party. It's sad, in a way, to see Pittsburgh promising to build a "neighborhood.' As if Bloomfield or Shadyside or any other place for that matter does not--cannot--measure up to to dowtown Columbus, Ohio.

[C. Briem]

since I have been invoked I will chime in a bit. Too many good questions to begin to respond to. I agree it is an interesting question where the demand for all the new downtown housing will come from. Not ignoring the level of subsidies involved, there is enough private capital at stake that someone richer than I must think there is a market for these units. Most focus on the high end units, but a lot of the proposed housing downtown is student housing. That will almost all displace out of neighborhoods as well.

but for the questions about what the overall trends are for population and housing in the region... or for those who have run out of ambian you may want to read Allegheny County County Housing and Socio-Demographic Trends Report.

[sean mcdaniel]

C. Briem sez:

"Not ignoring the level of subsidies involved, there is enough private capital at stake that someone richer than I must think there is a market for these units. Most focus on the high end units..."

as i said earlier..drive along I-279/79 North...look at the residential and commercial development...someone's got to be living in and shopping at these places...or no one would build them ... as for that high end housing downtown...please show me anyone anywhere who's building "affordable" housing that doesn't start at "just $349,000 and up!" yes, i know that there are exceptions (subsidized units in fineview for around $100,000 and i'm not quite sure whose definition of "inexpensive" that might be) but for the most part, the investment dollars pay off better with the big ticket housing...downtown or in the suburbs and beyond.

as for students departing oakland and nearby environs for downtown...that's a stretch because of longer bus rides...no critical mass of fast food places, cheap restaurants and bars downtown...no pizza to speak off (i know there are a few)...and nearly no stores that cater to that crowd...but if you do add students to the mix of the upper crust condo dwellers...just imagine...there might be a "Beehive" right next to the crate and barrel. and here's where i agree with sam, the coffee shop would probably be just another starbucks with a panera across the street. that's where the lack of imagination hurts. for all the complaining i hear about the "malling" of walnut street (no, not from you, sam), prantl's, doc's, pamela's, eb pepper and the other locals hold their own against the chains. and that might be because government does stay out of the way. (sam, see...it's starting to sink in on me!)

still, it could happen. by the way, should that student housing be subsidized? my answer is yes and there should be a bus expressway right into the heart of oakland (wherever that is) so that the trip takes no more than 12 minutes.and you know what else might happen if students go downtown...the slumlords who run some of the worst rental properties in this city just might go out of business. now there's a winning situation for everyone...because oakland could become a real neighborhood again...if pitt and upmc don't buy up all the property first.

there are lots of pieces on the chess board, guys. who's smart enough to make the right moves? me, i'm sticking to checkers.

[JoeP]

I don't think that Downtown condos are pulling people out of other city neighborhoods. Possibly a few suburban ones, but I did read once (I don't recall where now) that most are newcomers to the city.

A lively downtown shouldn't be Shadyside, nor should it be a replacement for Shadyside, Oakland, Southside of the Strip. It can and should be a well balanced downtown.

Now, I would support the state helping to level Allegheny Center, so that it could actually have an attractive and useful highrise (mixed use) urbna complex instead of that ugly waste of space...

-JoeP

[sean mcdaniel]

you know, allegheny center was a huge hit when it opened. it had everything...sears...woolworth's...zayre's (anyone old enough to remember that place?)...islay's...an A & P...clothing stores...appliance stores...everything...but then came along the 1980s and ross park mall...say goodbye to sears...woolworth's and zayre's and islay's and the A & P folded...and the smaller businesses couldn't compete without the magnet stores...not to mention rampant shoplifting...it's a sad sad truth...but when all those white northsiders moved to the north hills, they continued to go to Allegheny Center...until the 1980s...once the clientele at AC changed...the end started...it's hideous now...but it worked for a while. and the siphoning of customers didn't just happen at Allegheny Center. When Northway Mall lost Horne's it was left for dying...when Dick's moves to Ross Park Mall, Northway will stay on life support thanks to Marshall's and Value City...but at one time...it was a premier mall in these parts.

[Jonathan Potts]

It's a reminder that retail cannot drive economic development. Unless population increases (or the same population has an increase of disposable income) than new shopping centers will only cannibalize one another. Note that one of the new tenants moving to the North Shore, Fox Sports, is moving from Allegheny Center.