Want a Cheap House? Forget Pittsburgh...

Oh man. You don't see Canton, Ohio, profiled in the New York Times everyday. But you do today. And it ain't pretty.

This article indicates that while housing prices everywhere else are exploding, you can get yourself an address in Canton for $10,000 or $20,000. No mansions for that amount, but you can live in the nice section of town for $80,000.

Several things: First, let's do something unfair and compare Canton to Pittsburgh. (Like I said, I know it's unfair. But civic boosters feel free to compare Pittsburgh to Columbus when they want a new hockey arena, so I claim a certain amount of license.) At any rate, the cities are similar. Canton used to be an industrial powerhouse. But factories closed and the population plummeted. Sound familiar? Which of course led to a slide in housing prices. Scroll down a few posts or click here for a discussion of how those factors are playing out in Pittsburgh--especially whether it makes sense for the government to be subsidizing housing in a city that already has a lot of housing.

And now for the inevitable unfair question: What would you say if Canton's mayor started talking about dumping millions into high-end condos?

I can almost feel the derision about to be heaped upon me.

OK. So now for an even more ridiculous comparison: Let me tell you how this would play out in Washington, DC. See, Canton is 111 miles from Pittsburgh according to the Yahoo map. I have never driven it, but what's it take, two hours?

Well, if this were DC, young families looking for a place to live would move to Canton and make the commute. Two hours is NOTHING to these people. They only cover 30 miles in that amount of time, but they do it. Believe me. I know.

Not so long ago I read a story in the Washington Post about tens of thousands of people moving to the Frederick, Maryland, area, where houses are getting more and more expensive all the time. Every day they get up at 4:30 am and drive--on roads that are getting more and more congested--to the last Metro stop on the Red Line. They wait for that train, then sit on it for another half an hour. Get off and wait for a transfer. Then sit on that train forever. Then get off and either take a cab or walk to their office. Then do it all in reverse at night.

Ah, Pittsburgh.

(And again, I know Pittsburgh is not like Canton. Just like it isn't like Columbus.)

Comments

[Jonathan Barnes]

People in this region, in general, won't drive two hours to work. They are sane people.
With all those sleep-deprived folks in D.C., it's no wonder the government's a mess.

[sean mcdaniel]

i agree with j. potts. we're not killing ourselves around here to get ahead. most in the region are just looking to get by. but i had a friend who lived in frederick. her husband commuted more than an hour each way to work in baltimore. the money was great. but the life was lousy (and far more expensive than here). the kicked the status and career move habits and returned to pgh...even though both are from columbus.

[Sam M]

Yeah, it's amazing what people will do to themselves. Just think about where you could live if you WERE willing to drive that long. Erie? Good heavens, the "metropolitan area" would be the size of Kansas.

And it keeps going. You could live two hours north of here. And let's say your spouse was willing to drive the same amount of time but found a job in the opposite direction. That means you could have a couple, living in the same house, with one working in Pittsburgh and one working in Buffalo.

As for Frederick, I bet the commute to Baltimore is longer than an hour now. The whole I-70 corridor is filling up with urban expats in search of affordable housing.

I think it's worth noting--although it is obvious--that these are not really the wheelers and dealers. You know, the think-tank presidents or the corporate executives. Those people can afford the city. Or at least close suburbs. Lots of nice little enclaves in DC and Baltimore.

So why do people do it? Why drive two hours to be a middle manager or an administrative assistant? I mean, you cannot even take advantage of the city living way out in the sticks, so it can't be for nice restaurants and the theater.

As far as I can tell, the average job does in fact pay quite a bit more in DC. My wife, for instance, could be making about $4 or $5 more per hour as a nurse.

And there is the perception that you can move up. And that there is a broad enough job base that both members of a household can find work.

Thing is, people are willing to do an awful lot for a job. Doesn't really matter where they live or how far they have to drive. They'll do it for work.

Think about it. All those people moved to Pittsburgh for work in the Big Steel era, despite the whole "hell with the lid taken off" thing.

Which goes back to why I wonder about spending all this money on "buzz" and building fancy amenities. All sorts of people moved to Silicon Valley. And a whole lot of Silicon Valley really, really sucked. It's not all that pretty. And whole swaths were empty. But people went there and worked and eventually built their own amenities.

That is, I think the buzz is the cart and the jobs are the horse.

Again, to simplify: If there are enough good jobs, it doesn't matter if the city in question is a complete crap hole. People will move there.

A simple thought experiment. It's far fetched, but stay with me: Say the ET Works in Braddock decided to expand. And feeling generous, they decided to offer workers $30 an hour and three weeks vacation. The plan called for 10,000 new workers. And as a kind of civic experiment similar to ones run during the industrial revolution (Lowell, Mass.), the owners decided that, as a condition of employment, you had to live in Braddock.

Do you think people would move to Braddock?

I do.

Similarly, lets say the new proposal for high-end housing in downtown Pittsburgh falls through. But at the same time Carnegie Mellon scores a big defense contract and has to hire 1,000 new engineers and professors and 5,000 support staff.

Do you think the lack of high-end condos is going to be a serious impediment to filling those university jobs?

I don't.

[Amos the Poker Cat]

I can name dozens and dozens of people I know that commute more than two hours on a weekly basis for work. I know people who have commuted to DC on a weekly basis for almost 30 years. It takes me about 8 hours from home door to work door to commute to Denver. I probably make a minimum of 50% more than what I would get in PIT. My psuedo-wife is also a nurse. In 1998, we moved back, and she toke a 30% cut then.

Don't forget the non-appreciation of real estate in PIT.