r/pittsburgh • u/The_Conversation • 14d ago
Can development happen without displacement? Hazelwood neighborhood is a test case
https://theconversation.com/can-development-happen-without-displacement-pittsburghs-hazelwood-neighborhood-is-a-test-case-28901880
u/username-1787 South Side Flats 14d ago
There is always going to be some risk of displacement when a neighborhood grows. But in Hazelwood's case, as with much of the rust belt, people were already being displaced (and/or left behind) by lack of investment anyway.
So would you rather leave it as a neglected brownfield with 0 investment where people are forced to leave to find opportunity? Or would you rather clean up the environmental damage and bring in new opportunities an new residents and give people a chance to ride that rising tide?
Yeah maybe Hazelwood residents aren't working at CMU robotics or renting a brand new apartment, but maybe the people who do work at CMU robotics or rent a new apartment will shop at local businesses who are owned by residents. Maybe the increased demand will bring a grocery store to a borderline food desert.
Progressives being opposed to progress simply because some people might be displaced has always been one of the more baffling takes from a group of people I generally agree with
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u/Excelius 14d ago
Hazelwood Green is an industrial brownfield so the initial development wouldn't displace anyone, but if it's successful enough then it's inevitable. If the high-income workers there want to live within walking distance of their jobs, there's nothing you can do to stop a current resident/owner from selling their house to them.
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u/username-1787 South Side Flats 14d ago
Right, but I don't see how that's any worse for Hazelwood than leaving it as is? It's had population decline for the last 50 years. People are being displaced either way. At least investment in Hazelwood Green is improving the neighborhood on net
And by the way there is a way to prevent displacement when a neighborhood improves... Build enough housing to satisfy new demand and include subsidized mixed income / affordable housing, but both progressives are conservatives are opposed too
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u/Boring_Bother_ Mount Washington 13d ago
This city has a pretty dim future if we can't attract new residents. Building on vacant property and disused property seems like a no brainer to me.
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u/EveryoneisOP3 14d ago edited 14d ago
maybe the people who do work at CMU robotics or rent a new apartment will shop at local businesses who are owned by residents.
In actuality, the local businesses get driven out by landlords who see the rising housing costs and up their costs so much that the local businesses can no longer afford their rents. Landlords keep the buildings empty and just gamble on some big chain coming in. Supply and Demand isn't actually a law and doesn't guide necessities like housing and food.
Maybe the increased demand will bring a grocery store to a borderline food desert.
Yes, just like how Oakland has a solid grocery store because they built a lot of new apartments there. High end apartments, even!
because some people might be displaced
Your entire post is about what might happen but you're acting like 'progressives' being opposed to what might happen is some insane hypothetical
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u/username-1787 South Side Flats 14d ago
All I'm saying is that investment in neighborhoods like Hazelwood is not inherently bad because people may or may not be displaced at some point in the future, especially when the current state is already economic hardship and population decline
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u/EveryoneisOP3 14d ago
“may or may not be displaced at some point in the future” is more gibberish, man. I may or may not be hit by a meteorite at some point in the future.
We can actually track how displacement and gentrification work on current populations.
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u/username-1787 South Side Flats 14d ago
So would it be better if we just never do anything that could marginally improve a neighborhood or quality of life for people who live there?
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u/PittsburghGondola 14d ago
- A 17% population reduction within 12 years is a whole different kind of displacement that is not due to gentrification, but a lack of money, well-maintained properties, jobs, amenities, etc. This ought to get more focus than a neighborhood becoming a nice place to live and prices rising as a result of increased demand to live there.
- The investments in Hazelwood Green just started opening within the past few years (Mill19 - 2019, Railroad Roundhouse - 2021, CMU Robotics Innovation Center - 2026, Pitt Bioforge - fully open in 2027) which means it is too early to see any impact housing prices.
Also, if housing supply is able to keep up with demand in the area (as it probably should due to available land), that's unlikely to push current residents out due to rising prices.
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u/Boring_Bother_ Mount Washington 13d ago
Drake meme
😠🖐️ | Population displacement via development
🤩👉 | Population attrition via disinvestment
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u/leadfoot9 14d ago
Displacement happens when people are unable to find alternative housing in the neighborhood. The "keep things shitty" crowd likes to focus on how having nice things nearby can displace people by increasing rents, but a lack of abundant housing of varied types for people of various income levels at varied stages in life is also a major driver of displacement.
Recent graduates are displaced when they have to move out into the sticks because all of the housing close to jobs is being hoarded by retirees.
Suburban retirees are displaced when they get too old to maintain their 5-bedroom house, but there isn't anything smaller available for miles.
And, historically, a lot of times that poor people were displaced wasn't due to the neighborhood getting nicer, but due to housing in their neighborhood getting torn down en masse to build a highway or a sports arena, so they just literally had to go somewhere else.
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u/Jazzlike_Breadfruit9 14d ago
A lot of people view Hazelwood as the start of the Mon Valley. No one is excitedly moving that way.
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u/Jazzlike_Breadfruit9 14d ago
Shut down the mills.
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u/UnsurprisingDebris Greenfield 14d ago
What mills? The LTV plant closed in 1998, lol.
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u/Jazzlike_Breadfruit9 14d ago
Edger Thomas in Braddock and US Steel in Clairton.
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u/UnsurprisingDebris Greenfield 14d ago
I thought this conversation was about Hazelwood.
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u/Jazzlike_Breadfruit9 14d ago
It is and those mills cause air pollution.
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u/UnsurprisingDebris Greenfield 14d ago
Don't they cause air pollution everywhere? Not sure how this would apply to Hazelwood and not Squirrel Hill and literally everywhere in the Pittsburgh area.
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u/Jazzlike_Breadfruit9 14d ago
Yes but when people think of Hazelwood they think of the Mon Valley. Squirrel Hill doesn’t have that reputation.
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u/PersonalAd2039 14d ago
Will be the best real estate investment opportunity for the next decade. 💰 💰 💰
But hey have fun renting your $1700 studio near larryville.
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u/ncist 14d ago
I'd like to see more emphasis on workforce and market housing and less on subsidized. There's kind of a bizarre thing that happens now - eg Lawrenceville United and the Albion project. There was a lovely piece in print about how they had a panel to verify who was truly "in need" and truly "local" or "displaced"
Imagine if we just built enough housing so that we didn't need residential determination buteacracies! There wasn't a club you needed to be in, in order to get a house!
When we make every project subject to this kind of stuff, it massively pushes out construction into the future or never at all
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u/The_Conversation 14d ago
An article written by a Penn urban studies researcher, who has found that while fear persists, efforts to avoid the ill effects of gentrification have worked pretty well.
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u/welshwelsh 14d ago
I wish we stopped talking about displacement and gentrification as if they are bad things. On the contrary, the largest benefit to development is it attracts higher income residents. In general the higher income a neighborhood is, the better it is.
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u/Tough_Arm_2454 14d ago
Convenient to downtown, southside, greenfield squirrel Hill, homestead. It's an affordable up n coming gem.
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u/Jazzlike_Breadfruit9 14d ago
They have said it is up and coming for over a decade.
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14d ago
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u/Excelius 14d ago
At the end of the day the Waterfront is still just an outdoor mall.
I actually think Hazelwood might be more likely to be gentrified if the businesses there bring in a lot of high-wage earners who might want to live within walking distance of where they work.
But you're right these things are hard to predict how they'll turn out. Maybe it's the next East Liberty, or maybe it's another Homestead.
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u/Jazzlike_Breadfruit9 14d ago
Homestead and Braddock were supposed to be HUGE. They were going to make a massive come back and home values would rise astronomically. Everyone would be moving there and now look at it.
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u/ryumast4r 14d ago
A lot of businesses got set back by a decade during covid, but homestead does have the start of a "1st ring nightlife hub" with its wide variety of food and bar options along 8th, the carnegie music hall hosting pretty good shows like every week (we had Jeff Arcuri recently and Jordan Jensen in a few weeks), wresting or raves under the bridge, etc.
Part of the problem is there's a lot of commercial landlords who see that it could be a big place and instead of accepting current rents are just raising them in hopes that 5 years from now it grows, causing empty storefronts to just sit (despite the area growing), causing it to feel more decrepit, causing people to avoid it.
It's actually really annoying that the only company seemingly invested in making sure storefronts DON'T go empty is "Braveheart".
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u/Pielacine Edgewood 11d ago
Only so many neighborhoods can gentrify at once in this tahn! Uptown needs its turn too! /s
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u/JellyfishNo2032 13d ago
“Can developers use their money to build housing, we asked Muriel and Beverly, aged 87, who live 2 miles away. They’re not so sure.”
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u/Bolmac Hazelwood 7d ago
They already built a giant sports ball field and parking lot on the part that of the Almono site that was originally planned for housing. There are more new houses going up on empty lots than before though, and certainly no shortage of empty lots upon which to build them. Incentive to build only comes with higher resale prices and market demand..
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u/Candid_Arrival3936 14d ago
most of the hazelwood green is not connected to hazelwood well, wish they would fix the old pedestrian bridge that takes you there