EDITORIAL: Keeping a community intact when 'gentrification' beckons
Apr. 10—Pennsylvania is a state that struggles with blight.
From city neighborhoods to small towns, the falling population and the changing manufacturing landscape have created communities where closed businesses and smaller tax bases have started a downward spiral in areas that are sometimes euphemistically called "once proud."
That's a term that needs to be retired. In these boroughs and townships and corners of cities, the people still are proud of where they call home. They just hope for a new employer to come in or for someone to see their potential and invest. This week, the New Kensington Downtown Partnership was launched, building momentum for the multiple projects underway to revitalize the city. It's a great sign of progress and hard work.
But in other parts of the region, people worry about a potential flip side of development: displacement. Some people who have stayed in a town or neighborhood, through thick and thin, feel unwelcome when the tides turn. The term "gentrification," once a desirable process, is now often used to describe an affliction.
Used neutrally, gentrification means taking something old and making it new-ish and cool. Like refinishing an old dresser, it preserves some of the old charm but gives it a wash of modern appeal and a good marketing angle to make it attractive to new buyers.
It sounds like a good idea. It is exactly what many people wish would happen to their communities — a return to the days when more people were employed and could afford to fix their roofs and paint their porches. The problem is that it can price out the people who already live in a community.
In expensive real estate markets like San Francisco and New York City, neighborhoods that were once affordable enclaves have been rehabbed out of reach. On a smaller scale, college towns can do the same, with student housing — where a developer might get $800 a month from each of four roommates — crowding out available family housing or affordable workforce housing that might get $1,500 or less. But not only does the workforce still need housing, the workforce is still necessary.
The Pittsburgh Planning Commission is hearing from residents who want to make sure that as Lawrenceville continues its rebirth as a popular live-work environment, it isn't doing so at the expense of those who eat ramen because it's cheap, not because it's trendy.
They want to solidify a temporary zoning requirement that said any project with 20 or more units had to allot 10% for those with lower incomes. In fact, proponents want to up that to 15%.
It might seem like a bad idea for developers, who would get less rent for that percentage of their property. It isn't. It encourages the survival of the community, which is going to want people to work at local bars and restaurants and shops. Those workers won't want to drive 40 minutes to pour coffee.
Blight is a riddle every economic development and planning agency and every local government is trying to solve. It often focuses too much on bringing in the new people with money. Zoning proposals like this underscore that you aren't preserving a community if you hollow it out and start from scratch.
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