Break out the violins. Elon Musk isn’t getting his attention fix

Fig. 1. Most of the homeless encampments I’ve seen around Pittsburgh have been on the North Side. This one is downtown, right by a Parkway (Interstate 376) onramp. Photograph by author, May 22, 2023.

If, for whatever reason, you want to know the current state of Pittsburgh’s downtown, Mark Belko’s article will help, but it tends to minimize the problems as given in favor of prospects for renewal. What’s being advocated is something more like a heavily redeveloped Strip District, where luxury apartments in new buildings mix with retail in remaining repurposed older buildings. Note especially the distinction between Penn Avenue, which bustles with restaurants mostly between 10th Street and 6th Street as it melds into venues in the Cultural District closer in, and Liberty Avenue, which seems relatively desolate,^[1] not to mention the area south of Liberty Avenue. What I don’t see here is any mention of affordable housing, which had earlier been part of the proposal^[2]—I watch this, but with parking costs and Pittsburgh’s three percent local local income tax (many municipalities have a somewhat lower local income tax), it wouldn’t be something I could consider anyway (My present plan is to move to Erie, to escape Pittsburgh’s awful roads and awful driving).

Mark Belko, “A new Downtown? More residential, retail a must as concerns grow over possible office building defaults,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 23, 2023, https://www.post-gazette.com/business/development/2023/07/23/downtown-pittsburgh-residential-retail-office-building-defaults-jones-lang-lasalle-real-estate-pittsburgh-downtown-partnership-downtown-neighbors-alliance-vacancies/stories/202307230124