Neighborhood Profiles: Sheraden and Esplen

Up until the 2010 census Pittsburgh neighborhoods contained at least one or more census tract and those tracts roughly (or wholly) confined to the border of each official Pittsburgh neighborhood boundary, depending on the decade examined. However, population decline in certain neighborhoods has made it so that several neighborhoods now share a tract. I bring this up to inform the reader that there can be major drawbacks regarding data analysis for neighborhoods that now share a border.

Take the South Hilltop neighborhoods of Bon Air and Beltzhoover as an example. The two neighborhoods are quite different regarding demographics; the former has been historically low poverty and majority White and the latter has been historically higher poverty and Black. But now that Beltzhoover is joined to Bon Air, it is impossible to assess how each neighborhood has changed since 2010 – at least with tract level data (which has higher quality estimates than block group data).

Likewise, Sheraden and Esplen are two independent neighborhoods that now share the same census tract as of 2010. And because it is now difficult to assess them separately, they will also share the same neighborhood profile and be referred to as the Sheraden and Esplen neighborhood area. This same method will be applied to all such neighborhoods that share the same tract.

The Sheraden and Esplen neighborhood area is located on Pittsburgh’s West End. For all intended purposes the West Busway acts as the area’s southern border, Middletown Road makes up much of the western border and Chartiers creek and the Ohio river makeup the northern and eastern borders, respectively. It is bordered by the Pittsburgh neighborhoods of Chartiers City and Windgap to the west, Crafton Heights and Elliott to the south, Marshall-Shadeland to the east (to which Brunot Island is a part of) and is bordered to the north by the borough of McKees Rocks. Sheradan is accessible via the West Busway and the 26 from Downtown. However, due to Pittsburgh’s typography, it is noticeably less accessible if you’re coming from other sections of the city.

The Sheraden and Esplen neighborhoods are located in Pittsburgh’s West End region.

The bulk of the neighborhood area is comprised of Sheraden, while Esplen is a small sliver of land that hugs Chartiers Creek and the Ohio River valley. As such, this profile will primarily focus on Sheraden. The former was originally farmland while the latter acted as a railroad camp for workers who built the tracks that surround the neighborhood. Sheraden was founded by early settler William Sheraden. William divvied out his land for residential development and a railroad depot. His former homestead still exists to this day and can be found on Bergman Street (as pointed out to me by my friend Cam). The home is highly recognizable due to the joined sycamore trees which watch over the entry way; Sheriden’s grandson was a horticulturalist and cultivated the archway. Sheraden was annexed by the City of Pittsburgh in 1907.

William Sheraden’s former homestead on Bergman street. Two sycamore trees join to form an archway over the entrance to the home.

I started my walk of the neighborhood near its “entrance.” Chartiers Avenue forms a bridge over the West Busway and the busway largely acts as the neighborhood’s southern dividing line. The former Langley High School (now Langley K-8) towers at the intersection of Chartiers Avenue and Sheraden Boulevard; the two of which serve as sites for the bulk of Sheraden’s scattered businesses.

The former Langley High School which is now Langley K-8. The high school stopped operating during the 2012-2013 school year. Architecturally, the building is in the style of Tudor Revival.

The Sheraden Shoppe n’ Kitchen off of Chartiers Avenue. There aren’t many active businesses in the neighborhood.

Sheraden, Esplen and the West End in general are parts of Pittsburgh that I have few personal ties to. And this was something I was reminded of throughout my walk. Unlike previous profiles which covered neighborhoods on Pittsburgh’s Northside, East End and those in the South Hilltop and South Pittsburgh, the West End does not reveal (for me) any feelings of nostalgia or longing for the places that so many folks in its 11 neighborhoods call home. And that’s what makes exploring these neighborhoods so exciting. My best friend’s father grew up in Sheraden, and he visited his grandfather there until he passed away some years ago. I also remember that I once dropped my brother off in Sheraden so that he could complete a project for high school; he attended Bishop Canevin which is itself located in the West End neighborhood of East Carnegie. But minus exceptions like these, the West End is totally foreign to me.

Growing up in a low-income home in Carrick and Brookline meant that our ability to travel was at the mercy of how much money we had (which wasn’t much). And by “travel” I don’t mean to other states, let alone out of the country; I’m referring to the ability to travel to different sections of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh’s three rivers, intense typography and the Port Authority’s “in to town/out of town” bus system make some sections of the city feel particularly isolated and hard to traverse. While Pittsburgh residents may scoff at having to “cross a river,” doing so is a huge challenge for residents without a car and for those that have limited means to travel. I can easily recall all the times my family scraped nickels and dimes together to get enough gas money to go grocery shopping (because Brookline didn’t and doesn’t have one). I say all this to illustrate just why the West End is so foreign to me. I didn’t have family or friends there and we were broke. The result was that the West End may as well have been in another country. As will be detailed in a forthcoming post, I didn’t experience much beyond South Pittsburgh, the South Hills and the South Hilltop until I was late in my 24th year on this earth (with the exception of electrical jobs I did with my dad).

Attached brick homes line the streets of Sheraden.

The factors that may literally or figuratively isolate Sheraden and Esplen from the broader Pittsburgh region also make them attractive in their own right. The neighborhood of Sheraden is divided into 4 main quadrants: north east, north west, south east and south west. While the northern sections are dense, urban and filled with children at play, the southern sections felt suburban and scattered (with some streets having no sidewalks). My walk revealed a compact, mixed race community that is truly alive. As detailed in my Knoxville profile, another mixed race community, true mixed race communities are rare in Pittsburgh. Sheraden felt especially alive in the north eastern section of the neighborhood. Black and White bodied children were at play, kids were helping their parents take care of their houses and adults were sitting on porches to escape the summer sun.

Black children help their mom out around the yard. There were children playing on nearly every street that I walked in the north eastern section of the neighborhood (directly east of Sheraden park).

The south eastern section of the neighborhood felt suburban in design. Taken at a side street off Mutual Street.

If I had to describe Sheraden in one word it would be “community.” In many ways, it felt like a fusion of Knoxville and Brookline. Like Knoxville, Sheraden was racially diverse and dense. And like Brookline, Sheraden was filled with children at play and had a vibrant display of neighbors who know and talk to one another (as opposed to the transient nature of so many of our college heavy communities in the East End). The exterior of Sheraden and the sections adjacent to Esplen were wooded, but single family homes and small – to – mid size apartment complexes dominated most of the landscape in the neighborhood at large. At times, the most north eastern section of Sheraden gave way to wide vistas covering McKees Rocks, Brunot Island and the mainland of Marshall-Shadeland, especially atop the slopes in the eastern section of the neighborhood.

View atop the city steps that connect lower and upper Glasgow street. McKees Rocks is visible in the distance beyond Chartiers Creek.

Brick street east of Sheraden Park.

Sheraden Park is large and acts as a sort of anchor for the neighborhood; everything seems to be built around it. The park is home to facilities and the Sheraden swimming pool. I’ve been an active, daily swimmer for over a year now and I took advantage of my time here to stop and take a swim. A few Black children were playing games that I played as a kid, but it was pretty empty otherwise. Anyone remember playing gator? After I finished swimming, I walked south of the park and explored the dense patches of housing on its western edge. My westward journey eventually brought me to an old skate park located off of Tuxedo Street.

Sheraden Public Swimming Pool located off of Adon Street in Sheraden Park.

Sheraden Skate Park off of Tuxedo Street.

I eventually came upon an elderly Black man who was tending to a plotted plant in front of his apartment off Ashlyn street. Ben has lived in Sheraden for 11 years and used to live in Beaver Falls. He came to Sheraden because he wanted to “get back in the thick of it.” Ben was kind to talk to me on such a hot summer day. He used to do maintenance work and we talked about his work, the work my dad did as an electrician and what he liked best about living in the area. For Ben, he loved his proximity to the Carnegie Library, Langley K-8, Sheraden Park and some of the scattered shops off Sheraden Boulevard and Chartiers Avenue. His street was quiet, apart from the laughter of children at play. But he took issue with the gun violence in the neighborhood. “I’m too old to be dodging bullets,” said Ben. He said this as he pointed east. Ben mentioned that the bulk of gun violence happens in the north eastern section of the neighborhood; a thought that worried me given the number of young kids I saw at play there. When I asked him how frequently the violence occurred, he said “not too often, but it shouldn’t happen at all.”

Ben has lived in Sheraden for the past 11 years. A retired maintenance worker, he likes his proximity to the local library and park, and the quiet sanctuary that is his corner of Ashlyn street .

Blighted building and the closed Holy Innocents Catholic Church at the corner of Ashlyn and Sherwood.

The comparatively high incidences of homicides, non fatal gun violence and aggravated assault with a weapon are subjects I also heard about via residents in Knoxville and Garfield, both of which are high poverty neighborhoods. While the Sheraden and Esplen area teeters on the edge of what would be classified as high moderate or high poverty, the neighborhood was subject to similar degrees of disinvestment, blight and poverty that I saw in Knoxville. And as detailed in both the Knoxville and Garfield profile, comparatively high rates of violent crime at the neighborhood level tend to be the product of prolonged in-opportunity, concentrated poverty and extreme segregation, according to a number of notable criminologists and sociologists. Crime is often most likely to be carried out by males aged 15-24 and a select few cause a disproportionate amount of that crime. And to restate what I’ve said elsewhere, while crime is still comparatively high in higher poverty areas, crime it still much lower than it was in the early 90s in most major cities. In fact, high poverty neighborhoods have seen the steepest declines in violent crime, overall.

One of many blighted properties that I witnessed on my walk. This property is off Brunot Avenue in the eastern most section of Sheraden (Esplen is down below the cliffside).

As detailed in a recent piece I wrote in Public Source, concentrated poverty is overwhelmingly linked to communities of color in Pittsburgh (whether those communities be mixed race or those with black populations upward of 51%), and neighborhood poverty is often lasting – despite decades of economic growth and decline at the national, state and local levels. Concentrated poverty is the product of a troubled history of government led racial discrimination in the housing and lending markets, demographic change and market disruption that disproportionately affected Black people and low-wage workers.

Likewise, I found that racial segregation is often lasting in Pittsburgh. A regression analysis reveals that the relationship between percent Black in Pittsburgh neighborhoods is nearly one to one from 2000 to 2017 (0.93 at p < .01). Despite my research in this area, I was surprised by the strength of the relationship, given the degree of public housing that was demolished or rebuilt as mixed income housing in the late 90s and throughout the 2000s (and given the degree of market pressure and rising rents in several Pittsburgh neighborhoods). In fact, with the exception of St. Clair Village, which was a majority black public housing project (and now the site of what will be the largest urban farm in the U.S), the largest declines in percent black overtime were Downtown and the Strip. The Strip and Downtown likely declined in percentage black due to market pressure (i.e. rapid investment and increased residential demand) and/or population saturation as new households moved in (since few residents were living in these areas in 2000).

Analysis includes 74 neighborhoods and neighborhood areas in the City of Pittsburgh. While St. Clair is mentioned above, it was not included in the analysis because of having a population < 100 as of the past few years. Likewise, Chateau and South Shore were excluded for having populations < 100.

The Sheraden and Esplen area is an example of a Pittsburgh neighborhood(s) that has gotten poorer and blacker from the 1990s onward (roughly 18% to 29% poor from 1990 to 2017 and 21% to 41% percent black from 2000 to 2017). And when considering the combined standardized measures of homicides and non fatal gun violence per 500 residents, poverty, single motherhood and male unemployment, the Sheraden and Esplen neighborhood area is the 12th most disadvantaged community in the City of Pittsburgh, as of 2017 American Community Survey estimates and 911 data via Allegheny County analytics. Below is a detailed table regarding more recent changes in a variety of measures in the Sheraden/Esplen area over a 5-year period.

Table assembled via 2012 and 2017 5-year estimates from the American Community Survey. Census tract level estimates have sizable margin of error and this may impact results. Crime data pulled from Allegheny County analytics. The Sheraden and Esplen neighborhood area is comprised of 2 census tracts that were combined using a weighted average based on population proportions.

There are several factors that set Sheraden apart from other Pittsburgh neighborhoods. While I will refrain from looking too closely at differences between indicators in 2012 and 2017 due to sizable margin of error, I’ll comment on several things that stood out as of 2017 estimates. On the positive end of things, Sheraden is a diverse community. This was evident throughout the entirety of my walk. Neighbors talked with each other, children of different races played together and several residents stopped and said hello to me even though I was just walking through. Truly dense social networks were highly visible among and between neighbors. The neighborhood also has a male unemployment rate that is slightly lower than the average (but still comparatively high).

However, like other higher poverty areas of Pittsburgh, Sheraden is impacted by a comparatively high degree of gun violence. Sheraden ranked number 1 in 2017 regarding aggravated assault with a weapon in raw incidents (and 4th when accounting for population). When accounting for population differences, Sheraden had the 16th highest rate of homicides and non fatal gun violence in 2017 per 500 residents. However, it’s important to note that Sheraden’s ranking is comparatively much better than the two other high poverty, high gun violence neighborhoods we’ve profiled so far (Knoxville ranked 5th and Garfield ranked 8th on the same measure). The Sheraden/ Esplen area actually ranked directly below California-Kirkbride on homicide and non fatal gun violence per 500. And as detailed in Cal-bride’s profile, Cal-bride is an incredibly safe community considering its high degree of extreme poverty; which is another reminder that poverty and population demographics alone are by no means the only factors that contribute to neighborhood violence. Sheraden also has a rate of single mothers that is twice the average among Pittsburgh neighborhoods and is the 7th highest regarding rank, which add to the degree of disadvantage in the neighborhood.

The former Holy Innocents Catholic Church. Like many other Catholic churches in Pittsburgh, the church has been closed for some time, along with the school of the same name. Our family friend Ron detailed the history behind the church and the memories he had here and elsewhere in Sheraden.

Sheraden is a community that struggles with disadvantage, but it’s also a community that is diverse, filled with community activity and is home to a contained neighborhood that feels like it inhabits its own space in Pittsburgh’s West End. The community is also home to local nonprofits like the The Education Partnership, which provides school supplies to teachers and students of low-income communities in southwestern PA, and several local churches. Some of these churches promoted free lunches for low-income kids and others advertised upcoming summer events in the community. While the commercial corridor was sparse, several small markets and convenience stores seemed to attempt to fill the void of providing goods in the absence of a neighborhood grocery store; the West End appears to be one of the more obvious food desserts in Pittsburgh as compared to the availability of grocery stores in the city’s East End. I didn’t know much about Sheraden and Esplen going in, but I discovered an intimate, active community that folks seemed pleased to call home.

Methodology Notes

All neighborhood level statistics were gathered via census tract level data from the 2012 to 2017 5-year American Community Survey estimates. Citywide statistics were gathered via the 2017 1-year ACS estimates. The 1990 poverty rate was gathered via poverty estimates from the National Historic Geographic Information Systems. Crime data pulled from Allegheny County analytics. The University of Pittsburgh Library System informed which census tracts comprised a given neighborhood in a given year. Because some neighborhoods share a census tract as of the 2010 census, several neighborhoods were combined and are known as neighborhood areas. There are 74 unique neighborhoods and neighborhood areas used in the analysis. 2012 dollar amounts, incomes and values were adjusted for inflation using the consumer price index. Because the Sheraden and Esplen neighborhood area consists of 2 census tracts, neighborhood level estimates were calculated via a weighted average based on census tract to neighborhood population proportions.

ACS estimates at the census tract level have sizeable margin or error. This may impact results.

Snippets of broader Pittsburgh history were not cited because they are common knowledge. “Student heavy centers” include all those census tracts within known student heavy locations and those neighborhoods that contain a 4-year college or university.

In neighborhood profiles and data briefs, neighborhoods and neighborhood areas are considered to have a simple racial majority when a given race constitutes 51% of the total population. Otherwise, it is considered a mixed-race neighborhood.

Poverty intervals were informed by standards in neighborhood-level poverty research. Specifically, researcher Patrick Sharkey’s poverty intervals were referenced from his book Stuck in Place – regarding what constitutes an extreme, high, moderate, low or very low poverty neighborhood.

*The views expressed on this profile and blog are mine alone and do not necessarily represent those of my previous or current employers.*

Neighborhood Profile: California-Kirkbride

Located just northeast of Manchester, California-Kirkbride is a majority Black and extreme poverty neighborhood that is bridged between the City’s lower and upper Northside. As such, California-Kirkbride is split between a southern section which is topographically flat, filled with vacant lots and is home to historic row homes and a northern section that sits directly south of the architecturally beautiful and distinct Oliver Citywide Academy, a sparse collection of homes and the breathtaking Union Dale Cemetery; the two sections are connected via Pittsburgh city steps and the neighborhood’s eastern border of Brighton Road.

A pair of city steps connect the southern section of the neighborhood to the northern section. The steps sit off Morrison Street and connect up to Sunday Street.

California-Kirkbride is bordered to the north by Marshall Shadeland, to the west by Manchester, to the East by Perry South and to the south by Central Northside, which is more commonly known as the Mexican War Streets. Allegheny Avenue and California Avenue are adjacent to the Norfolk Southern Railroad and comprise the western border; Island Avenue and a section of Marshall Avenue makeup the northern border; and Brighton Road and Pennsylvania Avenue constitute the eastern and southern border, respectively. The community is accessible via the 13, 16 and 17 but is somewhat cutoff from the rest of the lower Northside. Formerly an industrial rail yard, the U.S Postal Service now houses a sorting center that takes up a significant amount of land in the most southwestern part of the neighborhood. Other industrial sites exist off of California Avenue and in the northern section of the neighborhood off of Sunday Street.

California-Kirkbride (or Cal-Bride) is located on Pittsburgh’s Northside region.

Neighborhoods like Northside’s California-Kirkbride are a microcosm of the decline, disinvestment and extreme poverty and inopportunity that many Black Pittsburghers face. While much attention has been given to Pittsburgh’s revitalization, that revitalization has not taken place in most of Pittsburgh’s poorest and Blackest neighborhoods, and the living wage opportunities that stem from economic growth often remain out of reach for Pittsburghers of all races without a college degree. While the northern part of the neighborhood is quiet and tucked away, the southern section is largely green and emptied – with the effects of its overwhelming poverty and abandonment evident. But neighborhood groups like the Northside Coalition for Fair Housing aim to revitalize the neighborhood in an equitable manner and helped give life to a colorful play space surrounded by public murals off California Avenue. Likewise, Project Destiny sits off the neighborhood’s western border and offers programs to engage inner city youth. Project Destiny runs an afterschool program, mentoring networks and offers a 6-week summer camp program, and is partnered with the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium. Lastly, Northside Common Ministries is located in the south-eastern section of the neighborhood and offers employment services, a homeless shelter, a food pantry and other services to disadvantaged populations of the Northside and beyond.

The southern section of the neighborhood conveys a visual sense of emptiness and abandonment. A considerable number of lots are now green and unoccupied and reveal just how dense this neighborhood once was by both population and housing stock.

A playground that was constructed with the aid of Kaboom!, the Northside Coalition for Fair Housing and others. It sits in the southern section of the neighborhood off of California Avenue. A unique mural overlooks the play space.

As workers of the former rail yard, slaughterhouses and other local industries increased residential demand during the late 1800s and early 1900s, the neighborhood became densely populated with industrial style row homes. But California-Kirkbride shares a similar history with many of Pittsburgh’s other poorest neighborhoods. Increasing suburbanization and White flight emptied out neighborhoods following World War II and the collapse of the region’s Steel Industry delivered a punishing blow to neighborhoods already struggling with poverty. Additionally, the practice of redlining and other discriminatory housing and lending policies served to concentrate Black people in the poorest neighborhoods and was legal until the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act. While Pittsburgh passed an anti discrimination law regarding the rental, purchase, sale or financing of residential housing 10 years prior to the passage of the federal law, neither law has had a significant impact on changing patterns of economic and racial segregation overtime. As can be seen in the graph below, researcher Patrick Sharkey found that the number of Black versus White children living in high or moderate poverty neighborhoods remained nearly unchanged both before and long after the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act.[1] As those who sought new opportunity went elsewhere and/or others left for racially motivated reasons, local businesses collapsed, religious and social institutions slowly closed their doors (as membership declined), and those that remained did so in a still depopulating neighborhood and city without the tax base to properly address such cemented issues of poverty and disadvantage.

Sharkey defined high poverty neighborhoods as those with 30% poverty or more and moderate poverty neighborhoods as those with rates between 20 and 29%. The 1968 Fair Housing Law was past in 1968, but a number of factors ranging from deindustrialization to implicit and explicit means of continued discrimination and exclusion kept the law from achieving the intended effect of changing such segregated residential patterns.

I did my street by street walk of the neighborhood on a fifty something degree day in late March. While I’ve been though California-Kirkbride on a number of occasions over the years, I had never explored the neighborhood in such an intimate way. Most notably, the southern part of California-Kirkbride feels empty and there are few Pittsburgh neighborhoods that convey such a sense of vacancy and abandonment. Boarded up businesses and vacant lots give a sense of what the neighborhood used to be like. However, there were a handful of homes that appeared to be undergoing renovations, especially so in the more historic sections of the neighborhood. These sections were composed of large, unique and sturdy brick row homes. Pella, a door and window replacement company, had their stickers on a number of these row homes which suggest that some investment is returning to the neighborhood. Colorful murals were scattered throughout the southern part of the neighborhood and portrayed Black portraits of children, workers, past community members and a bride walking through a door. As I walked past historic row homes and dilapidated housing, Black bodied children were laughing and returning from school, a handful of residents were walking through the neighborhood, and a few women did gardening work in their backyards.

Historic row homes off Brighton Place. The neighborhood was once an alienated, unpopulated corner of the former Allegheny City. But industry brought workers and housing to the neighborhood. However, today, the neighborhood is depopulating and again feels alienated from other more prominent neighborhoods in the lower Northside.

Mural with complementary color tones in the southern section of the neighborhood.

As I walked northward up the city steps off Morrison Street, I immediately noticed that the housing was not subject to the sort of emptiness present in the southern section. This part of the neighborhood was quiet and tucked away; something that a young Black resident really enjoyed about the neighborhood, as said to me. Her name is Britney and she has lived in the area for about 13 years. I spoke with her off Island Avenue and Winifred Street. Britney is quiet, shy and reserved and said that the peaceful calm of this part of the neighborhood is only sometimes interrupted by children and teens at Oliver Citywide Academy. Oliver is a school that is composed entirely of special needs children and teens throughout the city and was once the former Oliver Highschool. The sounds of teens were evidenced by the track meet that was about to start in the athletic field just north of the neighborhood in Marshall-Shadeland. Because of her shyness and avoidance of social media, something I should aspire to, she did not wish to have her picture taken. Britney mentioned that she liked how her close her neighborhood was to her school. Although, she wished that there were more to do in California-Kirkbride; the community does not have its own commercial corridor and is almost entirely residential, except for the swaths of land owned by nonprofits and industry. She attends the Community College of Allegheny County’s Northside campus and stated that she has to go to the Mexican War Streets or the businesses off Western Avenue in Allegheny West to, “Have something to do.” However, the shops are not too far by foot and are very accessible by bus.

Single family homes in the northern section of the neighborhood.

The northern part of the neighborhood was serene and home to another playground. However, the playground looked quite old and had features reminiscent of the original play equipment that was housed in Moore Park and Brookline Memorial Park in Brookline during the 90s. But Brookline’s equipment had been replaced when I was still a child and has received additions since then; California-Kirkbride’s playground has not. Surrounded by Oliver Citywide Academy, Highwood Cemetery in Marshall-Shadeland and Union Dale cemetery, the most north-eastern section of the neighborhood is breathtaking. Old tombstones from the 1800s, large green spaces and ancient trees collide with the brick of old row homes and single family homes, and the sound of bouncing basketballs echoed throughout the landscape as a few Black children shot hoops off of one of the compact streets. As is the same with many other Northside neighborhoods, the steeper parts of the California-Kirkbride give way to wide vistas that show the Northside down below and Downtown in the distance. Much like the rest of Pittsburgh, the neighborhood showcased both what had changed during the period of Pittsburgh’s deindustrialization and what has remained largely the same since.

Old playground off of Success and Winifred Streets. Old row homes line the northern section of the play space.

The tree-lined Brighton road. Oliver Citywide Academy is located in the most southern part of Marshall-Shadeland but the section of Union Dale Cemetery located in California-Kirkbride is visible in the distance.

The entrance to the beautiful Union Dale cemetery in the northern part of the neighborhood. Downtown, the West End and Duquesne heights and Mount Washington are visible from the most southern part of the cemetery.

From 1960 to 2017 the neighborhood changed from 3% Black to 73% Black and the population dropped from 4,235 to an estimated 717, according to census data. From 1990 to 2017 the poverty rate remained within the extreme poverty designation (with levels upwards of 40%) and rose from 42% to 49%. In fact, California-Kirkbride is one of only 8 Pittsburgh neighborhoods that have poverty rates of 40% or more as of 2017 ACS estimates; all but one of which hold a Black simple racial majority. When adjusting for college heavy neighborhoods, California-Kirkbride is the 4th poorest community in the entire city after Northview Heights, Bedford Dwellings and Homewood North and is the least populated city of Pittsburgh neighborhood (outside of commercially dominated neighborhoods like Chateau and the South Shore). Like many other high poverty, majority Black neighborhoods, the area suffers from a high male unemployment rate (33%) and has the 8th lowest median income in the city ($20,268), when adjusting this measure in college heavy neighborhoods. From 2012 to 2017 the median gross rent and the median home value saw significant declines (from $750 to $516 and from $81,292 to $54,700, respectively), along with a substantial population decline composed of mainly black residents (a 7% decline). As of 2017, the community had the 8th lowest median rent in the City. Unlike those few neighborhoods that are rapidly changing in the direction of increased rent, investment and residential demand, California-Kirkbride is declining in value, has gotten poorer and continues to lose a significant portion of its population.

Regarding other measures of need from 2012-2017, those 25 and up without a bachelor’s degree decreased by 6% (89% to 83%), male unemployment decreased by a sizeable 19% (52% to 33%), the White poverty rate rose by 12% (17% to 29%) and the Black poverty rate decreased by 12% (64% to 52%). However, the steepest decline in need was rate of single mothers with children which decreased by an incredible 51% (57% to 6%). While ACS data is known to have sizeable margin of error, this kind of steep decline may not be due to that error alone. Something else significant may be at play due to such a steep decline over such a short period of time. Regarding income, median income rose $12,158 to $20,268. While the White median income declined by an incredible $45,945 (roughly $61,000 to $16,000), the Black median income rose from $10,280 to $23,750. Very few White residents were estimated to leave over this time (just 13) but over 300 Black residents left over the 5-year period. Perhaps those few White residents who left had significant incomes, which led to such a decrease; but that is just speculation. And perhaps the most disadvantaged Black residents are leaving the neighborhood. One thing is clear, while issues of affordable housing are an issue in high and low poverty areas alike, the rent and home value are declining at a high rate in California-Kirkbride, not increasing. Such a steep drop and raise in indicators of need and value by race are more than likely tied to the continuing and significant depopulation of the neighborhood. But other factors may be at play as well.

Vacant lots and row homes off B Street in the southern part of the neighborhood.

Dilapidated house in the southern section of the neighborhood.

Despite it’s incredibly high poverty and male unemployment rates, the neighborhood experienced minimal gun related violence as compared to other high poverty Pittsburgh neighborhoods over the last decade. As with the Knoxville and Garfield neighborhood profiles, concentrated poverty, prolonged inopportunity and unemployment and high rates of single mother families tend to have strong relationships with violent gun related crime, as discussed in those profiles. And the fatal and non fatal gun violence and shootings in Knoxville and Garfield are considerably high. However, California-Kirkbride is fairly safe, which affirms that these aforementioned measures alone are not the only predictors of comparatively high rates of gun violence. By all measures, gun related violence is lower in most U.S cities than it has been in decades, with the exception of spikes in crime in the past few years. In fact, 2014 was one of the safest years in American history according to researcher Patrick Sharkey. But as discussed in his new book, violent gun related crime is still comparatively higher in high poverty neighborhoods than low poverty neighborhoods, and is often carried out by a small number of individuals in micro areas of a given neighborhood. The emergence of crack cocaine in the 1980s hit poor neighborhoods hard and led to an explosion in drug and gang related gun violence. But not all poor neighborhoods were hit by these same forces. And crack’s hold has since declined in many of the nation’s high poverty areas. Comparatively, many poor urban neighborhoods are far less violent than they were during the peak of violent crime in the early 1990s. But again, many are still much more challenged by community violence than low poverty neighborhoods. [2] While such a low and steadily declining population may be a factor in the neighborhood’s low rates of crime, other factors may be at work, although it is unclear what they are. Age is often a factor regarding the likelihood to commit crime with crime significantly tapering off after 30. But 47% of the neighborhood is below the age of 30 and only 10% is above 65, according to 2017 ACS estimates. Whatever the reasons may be, California-Kirkbride is a much safer neighborhood for residents when compared to other high poverty neighborhoods profiled so far, as can be seen via Allegheny Analytics.

California Kirkbride is a neighborhood that faces steep challenges and embodies the growing divide between durably affluent and durably high poverty neighborhoods in American cities.[3] Even within the neighborhood, inequality is found. As of 2017, 52% of the Black population lived below the Federal Poverty Line as compared to 29% of the White population and this trend holds for most of the city. In fact, an analysis shows that while only 14% of poor White people in the City of Pittsburgh live in high poverty neighborhoods, a staggering 59% of poor Black people do.[4] Given the breadth and depth of sociological, economic and human developmental research that show the causal link between childhood development in high poverty neighborhoods and negative long-term socio-economic and health based adult outcomes, such a measure is alarming. Researcher Patrick Sharkey has shown the causal effect between childhood development in high poverty areas and generational poverty and impaired cognitive development,[5] and researcher Raj Chetty has reexamined data from the federally funded Moving to Opportunity experiment to show that a childhood move from a high to low poverty area has a significant positive effect on adult earnings.

Analysis used 2017 ACS 5-year estimates. The total percentage of poor whites versus poor blacks living in neighborhoods with 30% poverty or more was calculated. As can be seen, lack of income may only explain a portion of why this pattern exists. Other factors must be at play to cause such a sharp divide between where poor black versus poor white residents primarily live.

There are several neighborhoods in Pittsburgh that are experiencing rising rents and affordable housing and wage policies must be enacted to ensure that long-term residents can benefit from investment, improved access and opportunity. However, the main challenges that poor and Black neighborhoods like California-Kirkbride face is concentrated poverty, its effects on childhood development and the harsh reality of extreme racial segregation. While vulnerable residents of Lower and Central Lawrenceville, East Liberty and Manchester have to deal with the reality of rising rents that result from increased public and private investment and residential demand, California-Kirkbride and a significant majority of other high poverty neighborhoods must deal with depopulation, disinvestment and neglect. The history of Pittsburgh neighborhoods over the past 3 decades is not often change, despite the attention some neighborhoods undergoing change get. Our focus must also shift to the large number of neighborhoods that have simply been left behind.

The historic California-Kirkbride.

Methodology Notes

All neighborhood level statistics were gathered via census tract level data from the 2012 to 2017 5-year American Community Survey estimates. Citywide statistics were gathered via the 2017 1-year ACS estimates. The 1990 poverty rate was gathered via poverty estimates from the National Historic Geographic Information Systems. The University of Pittsburgh Library System informed which census tracts comprised a given neighborhood in a given year. Because some neighborhoods share a census tract as of the 2010 census, several neighborhoods were combined and are known as neighborhood areas. There are 74 unique neighborhoods and neighborhood areas used in the analysis. 2012 dollar amounts, incomes and values were adjusted for inflation using the consumer price index.

ACS estimates at the census tract level have sizeable margin or error. This may impact results.

*The views expressed on this profile and blog are mine alone and do not necessarily represent those of my previous or current employers.*

[1]Sharkey, P. (2013). Stuck in Place (p. 27). Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.[2] Sharkey, P. (2019). Uneasy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, The Renewal of City life and The Next War on Violence. New York City, NY: W.W Norton and Company, Inc. [3] Sharkey, P. (2019) (p. 99)
[4] Analysis used 2017-ACS 5-year estimates. The total percentage of poor whites versus poor blacks living in neighborhoods with 30% poverty or more was calculated.
[45 Sharkey, P. (2019) (pp. 83-86)

Neighborhood Profile: Brookline

Brookline is the place that made me. It’s the place where my siblings and I learned to swim with the patient help of my dad at the now closed Brookline Memorial pool. And the place where I once collected more than a thousand signatures to try to keep that pool open in the early 2000s. It’s the place where I was primarily raised. It’s the place where my mom once blew up an inflatable swimming pool with her breath alone because we were too poor to afford an air pump; it was an act of love and left her breathless. But it’s also the place where my siblings and I were abused – much like our parents were abused before they had us. And it’s the place where my siblings and I watched on in desperation as our younger brother endured two battles with cancer; one in his blood and one in his central nervous system. It’s the place where the first Las Palmas opened and is home to a growing Latino community. It houses Brookline’s commercial corridor which contained “moon-sized” pot holes for nearly all of my life, until it was re-paved a few years back. It’s home to Resurrection parish and the locally famous church carnival dubbed the Fun Flair. It’s the place where my siblings and I would play with our beloved dog Shadow in the backyard and where we cultivated bug gardens when we were too young to second guess picking up a spider. It’s the place where my best friend and I used to send each other to the hospital because of how dumb we were – which included an epic bike race down Brookline’s steepest cobblestone streets and a lot of stitches. It’s the place where I would wake up anxious during summer mornings when the sun had reached above my neighbor’s house; nervous that I had missed the chance to watch my feet illuminate with the sun’s glare as I sat on the stoop of our front porch on Rossmore Avenue.

The house I was raised in on Rossmore Avenue in Brookline. Photo taken during the winter of 2019.

Hockey Rink in Brookline Memorial Park. The rink replaced the swimming pool where I learned to swim as a child. My dad taught us all to swim. My mom would sit and watch near the Hippo that used to sit in the baby pool. Photo taken in the fall of 2018.

It’s the place where my neighborhood friends and I used to save up enough change so we could buy a pack of Pokémon cards at the former Fancy Nancy’s back in the 90s. And also the place where we played countless neighborhood wide games of basketball, release, had water balloon fights and screamed obscenities at each other while we played the Nintendo 64. It’s the place where we made horrible home movies with special effects including baby powder, the Titanic movie soundtrack and the machine gun noise from the N64 game Jet Force Gemini. It’s the place that houses one of our former rental homes on Fordham Avenue; the house where I was afraid to walk down the basement steps for fear that I would fall between the empty spaces. It’s the place where my first crush told me that, “Looks aren’t everything” and then kissed me on the cheek by the hoop out behind the house. It’s the main subject of my most recent band’s record literally called “Placed.” It’s the place where I learned to play guitar, learned to love and became resilient. It’s the place where I was once an altar server, Boy Scout, terrible baseball player and it was my escape for all those days I skipped school. It’s a place that some suburban kids with money (from my Catholic High School) associated with poor White people – even if I was one of only a small percentage of poor White families living in Brookline. They called me “White Trash.” I eventually gained enough confidence to call them “Yuppies.” It’s the place where my childhood best friend and I grew up; we were born in the same hospital 3 days a part and we’ve known each other for 30 years now. It’s the echo of nearly every cherished childhood memory I have. And it’s the place where I currently live. There are too many moments, places and people to speak of in Brookline. And while I may not remember all of them, they have shaped me.

Brookline Boulevard is the neighborhood’s vibrant commercial district. The Brookline fire station is seen towards the center of the frame. Las Palmas is visible in the distance. Photo taken in the fall of 2018.

Brookline is accessible via the 39 and its northwestern border is accessible via the 41. However, bus service stops before midnight and the 39 doesn’t run at all on Sundays – which makes the neighborhood a bit inaccessible for people like myself who do not own a car and rely on public transit seven days a week. But much like neighboring Beechview, it is extremely convenient for those who work downtown, and commuters can make it to town via the South Busway in less than 15-20 minutes. Like many of Pittsburgh’s hilly neighborhoods, Brookline streets are narrow and they often do not follow any sort of grid. As such, navigating them is a learned skill. Despite its many hills, the neighborhood is extremely walkable but has steep streets north, south, east and west of Brookline Boulevard. And city steps are a necessary form of transportation that allow residents to navigate Brookline’s various short cuts and its steepest streets. The border of Brookline is much like a Diamond. West Liberty Avenue comprises Brookline’s northwestern border and meets at a northern point with the neighborhood’s northeastern border – which is made up of the South Busway and Saw Mill Run Boulevard. Similarly, McNeilly Avenue, Dorchester Avenue and a number of other streets comprise the southwestern border and Brookline Memorial Park and several other streets come together to form Brookline’s southeastern and southern borders. Beechview and the suburbs of Dormont, Mount Lebanon and Baldwin Township border Brookline to the northwest, west, southwest and south, respectively. And Bon Air, Carrick and Overbrook border Brookline to the northeast, east and southeast, respectively. Saw Mill Run Boulevard cuts Brookline and other south Pittsburgh neighborhoods off from the neighborhoods located in the South Hilltop.

Brookline is located in South Pittsburgh.

Brookline is a durably low-poverty neighborhood that is primarily comprised of middle class and working class residents. Unlike other very low-poverty neighborhoods such as the affluent Squirrel Hill North, Point Breeze and Regent Square, which have the 3 highest median incomes in the city, Brookline is relatively affordable and has a considerably lower median income. And unlike durably high poverty neighborhoods like Knoxville and Garfield, Brookline has low levels of gun violence. Brookline offers a myriad of economically accessible and community driven enrichment activities for children and teenagers, has a vibrant commercial corridor with properties ranging from a local video game development incubator and arcade to the spacious Carnegie Library of Brookline and offers a number of local restaurants and a comic book store known as the Geekadrome – a place where teens can gather and play Magic the Gathering. Brookline is also home to the Pittsburgh famous Fiori’s Pizza and Pitaland, has two recreational parks and hosts a number of neighborhood youth sports’ teams. And as of 2015, it’s home to the Brookline Teen Outreach Center. BTO is a youth community outreach center that offers a variety of free programming, a safe space and activities for teens 10-18. My younger sister Joan has volunteered there since its inception and is one of the center’s therapists. BTO is a space that Joan and I wished we had access to when we were kids. And it’s one of the only programs like it in south Pittsburgh; the section of Pittsburgh that has one of the highest percentage of youth and yet has surprisingly little outreach regarding free counseling, tutoring, programming and connection to community service opportunities for teens. It is a welcomed addition to the neighborhood and needs support.

The intersection of Flatbush Avenue and Bellaire Avenue. Brookline Boulevard is visible in the distance. Photo taken in the winter of 2019.

Like a number of Pittsburgh neighborhoods which are shaped by their respective topography, Brookline is contained and feels like a small town, not a dense City of Pittsburgh neighborhood. Named after its founders who hailed from Brookline, Massachusetts, the neighborhood was once a part of West Liberty borough and was annexed by the city in 1908. Brookline’s coal veins and rich land made the location ideal for farmers and miners. And it’s assets paved the way for a southern railroad and the construction of tunnels – in order to move goods to the city’s Monongahela river corridor. As a former trolley line and the construction of the Liberty Tunnel paved the way to Downtown Pittsburgh, the South Side Flats and the city’s East End, an influx of new residents drove dense residential development in the form of modest single family homes along the neighborhood’s peaks and valleys. Brookline is the second largest neighborhood in the entire city and has the 3rd largest population of all Pittsburgh neighborhoods and neighborhood areas (13,072 as of 2017 American Community Survey estimates and following behind Squirrel Hill South and Shadyside in total population, respectively). The neighborhood is home to Brookline Elementary and South Brook middle school. As of writing this, all of Brookline’s Catholic Schools are closed or closing – which include the former church of Resurrection’s school, Our Lady of Loretto and the former Brookline Regional Catholic – which was renamed as St. John Bosco Academy and is scheduled to close. My sisters and I attended all of these Catholic schools and received financial aid from the diocese of Pittsburgh, and my younger brother attended Our Lady of Loretto, the former Brookline Regional Catholic and Brookline Elementary.

Sturdy brick single family homes off of Pioneer Avenue. Located across the street from Moore Park. Photo taken in the late winter of 2019.

Regarding my street by street walk of the neighborhood, I cheated this time. Through-out my over 30-years of life, I’ve lived in Brookline for more than 20 of those years. As such, I’ve walked every single street in Brookline many times over. The neighborhood has one of the highest elevations in the city and it’s always amusing when flurried snow falls only settle on the streets of Brookline and not in neighborhoods that are closer in elevation to the river beds. And given this elevation, the U.S Steel Tower and other downtown buildings are visible from the top of Rossmore Avenue and Flastbush – in addition to other high up vantage points. While the neighborhood is comprised of a maze of tightly tangled streets and avenues, there is ample green space in Brookline. The untamed wooded valley east of Moore Park proper is the perfect place for paintball games – as evidenced by the many games I played there in my early 20s. And the would be forest surrounding either side of Edgebrook Avenue is vast and evokes an eerie feeling when driving down it after the sun has gone down. Likewise, a massive green space exists south of Whited Street and even more greenery is found via Brookline Memorial Park in the south-eastern part of the community.

Intersection of Flatbush and Rossmore Avenues. The U.S Steel Tower is visible on the horizon. The northern section of Brookline is laid out below the steep hill. Photo taken in the late winter of 2019.

Baseball field in Moore Park in Brookline. Moore Pool is in the distance. My brother and I are still swimmers and swim daily at the public pools and at the Oliver Bathhouse in the Southside Flats. This became our pool after Brookline Memorial pool closed down in the early 2000s. Photo taken in the summer of 2018.

Brookline is the space where my walks and my fascination with this city’s neighborhoods began. When I was younger, the streets of Brookline acted as a giant playground for my friends and me. And as a teenager and young adult, they offered an escape from my bouts of depression, panic disorder and loneliness. To this day, literally, my brother and I have walked Brookline in search of beauty, an ice cream cone from Scoops and to completely indulge ourselves in nostalgic conversations of our youth. Implicit in these statements regarding what Brookline is and what it has to offer is the idea that my growing up in Brookline offered me a form of stability that is not always found in Pittsburgh’s high poverty neighborhoods. And that growing up in a low-income home in such a connected, low violence and enriching community is not the same as growing up in a low-income home in areas of concentrated poverty; a reality that too many low-income Black children face. The majority of low-income White people in Pittsburgh live in neighborhoods with lower poverty rates as compared to those inhabited by the majority of low-income Black residents. As shown in the data brief regarding economic and racial segregation in Pittsburgh, nearly all of Pittsburgh’s majority Black neighborhoods are high or extreme poverty while only 3 of the 50 majority White neighborhoods and neighborhood areas are considered high poverty (i.e., neighborhoods with rates of 30 to 39% of individuals living below the Federal Poverty Line). There was no majority White neighborhood that was considered extreme poverty with rates of 40% poverty or more, while 41% of majority black neighborhoods were extreme poverty as of 2017 estimates.

Resurrection Church off of Creedmoor Avenue in Brookline. A main stay of my walks through the neighborhood. I attended school here from kindergarten to first grade before it closed and was an altar server here. My Boy Scout Troop 6 of Brookline met in a room below the church. My dad loved the scouts. Photo taken in the fall of 2018.

My brother John looks on as the sun sets south of Chelton Avenue. This courtyard used to house the Church of Resurrection’s annual carnival called the Fun Flair. The last carnival was held here in the summer of 2016. It has since moved to St. Pius which is located off of Pioneer Avenue in the southwestern part of the neighborhood. My dad did the electrical work for this carnival since we were kids. My mother would walk us up when we were kids. Photo taken in the fall of 2018.

Brookline has remained very low poverty for at least the 27 years of data that I examined. From 1990 to 2017 the poverty rate remained below 10% (from 6% to only 9%). And the community is overwhelmingly White (91% in 2012 and 86% in 2017). In fact, with the exception of Squirrel Hill South, there are more White people in Brookline than any other neighborhood or neighborhood area in the city per 2017 ACS estimates. Luckily, the neighborhood has become at least marginally more diverse in the past 5-years. The percentage of Black people has grown from 4% to 6%, the Asian population from 1% to 3% and the Latino or Hispanic population from 1% to 2%. While this percentage of Hispanic or Latino residents appears to be quite low, Latinos or Hispanics make up only 3% of the entire City of Pittsburgh population per 1-year 2017 ACS estimates. And Brookline has the 3rd highest number of Hispanic or Latino residents when excluding college heavy neighborhoods (only Beechview and Greenfield have higher numbers). However, even marginal increases in the diversity of the community have been met by hostility and hate from a subset of the population. And while I owe much to this community, Brookline is not without its problems.

“The Canon” veteran memorial at Brookline Boulevard and Queensboro Avenue. My siblings and I used to play on the canon when we were younger. Hell, I played on it last year. Photo taken in the winter of 2019.

In December of 2015 and March of 2016 the Mexican owned and operated Las Palmas on Brookline Boulevard was graffitied with hateful messages, which opened its doors to a growing Latino population in 2009 in Brookline. Phrases such as “Go Back to Mexico,” “Illegal Trespassers” and “Liars” were graffitied on the store. But luckily, and in a show of support against such bigotry, students from Brashear High School and other volunteers painted over the remarks and added their own mural and the phrase “Welcome to Brookline” in Spanish on the building. And a number of Brookliners lined the Boulevard to purchase food from the Las Palmas taco stand. In doing so, they showed that Brookline will in fact be defined as a neighborhood that welcomes minority groups, not one that detests them. But in November of 2018 yet another highly visible display of hate was tied to the neighborhood. Dozens of white supremacy and neo-nazi fliers were hung throughout the neighborhood just before the midterm elections. Phrases such as “Better Dead Than Red” and “Support Patriot Front” were written on the fliers. And this occurred only a week after the mass anti-Semitic shooting that left 11 dead in the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill North. While the posters were torn down immediately and business owners and representatives denounced the messages of hate, these displays of hate are a reminder that there are those in Brookline that may welcome families like mine, but not ones that are different shades of hue or belief. Like Squirrel Hill North and many other overwhelmingly White Pittsburgh neighborhoods, Brookline is also highly segregated by race and income and its racial composition reveals just how separate so many Black and White Pittsburghers are from one another.

Beautiful cobblestone road at the intersection of Rossmore and Glenarm Avenues. Photo taken in the fall of 2018.

Besides some growth in the non-White population, Brookline has changed little over the past 5 years according to ACS estimates. As of 2017 estimates, the percentage of single mothers with children was low at 9% (well below the citywide estimate), the rate of males unemployed or unattached to the labor force was below the city estimate at 21% and the neighborhood is becoming more educated with a 7% decline in those 25 and up without a Bachelor’s degree or more (75% to 68%). Regarding that last point, such a decline may be due to the more recent influx of educated families looking to work downtown and who wish to live in a contained and affordable neighborhood like Brookline. This influx may be represented in the growth of the median home value as well – which increased by nearly $7,000 from 2012 to 2017 (from roughly $91,000 to $98,000).

But besides some of the aforementioned changes in measures of need and value, most other indicators have barely budged. As of 2017, the median income stayed nearly unchanged at roughly $56,000 and median asking rent also barely changed and was roughly $850. The more noticeable changes are those regarding measures for Black individuals and families. While the White poverty rate barely decline over 5-years (roughly 9% to 8%), the Black poverty rate fell by 10 percentage points (32% to 22%) and the Black median income rose from roughly $46,000 to roughly $61,000. Clearly, and like in most Pittsburgh neighborhoods and neighborhood areas, there are racial disparities in the rate of those living below the FPL by racial group – with the Black poverty rate more than double the White poverty rate. However, Brookline is one of the few areas where the Black median income is higher than the white median income (roughly $61,000 to $57,000, respectively). Thus, it appears as though a small number of middle income Black households are calling Brookline home, given the large increase in median income and the sizeable decrease in Black poverty.

My current rental in Brookline. Photo taken in the summer of 2018.

I am proud to call Brookline home. And I’m beyond lucky that my parents were able to move us to Brookline and raise my siblings and I here. While our home life was far from stable, and I can say that I still very much struggle with the long-terms effects of that instability and exposure to trauma, the stability of the broader neighborhood offered an important counter balance to the risk factors we experienced at home and else where. And it’s also more of what we weren’t exposed to that also helped us move ahead, regarding the comparatively high rates of concentrated disadvantage and community violence found in many of Pittsburgh’s poorest neighborhoods; a harsh reality born of concentrated poverty and extreme inopportunity that was explored in both the Knoxville and Garfield profiles. I firmly believe that my growing up in Brookline is connected to the social mobility that I’ve been lucky enough to achieve. And given that race has played such a large role regarding discrimination in our housing and lending markets and shaping the economic and racial compositions of neighborhoods across the U.S, my being White provided my parent’s with the ability to buy a house in Brookline – even though we were low-income. Our home life was extremely complicated, and my relationship with my parents is extremely complicated as a result, but I’m so grateful to have lived here.

My dad in our back yard. There used to be a swing set back here. We spent a ton of time here as kids. Our pets are buried in back. RIP Shadow and all our other amazing pets. Photo taken in the summer of 2018.

The initials “NBCJ” are painted in blue on our back deck off of Rossmore Avenue. It was painted on 8/8/2001. The initials stand for Nick, Bo, Conner and John. Bo and Conner were my childhood best friends and also lived in Brookline. John is my younger brother. I was surprised that the initials are still here nearly 2 decades later. Feels. Photo taken in the summer of 2018.

Although the 1968 Fair Housing Law barred discrimination based on race and other protected classes, the effects of segregation are often lasting and racial discrimination has been found on a large-scale as recent as the 2000s regarding subprime mortgage lending discrepancies based on race. Likewise, the law does not protect against source of income discrimination – which has been linked to landlord refusal of subsidized housing vouchers and can be used as a proxy for racial discrimination. And unlike some of my Black and Latino neighbors, I never felt unwelcome in Brookline. Lastly, neighborhoods like Brookline offer hope for low-income families who are able to move there. And neighborhoods do not need to be affluent to help provide low-income kids with the conditions and opportunities to get ahead; they can be working class and middle class areas like Brookline – with its very low poverty rate, low levels of community violence and connected informal and formal networks that can provide less fortunate neighbors with short-term and long-term living wage opportunities. A broad array of urban sociology and urban poverty research show that the neighborhoods in which we develop have profound and lasting impacts on our socio-economic and health-based outcomes. And researcher Raj Chetty of Harvard found that children below the age of 12 who were randomly assigned a subsidized housing voucher that restricted them to live in a low poverty neighborhood, via a housing voucher lottery, had significantly higher incomes as adults as compared to their peers who remained in high poverty neighborhoods. And so, if Brookline can be a welcoming place for low-income families with children of all colors and creeds, it may offer a pathway of social mobility for those families. Much like it did for me. Attitudes will not change over night, but as long as racial segregation (and a lack of dialogue about the benefits of diversity) continues to be the norm in many majority White Pittsburgh neighborhoods then these attitudes will likely persist. We must do what we can to welcome diversity in neighborhoods like Brookline, provide integrated and affordable housing options for low-income families, seek out and assist minority owned businesses and push to educate one another on the causes and consequences of racial and economic segregation in Pittsburgh.

Brookline Memorial Park’s upper baseball field. I played baseball here for most of my youth. I was terrible. Guess what position I played? Hint: Most batters hit left or center because they are right-handed. I wasn’t good enough to catch their hits.

This neighborhood profile is dedicated to my siblings and my best friend Conner (all of whom I love deeply). And to Dillon and Cory whom are like brothers too and have learned to call Brookline their home over the years. And to my mom and dad who brought us here. I love you all. And I love Brookline.

Methodology Notes

All neighborhood level statistics were gathered via census tract level data from the 2012 to 2017 5-year American Community Survey estimates. Citywide statistics were gathered via the 2017 1-year ACS estimates. The 1990 poverty rate was gathered via poverty estimates from the National Historic Geographic Information Systems. The University of Pittsburgh Library System informed which census tracts comprised a given neighborhood in a given year. Because some neighborhoods share a census tract as of the 2010 census, several neighborhoods were combined and are known as neighborhood areas. There are 74 unique neighborhoods and neighborhood areas used in the analysis. 2012 dollar amounts, incomes and values were adjusted for inflation using the consumer price index. Because Brookline consists of 4 census tracts, neighborhood level estimates were calculated via a weighted average based on census to neighborhood population proportions.

ACS estimates at the census tract level have sizeable margin or error. This may impact results.

*The views expressed on this profile and blog are mine alone and do not necessarily represent those of my previous or current employers.*

Neighborhood Profile: Garfield

I want to get this out-of-the-way now; I adore Garfield. My first ever rental home was on Broad Street in Garfield and I lived there with some of my best friends for roughly 2 and half years before moving back to Brookline. Our neighbors were overwhelmingly hospitable and sociable. Cook outs were abound (shout out to the time when our neighbor Jimmy liked my instant potatoes more than Cory’s methodically prepared steak). The neighborhood is close to just about everything in the East End via a high degree of walkability and a myriad of public transit options. Grocery stores are quite accessible and Garfield is home to a vibrant business district filled with wonderful Vietnamese, Indian and Black owned restaurants and businesses, the arts and First Fridays, and my favorite DIY (Do It Yourself) all ages music venue in Pittsburgh (aka the Mr. Roboto Project). Well, technically speaking, Roboto is in the most northern part of Bloomfield, but it’s literally across the street from Garfield. And I’ve had the pleasure of both playing and going to shows at Roboto for years. Garfield is filled with some of my favorite post-college and graduate school memories. As such, it’s hard to remove my positive bias towards the neighborhood itself, its institutions and my former neighbors. But like many other neighborhoods in the city, longtime residents of Garfield face steep challenges.

I rented this house on the eastern side of Broad Street with some friends from the fall of 2014 to the summer of 2017.

The durably high poverty and overwhelmingly Black Garfield is situated in the northern section of Pittsburgh’s East End and residents on its southern and eastern borders have easy access to several major buses via the Penn Avenue and N. Negley corridors. The 88 rides along the southern border on Penn Avenue and the 77, 87s and the 71 A and C stop at Penn and N. Negley Avenue. And you can catch the 64 just a few blocks north of Garfield at the intersection of Stanton and N. Negley avenues (on the border between East Liberty and Highland Park). Much like East Liberty, Garfield is in prime port authority territory and residents can get to Downtown, the Lawrenceville neighborhoods, the Oakland Neighborhoods, the Strip District, Friendship, East Liberty, Bloomfield, Highland Park and a number of suburban boroughs and more with ease. However, the northern most part of the neighborhood grapples with extreme poverty, and residents there are much more isolated than those on the southern and eastern borders of Garfield – as will be discussed. Garfield is bordered to the west by N Mathilda Street and Mossfield Street, to the north by Mossfield Street and Black street, to the south by Penn Avenue and to the East by N. Negley Avenue. Allegheny Cemetery of Central Lawrenceville borders the neighborhood to the West and Bloomfield, Friendship, Stanton Heights and East liberty border the neighborhood to the southwest, southeast, north and east, respectively.

Garfield is located in Pittsburgh’s East End region.

At one time, Garfield was home to Irish immigrants who worked in the mills and foundries along the nearby Allegheny river corridor. And this concentration of working-class Irish Catholics remained in effect from the 1880s to the late 50s and early 60s. However, as was the case with a sizeable portion of Pittsburgh neighborhoods that will be profiled, suburbanization and White out-migration from the 1950s onward, de-industrialization from the late 1970s and 1980s and Urban Renewal in the 1950s and 60s heavily contributed to the depopulation and economic decline of the neighborhood and its transition from one that was once overwhelmingly White and working class to one that is now overwhelmingly Black. And a significant portion of the Black population lives below the Federal Poverty Line. In an attempt to lure suburbanites back into the City, the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority used eminent domain to buy up houses, businesses and land to repurpose them for automobile focused development and suburban like amenities in nearby East Liberty – which once had the 3rd highest economic output for a business district in Pennsylvania. The plan massively back fired and led to further depopulation and economic depression. And when segregated, Black housing projects were erected in the Northern portion of Garfield and in East Liberty, White residents fled the neighborhoods in droves. Thus, it was racism against Black residents that delivered another blow to a Garfield of times past. The neighborhood was roughly 10,000 strong and 80% White in 1970. As of 2017 American Community Survey estimates, the neighborhood is 72% black and has a population of 3,846 – a roughly 60% decline in population.

The neighborhood may be high poverty, but its local community development corporations aim to revitalize the neighborhood while keeping it both affordable and mixed income through low-income, moderate and market rate housing rehab and development. The Bloomfield Garfield Corporation and Garfield Jubilee Association have been committed to affordable housing development in the neighborhood, and it shows. Additionally, the Bloomfield Garfield Corporation has a number of home rehab and development initiatives, business improvement programs and an income eligible rent to own program that is dubbed the Garfield Glen Project. The latter was funded via an awarding of Low-Income Housing Tax Credits from the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency and received additional gap funding from the Urban Redevelopment Authority. Redevelopment and blight reduction were evident throughout my street by street walk of the neighborhood. Unlike other high poverty neighborhoods, as with our Knoxville profile, Garfield does not appear to be plagued by high rates of neighborhood blight. There were examples of new and rehabbed housing everywhere. And with my own eyes, I saw at least 6 housing rehab crews at work on the beautiful 50 something degree day that I walked the neighborhood. A revitalized commercial corridor focused on the arts and mixed income housing development and rehab have played a significant role in making the neighborhood more desirable for longtime residents, artists and new renters and for home owners looking for a neighborhood that is affordable and close to just about everything and anything the East End has to offer.

A small section of Garfield’s vibrant commercial corridor at N. Winebiddle and Penn Avenue. Spak Bros is featured in the center of the frame. The all ages Mr. Roboto Project music venue sits directly across from Spak on the other side of Penn Avenue.

I started my walk on the western portion of the neighborhood near Allegheny Cemetery and made my way north via N Mathilda Street and then Schenley Avenue. The latter part of my walk northward was covered by trees and felt like I was walking into the woods, and not a dense Pittsburgh neighborhood. The typography of Garfield is one of relatively flat streets running west to east in the western and central portions of the neighborhood and avenues that rise in slope as traveled from south to north. In the northern most part of the neighborhood is Garfield Commons, which is a mixed income community comprised of a significant number of public housing units owned by the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh and affordable, moderate and market-rate units for residents not living in public housing. A 6000 feet community center is also available for resident use. Garfield Commons is large and stretches around Schenley Avenue, Columbo Street, Mossfield Street and more. The Water Tower Homes at Garfield Commons are situated off the most northern portion of N. Atlantic Avenue and give way to a beautiful look out where one can see much of the central East End down below and even downtown in the distance. The main issue is its disconnection from the rest of Garfield and the business district below. While residents of the commons have access to the 89 which runs as a looper bus between East Liberty and Garfield, the 89 runs less frequently than the 88 on the neighborhood’s southern border. But residents of the commons have easy access to the Garfield Community Farm off Columbo and Wicklow Street.

There are northern parts of the neighborhood that feel as if you’ve entered a forest and not a dense neighborhood in the City of Pittsburgh. A cabin like house sits off a wooded Schenley Avenue.

The public and mixed income housing project sits in the most northern part of Garfield.

Atop a lookout at the Water Tower Homes at Garfield Commons which is located off the most northern stretch of N. Atlantic Avenue. Downtown and the now closed Fort Pitt elementary school are visible in the distance.

Hillcrest Street is situated in the northern and more traditionally residential part of the neighborhood. Modest brick and single-family homes run throughout the remainder of the neighborhood and larger homes with intricate architectural detail line the most eastern part of Garfield off of N. Fairmount Street. Hillcrest offers beautiful views of Garfield, Friendship and beyond – with the Cathedral of Learning in North Oakland nearly always visible in the distance while walking southward down Garfield’s sloping avenues. Hillcrest is also home to Most Wanted Fine Art, the Hillcrest Urban Farm and the now permanently closed Fort Pitt elementary school – which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. The football field directly west of the school is home to the neighborhood’s youth football program the Garfield Gators and connects kids in the program with a structured activity and other mentor and afterschool-based programs in the neighborhood.

Most Wanted Fine Art is just one example of the growing artist population that has come to call Garfield home over the years. The art space sits off of Hillcrest Street.

Garfield and beyond as viewed via gaps between single family homes on Hillcrest Street. The Cathedral of Learning looms on the horizon.

The football field is also home to the annual turkey bowl between neighborhood residents on Thanksgiving. But much like Knoxville, gun violence has plagued the neighborhood over the past few decades. From 2012-2017, and according to Public Source, there were 3 incidents of homicide by gun in 2012, 2 in 2013, 5 in 2014, 1 in 2015, 2 in 2016 and 3 in 2017 just from January to mid-august – with Garfield surpassing all other Pittsburgh neighborhoods in the first 6 months of 2017 alone regarding the total of murder by gun, shooting with injury and gun assault with no injury incidents. As just one example of Black lives lost in the neighborhood, a father of five children and a caring husband named Sidney Barlow was tragically taken after trying to break up a dispute during a turkey bowl game way back in 1999.

The now closed Fort Pitt elementary school. The field that the Garfield Gators plays in is directly west of the school. The annual Turkey Bowl is also played by neighborhood residents on the same field.

I lived in the neighborhood from the fall of 2014 to the summer of 2017 and never felt unsafe. However, we did hear bursts of gun shots and were well aware of the violence. Community violence has the tendency to be carried out by a small number of individuals who create a disproportionate amount of that crime. It also tends to concentrate in micro areas of a given neighborhood – with the northern part of Garfield tending to see the most heat. And because durable concentrated poverty, rate of single mothers and the male unemployment rate tend to play a large role in predicting violent crime, long-term residents of durably poor neighborhoods like Garfield are often the ones most exposed and subjected to that crime, not newcomers. A deeper look into the economic and structural causes of gun violence can be found in the Knoxville neighborhood profile. As mentioned in the profile, a number of urban sociologists state that gun violence tends to be a product of economic circumstance, high degrees of racial and economic segregation (and thus proximity) and prolonged in-opportunity (which is connected with drug trafficking or “Beefs” between those in various groups) and is not some moral flaw of residents in the neighborhood. A resident who I spoke to said that the gang related violence appears to be declining and mentioned that the neighborhood feels much safer more recently. Her words will be the feature of a future resident interview. However, with the exception of a dip in non-fatal shootings, gun related homicide and aggregated assault in 2015, gun related violence is still clearly and sadly an ongoing issue in the neighborhood. To highlight the divide in gun violence often found between high poverty and low poverty neighborhoods, incidents of non-fatal gun violence for Garfield and Friendship are visible in the graphs below. The graphs are vastly different despite the fact that the two neighborhoods are literally across the street from each other. For an additional divide, the median home value in Friendship is $261,400 and only $72,709 in Garfield – despite their close proximity to one another. And lastly, Garfield is a durably high poverty neighborhood while Friendship is low poverty. Data for the following graphs was gathered via Allegheny County Analytics.

Garfield is a neighborhood that has seen significant degrees of affordable housing development, mixed income and market rate housing development, investment in the Penn Avenue business corridor and more, but is one that has seen little demographic change and income related change over the past few years and beyond. And as stated, the neighborhood has seen a significant amount of gun related violence. Regarding the area of Garfield that reportedly sees the most gun related violence, Garfield’s northern most census tract has the 9th highest poverty rate among all census tracts in the City of Pittsburgh (45%) and is 89% Black per 2017 ACS estimates – when excluding college student heavy census tracts from the poverty ranking. Additionally, the northern most census tract of the neighborhood has the 16th highest rate of single mothers (20%) and the 7th highest rate of males unemployed or unattached to the labor force (47%) – when excluding student heavy census tracts in the City of Pittsburgh. When looking at the entire neighborhood in the context of all neighborhoods and neighborhood areas in the city, Garfield is the 11th poorest (36%), has the 23rd highest rate of single mothers with children (14%) and the 13th highest rate of working age males who are unemployed or unattached to the labor force (34%).

One of the many examples of work crews rehabbing homes in Garfield.

A colorful assortment of row homes off of Dearborn Street on the southwestern edge of Garfield.

Regarding neighborhood change from 2012-2017, Garfield has changed on some measures but barely changed on others. Over a period of 27-years Garfield’s poverty rate declined by a mere 2% (38 to 36%) and the White and Black poverty rates have barely budged over the past 5-years. However, like found in our other neighborhood profiles, there is still a huge difference between the percent of Black versus White residents living below the FPL (40% to 23% according to 2017 ACS estimates, respectively). While the rate of working age men has declined over the past 5-years (40% to 34%), the rate of single mothers with children has seen a more significant decline (29% to 14% or a decline of 15%). The rate of those 25 and over without a bachelor’s degree or more also declined by 10% but still sits at a high 76% as of 2017 estimates. While there have been some declines in measures of need, they are still quite high compared to the rest of neighborhoods and neighborhood areas in the city and are consistent with measures of need in other high poverty areas. As a whole, median income has increased by nearly $10,000 (roughly $23,000 in 2012 to $33,000 in 2017). Median income stayed roughly the same for White residents ($37,000) and increased by roughly $7,600 for Black residents (from about $23,400 to $31,000). And there is still a difference of roughly $4,000 in median income between Black and White households. Lastly, measures of value have both increased and decreased in the neighborhood over the 5-year period. Median gross rent increased by about $135 ($699 to $834) and median home value decreased by about $600 ($73,300 to $72,700). Lastly, the neighborhood is overwhelmingly Black with a sizeable White population as of 2017 estimates (72% Black and 18% White). The small remainder of residents are biracial, Asian or Hispanic or Latino. And while White and Black demographics are changing (a 10% increase in the White Population and 11% decrease in the Black population), the neighborhood is still very much majority Black.

Single family homes at Kinkaid and N. Graham Streets on the northeastern side of Garfield.

Unlike our Manchester profile wherein all measures of need had decreased by sizeable amounts over a short period of time and all measures of income and value had increased over that same period of time (and with Manchester also seeing the second steepest decline in poverty over 27-years), Garfield is much like our Knoxville profile in that some measures of need have stayed the same, some have changed, but all are still quite high comparatively. And while some measures of income and value have increased in Garfield, others have decreased. While an increase in median gross rent of roughly $135 dollars over 5-years may not sound like a lot, it can be sizeable for poor and working-class families and those households on a fixed-income, considering the reality of stagnating wages, rising housing and utility costs and a decrease in federal funds for affordable housing programs. But regarding those last two points, the Bloomfield Garfield Corporation and the Garfield Jubilee Association have built and rehabbed a large number of affordable homes in the neighborhood that are energy-efficient and their programs have allowed a number of a low-income renters to become homeowners through rent to own and income-based home ownership programs. These are necessary strategies that aim to protect the more vulnerable residents of Garfield as the neighborhood changes.

While affordable and mixed income housing development and commercial corridor revitalization play a role in blight reduction, deconcentrating poverty and protecting longtime residents from involuntary displacement (as neighborhood investments spur greater residential demand overtime), traditional brick and mortar community and economic development will not in and of themselves contribute to meaningful poverty and gun violence reduction. Garfield is a sobering reminder of this. The neighborhood is a truly charming area with breathtaking vistas, solid brick single family homes and a neighborhood social network that often feels tight and welcoming. I loved living in this neighborhood and I once planed on attempting to purchase my first home there someday. But many long-term Black residents live in extreme poverty and those in various subsections of the neighborhood are exposed to near constant gun related non-fatal shootings and to a comparatively sizeable number of fatal and non-fatal gun violence. Although affordable housing development is a necessarily step in stabilizing low-income renters and addressing the city’s affordable housing shortage, Pittsburgh can not simply build its way out of poverty and affordable housing shortages through affordable housing development alone. As mentioned, affordable housing development is a vital strategy to protect vulnerable residents from change and address the affordable housing shortage in this city. But it’s also one that can unintentionally reinforce concentrated poverty if it is primarily targeted to high poverty areas alone, and it is a strategy that may never meet the needed affordable housing demand. And as per research I do professionally, I can firmly say that the bulk of our affordable housing programs are highly segregated in areas of concentrated poverty and disadvantage.

A spacious and intricate home on the eastern side of the neighborhood off of N. Fairmount Street.

While affordable and mixed income development can help stabilize lower-income residents, I believe that affordable housing development needs to be paired with city-wide efforts to raise the minimum wage, create and connect low-income residents to in-demand/high quality hard skill training programs that are financially accessible and place-based investments that focus on the people of neighborhoods, not just brick and mortar economic development/commercial corridor revitalization. As one resident I spoke to put it, “The art venues on Penn are interesting, but they don’t do much for me and my kids. My kids aren’t into that. And we don’t have the money to go to those new restaurants that are opening up. We can’t eat art.” You can read her full resident interview here. And lastly, perhaps the City’s shift to community policing will have a positive effect on neighborhoods like Garfield, but that remains to be seen. Because the causes of violent crime in high poverty neighborhoods are often related to economic circumstance and prolonged economic in-opportunity, raising the income of residents, connecting them with living wage opportunities and addressing the place-based factors that prime violent crime all must be pursued if the city is serious about significantly and positively impacting those living in extreme poverty; households who are exposed to the conditions that create the opportunity for community violence. And luckily, the Garfield Jubilee Association is hard at work doing market driven workforce development and education development for income eligible 16-24 year olds via its partnership with the Community College of Allegheny County and others through their Garfield YouthBuild program. Only time will tell if such measures can affect the level of disadvantage that so many low-income residents face. And typically, it takes far more than just a few local programs to curb the issues of generational poverty and violence. In that vein, citywide measures will have to compliment what community groups are already doing in neighborhoods like Garfield, if we are to see significant declines in poverty and gun violence. And policy makers must address these challenges through means that do not place vulnerable residents at risk for displacement.

A Black bride walks up the stairs of a mirrored image of a spacious home off of Penn Avenue near the intersection of Penn and N. Graham Street.

Methodology Notes

ACS estimates at the census tract level have sizeable margin or error and this may impact results.

Neighborhood Profile: Knoxville

Once a thriving neighborhood home to middle managers of the Steel Mills that resided down below on the Monongahela river valley, the South Hilltop neighborhood of Knoxville is a topographically diverse area with a collection of flat streets and hilly avenues with modest slopes. The neighborhood is densely populated by brick single family homes and subdivided rentals. And no, I’m not talking about Knoxville, Tennessee; something I have to correct all too often when I speak of Knoxville to other longtime Pittsburghers (who did not grow up south of the Monongahela river). Anecdotally speaking, Knoxville is one of the many struggling Pittsburgh neighborhoods that seem to escape the attention and awareness of those Pittsburghers who don’t know the south end of the city beyond the South Side Flats. The neighborhood is bordered to the north by Cedarhurst Street, to the west by Beltzhoover Avenue and Tarragonna Street, to the east by Amanda Avenue and Brownsville Road and to the south by St. John Vianney Cemetery (the place where my grandma and cousins rest). The neighborhoods of Allentown, Beltzhoover, Bon Air, Carrick and Mt. Oliver Borough (the only suburb completely surrounded by city neighborhoods) are north, northwest, southwest, south and east of Knoxville, respectively. When atop some of Knoxville’s steeper slopes, the northern part of the neighborhood is in full view with the U.S Steel building towering over the horizon. Truly, Knoxville is a complicated place, but one that has always felt like home to me (and a neighborhood that I adore).

Knoxville is located in Pittsburgh’s South Hilltop region.

The dense neighborhood of Knoxville from the vantage point of Knox Avenue and Brownsville Road. The U.S Steel building towers in the distance.

The neighborhood of Knoxville was named after the fruit farmer Jeremiah Knox who settled there in the early 1800s and was known for his strawberries. The neighborhood was once home to Shade trees that lined the streets. Several streets were named after Knox’s extended family and others were named after the literal fruits of his labor: such as Rochelle Street, Amanda Avenue and Charles Street, and Jucunda Street and Orchard Place, respectively. The neighborhood was a desirable site for farming because of two topographical shelfs that blocked out the smoke and smut from the Steel Mill below in what is now known as the South Side Flats, and shut out smoke from other mills lining the Monongahela river. The first shelf is a feature of Allentown and the South Side Slopes and the second is a topographical slope down from Cedarhurst Street. As the neighborhood became more accessible via the Mt. Oliver incline in the 1870s and via the Knoxville and St. Clair Electric railroad in 1888, the population began to increase and drove dense residential development. Managers of the South Side steel mills preferred Knoxville because of its low level of pollution and easy access to the South Side Flats. The neighborhood was annexed by the City of Pittsburgh in 1927.

Knoxville is 1 of only 7 neighborhoods and neighborhood areas in the City of Pittsburgh with no clear simple racial majority. The neighborhood is roughly 46% black, 40% white, 6% Asian, 6% biracial and 2% Hispanic or Latino – per 2017 5-year American Community Survey estimates. And it’s important to state that this racial mixing wasn’t by design. Like many other neighborhoods and suburban boroughs along the Monongahela river valley, Knoxville began to steeply decline in population as the Steel Mills shuttered and closed in the late 70s and early 80s. Even before the decline of the mills, neighborhoods like Knoxville were subject to the same sort of depopulation trends happening throughout the city as a whole from the 1950s onward – due to increasing suburbanization and White flight. And as the population continued to decline decade after decade, neighborhood churches, schools, local institutions and businesses on the Knoxville side of Brownsville Road closed as well. While there are no longer any secondary schools that are currently open in the neighborhood, the teenagers of Knoxville feed into Carrick High School – much like my mom did when she was young.

Town style row homes in northern Knoxville.

The neighborhood is a microcosm of the consequences of de-industrialization and depopulation across the U.S. As those who were able/willing to leave the neighborhood did, the poverty rate began to steadily rise. Only those families who were left behind remained, along with those families who intended to whether the change. Racial mixing did not so much occur via some package of intentional integration policies, but instead as the result of the demolition of Public Housing projects throughout the City of Pittsburgh (such as the former St. Clair Village in the 2000s) and by way of Knoxville remaining transit accessible and having cheaper rents (comparatively) than economically similar neighborhoods in more opportunity rich parts of Pittsburgh.

Despite my existing knowledge of the neighborhood from my spending time there as a child and teenager, my street by street walk of the neighborhood revealed just how racially divided the neighborhood is; something I had never quite realized when I was younger. South Knoxville appeared to be home to many White residents. I even spotted some “Don’t Tread on Me” flags dotted throughout the southern tip of the neighborhood; a reminder of the more conservative political tendencies of working-class White residents throughout the Hilltop and south Pittsburgh – despite their economic status and position. This feature was true of my own home growing up in Brookline, although as one that was quite poor. And obviously, not all working class White residents fall into this political category. As I walked north of Suncrest Street, the residents walking the neighborhood were increasingly Black. And despite notable exceptions of integrated groups of White and Black residents in the neighborhood, some of the Black residents I spoke to on my walk reinforced the notion of how different it is to be Black in Knoxville. Their resident interview can be read here.

Sturdy brick single family homes in South Knoxville.

Remnants of the once tree-lined streets are still present in south Knoxville and the housing stock is sturdy and compact. Much like my walk throughout Manchester, while dilapidated housing was littered throughout the entire neighborhood, its concentration tended to increase as I walked northward – especially so north of Bausman Street. A number of vacant lots broke open the otherwise dense housing landscape. But beautiful housing is present throughout the whole of the neighborhood and I have my own affinity towards my mom and Grandma’s old home on Rochelle street in the northern part of Knoxville. Wide open vistas of the neighborhood can be viewed at the top of the certain alley ways and steeples of closed churches still permeate the neighborhood; including the now closed St. Canice on Orchard Place – which was the place where my sisters and I were baptized into the Catholic Church. While a small number of bars and convenience stores reside on the Knoxville side of Brownsville Road, a number of former businesses are vacant. Aprimo Pizza, Napa Auto Parts, McDonald’s and the remodeled Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh also call the Brownsville Road business corridor home. While not in Knoxville, the bars, stores and convenience shops of Mount Oliver Borough are nearby.

Tree-lined streets in South Knoxville

An elderly Black man smokes a cigarette and leans next to a building that is adjacent to vacant lots on all sides. The vacant lots sit north of Bausman Street and Knox Avenue.

Unlike the small portion of formerly disadvantaged and poverty-stricken Pittsburgh neighborhoods that are rapidly emerging in rent and home value and declining in poverty and other measures of disadvantage, Knoxville is like most other high and extreme poverty neighborhoods in that it has gained in poverty overall and has remained durably poor for decades. While Knoxville’s estimated poverty rate has fluctuated over the years, the rate of individuals living below the federal poverty line increased by 11 percentage points from 1990 to 2017 (19% to 30%) and the poverty rate has generally stayed upwards of 30% in recent years. High poverty Knoxville has also continued to see its population decline with a loss of 968 residents from 2012 to 2017 – with an estimated population of 4,333 in 2012 and of 3,365 in 2017. Like is found in most Pittsburgh neighborhoods that will also be profiled, steep racial divides exist between the Black and White population regarding median income and poverty rate – even in such a high poverty setting. While both the White poverty rate and Black poverty rate saw declines from 2012 to 2017 (a decline of 7.9% and 5.6%, respectively), the Black poverty rate is still 5.4 times that of the White Poverty Rate (43% for Black people and 7.9% for White as of 2017). And while the White household median income has increased from an estimated $43,757 to $45,794.00 over the 5-year period, the Black household median income has declined by a percentage change of 34% (from $27,972 to $18,537 or a difference of nearly $9,500). The White population also grew by 4% and the Black population declined by 9% over this time – with a 4% increase in the multiracial population.

Knoxville estimated measures of need and value are mixed regarding gains and declines from 2012 to 2017. Regarding measures of value, median gross rent and median home value have declined in the past 5-years (from $861 to $792 and from $46,635 to $44,300, respectively). Indicators of need such as those living below the FPL have decreased by 7% (down from 37%), single mothers with children has decreased by 14% (down from 37%), and those 25 and above with at least a bachelor’s degree or more have decreased by 4% (from 91% to 87%). However, while these declines in need may symbolize more significant change, they must be put in context. As of 2017 ACS estimates, and among all other Pittsburgh neighborhoods and neighborhood areas, Knoxville had the 8th highest rate of single mothers with children, the 7th highest rate of males who are unemployed or unattached from the labor force (when removing college student heavy neighborhoods from the rankings), the 12th highest rate of those 25 and up without a Bachelor’s degree or more, the 11th lowest median Black household income (when removing college student heavy neighborhoods from the rankings) and the 5th lowest median home value in all of Pittsburgh. And so, despite these declines in need, need levels are still quite high in both real terms and comparatively. These high measures of need come with a heavy cost on the community for such factors have contributed to the relatively high rate of gun violence found in durably poor neighborhoods like Knoxville.

Unique single family architecture on Zara Street that has seen better days, but evokes a timeless sense of charm.

In 2018 alone, 3 young men lost their lives to gun violence in Knoxville: James Loughlin (a 23-year-old white male), Tamon Hatchin (a 24-year-old Black Male) and Anthony Bullock-Fields (a 29-year-old Black male). And on Friday, February 8th 2019, a home invasion resulted in the hospitalization of a suspect and home resident due to gun fire exchange. And sadly, gun violence has been present in Knoxville for years. In 2014, 36-year-olds Jason Eubanks and Cheralynn Sabatasso were shot and killed. In 2015, 15-year-old Curtis pounds was a 9th grader at Carrick High School who was shot and killed. Curtis’s Aunt said that Pound’s father had been shot and killed 6 years ago and that her sister had also been murdered in 1993. In 2015, Police Officers shot and killed a fugitive charged with rape of a young child, assault and other crimes. According to police, the man had held what turned out to be an all-black air gun “in a manner consistent with what one would see when trained to use a handgun against officers.” In 2016, a 6-year-old Black girl named Isis Allen was tragically shot in the head by stray bullets in the summer of that year. 23-year-old Black female Shanique Sanders was shot down and found dead on McKinley Street in November of 2016. In March of 2017, a murder/suicide occurred when 46-year-old Christopher Dancy was shot and killed by 47-year-old Joseph Goldsmith before turning the gun on himself. A 9-month year old infant was injured from glass due to an exchange of fire between two men in April of 2017. In November 2017, 52-year-old Black woman Regina Beck Jordan was found shot in the head in her dining room on Rochelle Street and hospitalized. In July 2018, a man was shot at the intersection of Bausman and Brownsville Road and was taken to the hospital in stable condition. And in November of 2018, an 18-year-old man was taken to the hospital in critical condition after multiple wounds to the abdomen. This is not an exhaustive list, but a large snippet of gun violence that has occurred in Knoxville over the past few years. In being brutally honest, I cried when I read this list aloud to my younger brother – because so many of these young men and women were taken due to circumstance.

To be quite explicit, social science research shows that community level measures of concentrated poverty, percentage of men unemployed or unattached to the labor force, percentage of single mothers with children, drug trafficking and its connection to gun violence and other structural variables of disadvantage all have a hand in creating the conditions and opportunities for gun violence to disproportionately occur in high poverty areas like Knoxville. Meaning, gun violence is often a matter of economic circumstance and disadvantage, and is not some moral or cultural failing of the people who reside in durably poor communities. And often, it is carried out by a small percentage of the younger population who cause a disproportionate amount of the violent crime. And regarding the high degree of gun violence in majority Black neighborhoods (along with the fact that 69% of all victims of homicide in 2018 were Black – despite the fact that Black people make up only 13% of Allegheny County’s population), urban researchers argue that the high degree of gun violence in impoverished Black and mixed race communities is a matter of proximity and multigenerational exposure to highly disadvantaged neighborhoods. Meaning, because majority Black neighborhoods in Pittsburgh (and else where) tend to be so durably high poverty and segregated, young Black people are much more exposed and at risk to gun violence as compared to White people because of the neighborhoods and economic circumstances that they were born into. The exception of Knoxville is that it is a racially mixed neighborhood – albeit one that is still segregated. As such, both White and Black residents are exposed to both the economic and systemic conditions that cause the gun violence and the gun violence itself. Meaning, high gun violence is not an issue of race, but of the factors that create it – as described. However, the factors that create it have often been historically and systemically tied to areas of Black concentrated poverty.

The neighborhood conditions that tend to predict violence are the result of systemic and macroeconomic forces and self-reinforcing patterns of multigenerational exposure to concentrated poverty and disadvantage. Researchers Robert Sampson and Patrick Sharkey have analyzed and written on these topics extensively (see Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect and Stuck in Place). As discussed in a previous data brief, Black people are far more likely to reside in areas of concentrated poverty in Pittsburgh than White people are. As found in the analysis, an overwhelming 76% of majority Black neighborhoods are considered high or extreme poverty as of 2017 ACS estimates – compared to a mere 6% of majority White neighborhoods that are considered high or extreme poverty (with poverty rates exceeding 30% to 40% or more).

A set of green and white homes on Grimes Avenue in northern Knoxville.

In one of the most cited papers of the past few decades regarding the structural causes of violent crime in racially and economically segregated neighborhoods, renowned researchers William Julius Wilson and Robert Sampson of Harvard argued that the rate of unemployed or unattached males to the labor force and concentrated poverty tend to disrupt families and affect the rate of single mother households with children. In turn, it has been found that high rates of single mothers with children is a leading predictor of violent crime – especially so among juveniles. More recent research from Sampson shows how higher rates of incarceration among Black men have also disrupted the family and led to an increase in single female houses with children. Regarding higher rates of incarceration, Sampson found that the rates of incarceration among Black men in Chicago neighborhoods for committing the same crimes as White men is a different of kind, not degree. While both researchers don’t ignore the fact that neighborhood culture may play some role in violence, they argue that cultural primers of violence are a response to the overwhelming disadvantage of many racially and economically segregated neighborhoods and the lack of living wage job opportunities for residents. Now, violent crime is complex, but my point is that structural variables at the neighborhood level tend to be quite predictive of crime. And as discussed, Knoxville has some of the highest rates of single mothers with children and men who are unemployed or unattached to the labor force in the City of Pittsburgh.

Saint Canice is visible in the distance on Orchard Place – which is located in the most northern section of the neighborhood.

Knoxville, like many other durably poor neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, is a complicated place. While it is measurably disadvantaged as compared to low poverty neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, it is also home to residents who deeply care about their neighborhood and are doing their best to get by. And many are resilient, friendly, knowledgeable and charismatic – per my own personal experiences with family and friends in Knoxville and per my street by street walk of the neighborhood. Although not by design, Knoxville is one of the most racially diverse neighborhoods in the entire city, but it is still segregated when comparing the southern and northern sections of the neighborhood. Knoxville has access to transit via the 51, 44 and 54, but there is only one grocery store in the entire South Hilltop. Knoxville has sturdy, compact and wonderfully charming homes, but a high degree of vacancy and blight. Knoxville is the place where my mom and most of my mom’s side of the family grew up. And my grandma’s house holds a special place in my memory; whether the memory be of her neighborhood famous rigatonis or the times when my great-uncle would chase me around her house with a buzz cutter because my hair was “way too damn long.” I once received some sage advice from my Great Uncle Bill. Uncle Bill also resided with my grandma in the house with the Japanese Apple Tree out front and the dark green porch swing that my siblings and I would play on when we were younger. He told me that a boy who never ended up in the hospital from doing something reckless with his friends would never really have that great of a childhood (and my best friend and I took his advice a bit too seriously growing up).

Knoxville is home to beautiful vistas and a visibly tight social network but is plagued by community violence that is preventable. Knoxville is struggling, as are many of its most vulnerable residents, but its story doesn’t have to end that way – nor should it. While Knoxville is one of many high poverty neighborhoods that has not seen the benefit of Pittsburgh’s so-called renaissance and revitalization, there are strategies out there that aim to invest in the people of disadvantaged places and provide them with real opportunity. And there are already local non profits that deeply care about the social mobility and health of those residing in the Hilltop (such as the Brashear Association and the Hilltop Community Children’s Center). Pittsburgh’s economic growth alone will not solve the problems of durable poverty and cemented disadvantage in places like Knoxville. Intentional place-based and people centered policies, investments and strategies are needed to combat the barriers that residents have faced for generations.

My mom and grandma’s former house is featured on the right side of the photo. A Japanese Maple Tree sits in the front yard. A seedling from that same tree became a Japanese Maple Tree in my parent’s front yard in Brookline. My uncle and cousins reside in the white row houses.

Methodology Notes

ACS estimates at the census tract level have sizeable margin or error and this may impact results.

Snippets of broader Pittsburgh history were not cited because they are common knowledge.

Poverty intervals were informed by standards in neighborhood-level poverty research. Specifically, researcher Patrick Sharkey’s poverty intervals were referenced from his book Stuck in Place – regarding what constitutes an extreme, high, moderate, low or very low poverty neighborhood.

Neighborhood Profile: Manchester

The neighborhood of Manchester is located on the western portion of Pittsburgh’s lower Northside and is bordered to the south by Western Avenue, to the west by Chateau Street, to the East by Allegheny Avenue and to the North by the Norfolk Southern railroad. As of 2017 American Community Survey Estimates, Manchester had a population of 2,156 – up by 114 from 2012. The largely industrial and commercial neighborhood of Chateau lay to the west and south of Manchester while Marshall-Shadeland, California-Kirkbride, Allegheny West and Central Northside (better known as Mexican War Streets) are north, northeast, southeast and east of Manchester, respectively. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, the neighborhood is home to the Manchester Historic District and is the largest historic preservation site in the City of Pittsburgh.

Manchester is located in Pittsburgh’s Northside region.

Historic Preservation plaques that describe architectural styles ranging from Victorian Eclectic to Second Empire dot houses throughout the neighborhood. And while the bulk of housing units are of the row home variety, mansions built when the neighborhood was still a part of Allegheny City – before its annexation by Pittsburgh in 1907 – reside on streets and avenues like Liverpool and W North. Crumbling and dilapidated houses litter the entire neighborhood, but their concentration appears to increase north of Liverpool Street and they comprise the majority of housing units towards the most northern tip of the neighborhood. But even in their decay, the houses are hauntingly beautiful and appear as resilient as the residents that were friendly enough to stop and talk to me on my street by street walk of their neighborhood. One Black woman was reserved and soft spoken, but told me that she was visiting her mother (who has lived in the neighborhood for most of her life). We spoke off Liverpool street. Her least favorite part of the neighborhood was the “issues with drugs,” but she loved the street festival that a local church puts on every summer.

Mansion located in the southwestern portion of Manchester.

Dilapidated building in northern section of Manchester.

The crumbling and graffitied former Manchester public swimming pool can be found in the most northeastern portion of the neighborhood in Manchester Park. And as a kid who once managed to get thousands of signatures in an attempt to stop the closure of so many of the city’s public pools in the early 2000s (to no avail), the sight of the old pool hit me hard with great waves of nostalgia and a longing for the days when my own closed pool at Brookline Memorial Park was still open. In Brookline the pool was repurposed into a turf hockey rink, but in Manchester it remains abandoned. A cement Dolphin still resides in the fenced off swimming pool and is a forgone image of a place that once gave joy to the Black bodied children of Manchester. And while the decay of the old swimming pool saddened me, there was so much to love about Manchester. Without a doubt, my favorite part of the neighborhood was a green through-way directly west of Manchester’s baseball field – which sits between the northern and southern sections of Fulton Street. From a lone picnic table beneath a well shaded tree, I could see part of Downtown’s Skyline and, with a turn of my head, I could look directly down Fulton and on towards the magnificent Original Church of God on Liverpool Street which was once a Roman Catholic Church; its steeple can be seen from various points throughout the neighborhood and acts as a sort of focal point.

Abandoned and graffitied Manchester Swimming Pool located in the most northeastern section of the neighborhood.

Green through-way located west of Manchester Ball Field – which sits between the northern and southern sections of Fulton Street. Steeple of Original Church of God in the distance.

While the neighborhood is almost entirely residential, several larger commercial businesses line Western Avenue and a few businesses and non-profits are concealed between homes in central areas of the neighborhood (including a graphic design company called Little Kelpie on Columbus Avenue, the Manchester Youth Development Center on Liverpool Street and the Northside Leadership Conference at Allegheny and Pennsylvania Avenues). The neighborhood is also home to a number of primary schools including Manchester Elementary, Manchester Prek-8, Manchester Academy Charter School and the historic building that houses the Conroy Education Center – along with several Christian Churches of various denominations. The neighborhood is flat, highly walkable and is easily accessible via several nearby port authority bus stops (with the 14 traveling along Manchester’s southern and western borders) and the Trolley’s Allegheny Station is a short walk down Allegheny Avenue from the southeastern tip of the neighborhood.

The Original Church of God on the Historic Liverpool Street.

As of the latest 2017 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, Manchester is a majority Black neighborhood (67% black) that went from high to moderate poverty from 1990 to 2012 (38% to 23%) and from moderate to low poverty from 2012 to 2017 (23% to 16%). In fact, Manchester has seen the second steepest decline in individuals living below the Federal Poverty Line from 1990 to 2017 among all Pittsburgh neighborhoods and neighborhoods areas – a decline in poverty of 22%. And regarding those neighborhoods with a simple racial majority (those with at least 51% of a population consisting of a given racial group), Manchester is one of only 3 majority Black neighborhoods that are considered lower poverty. Meaning, Manchester, the Upper Hill and East Liberty all have poverty rates between 10 and 19%. The other 14 majority Black neighborhoods are all high or extreme poverty – with the exception of Fineview on Pittsburgh’s Upper Northside which is considered moderate poverty. And besides the Upper Hill District, Manchester hosts the second highest median income for Black Households living in a majority Black neighborhood. Although, Manchester’s median household income for Black residents is still $26,000 less than the median household income for White residents (roughly $66,000 for White people and $40,000 for Black people).

And so, Manchester is unique for 3 reasons 1) Manchester is a majority Black neighborhood that isn’t high or extreme poverty – which is rare in Pittsburgh. 2) It has a Black household median income that is one of the highest for majority Black neighborhoods and is on the rise (roughly $32,000 in 2012 to $40,000 in 2017 or a 25 percent change increase). 3) And unlike most Pittsburgh neighborhoods that tend to remain durably low, moderate or high poverty over decades of time, Manchester is witnessing significant declines in poverty and other measures of disadvantage and is experiencing sizeable increases in housing value and income measures; and these changes are happening over a relatively short period of time. Durable concentrated poverty and the reality of residential segregation by race and income in Pittsburgh neighborhoods was the subject of a previous data brief.

Speaking to the 3rd point, and over a 5-year period from 2012 to 2017, the following measures of disadvantage have seen sizeable declines: individual poverty rate declined by 7.5%, poverty rate for Black residents declined by 6.3% (3 and half times the decline of White poverty over the same period), the rate of single mothers with children declined by 18%, the percentage of working age males declined by 25% and percentage of those 25 or older without a Bachelor’s degree or more declined by roughly 14%. As for median income, the median income rose from roughly $36,000 to $44,400 from 2012 to 2017. And as mentioned, Black household median income is on the rise – as is White household median income (up from roughly $51,000 in 2012 to $66,000 in 2017 or a percent change increase of 31%). Lastly, median gross rent and median home value have both seen sizeable increases – an increase of $111 for gross rent and a roughly $22,000 median home value increase (with an estimated median home value of $116,000 in 2017). Although, both median gross rent and median home value fell below citywide estimates for 2017.

Historic row home built in the architectural style of Queen Anne in 1889. Located in the central part of Manchester.

While Manchester has been a majority Black neighborhood for some time, it has seen a 10% decline in the Black population from 2012 to 2017 and a 12% increase in the White population over the same period (18% in 2012 to 30% in 2017). Given these declines in need and increases in median income, rent and household value, along with the fact that the poverty rate for Black and White households is not drastically different as of 2017 estimates (13.4% for Whites and 16.6% for Blacks), it appears as though low-income Black residents are leaving the neighborhood. This may possibly be due to involuntarily displacement which could be the result of sizeable increases in rent and home value (with rent increases negatively affecting those low or fixed income households who don’t own a home or home value increases affecting low or fixed income homeowners who can’t keep up with property tax increases). Or, perhaps, higher income Black people are moving into the neighborhood which is driving down the Black poverty rate – although steep declines in the rate of single mothers and other measures of need/population may contradict this thought somewhat. And so, the decline in Black poverty could be due to out-migration and not an influx of higher income Black people, after all. Further analysis of the households who are leaving and staying is required to claim that involuntary displacement is occurring, however. And even if it has yet to occur, recent demographic changes and the influx of higher income White residents suggest that involuntary displacement due to spikes in rent and home value may be inevitable without putting the proper protections in place now.

Because of the rising median income among Black residents and the value of Manchester’s Black median income as compared to other majority Black neighborhoods, higher-income Black residents in Manchester could stand to benefit from such improvements in their neighborhood regarding historic protections, renovation and development. And one thing is clear, Manchester is changing on several measures. Though-out my walk, I saw several teams of contractors doing renovations on buildings in the neighborhood. And so, perhaps its closeness to the sports stadiums of the Northshore, the art exhibits of the Mexican War Streets (and Allegheny Center), its walkability, and its large historic preservation site are factors that are causing a surge in median gross rent and median home value.

Tree lined streets lean away from historic row homes in Manchester.

On a final note, researcher Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted, has pointed to rising housing and utility costs, stagnant incomes and a decline in federal funding for affordable housing programs over the past few decades as the main contributors to the ongoing shortage of affordable housing (now known as the affordable housing crisis) and the City’s Affordable Housing Task Force reported that the city has a shortage of over 17,000 affordable housing units for households with incomes at or below 50% of Household Median Income as of 2016. As such, the affordable housing shortage affects high and low poverty neighborhoods alike. And Desmond has noted that eviction is common for low or fixed-income renters in high poverty neighborhoods that are not undergoing drastic change – especially so among Black single mother households. Meaning, growing eviction rates are not just a problem in the small number of Pittsburgh neighborhoods that are rapidly changing; they are also an issue in Pittsburgh’s poorest neighborhoods.

However, without tools to slow down rising utility and housing costs, an increase in income for low and fixed-income households and an expansion of affordable housing supply, neighborhoods that are changing at a faster pace than others may put low or fixed-income renters at even greater risk for involuntary displacement than those living in durably high poverty areas. While most Pittsburgh neighborhoods have not drastically changed over the past 27 years regarding poverty rate, as discussed in a previous data brief, Manchester is undergoing change, and this may be good news for higher income residents who can weather that change. But the neighborhood should begin to concern itself with the subject of affordable housing development and protection – as to allow low-income Black residents to remain in the beautiful, accessible and walkable neighborhood. And perhaps, neighborhood groups and affordable housing advocates are already having discussions about this topic.

Corner of Sheffield Street and Allegheny Avenue on the eastern border of Manchester. Pittsburgh Public Housing Authority apartments are just out of the frame and to the right.

Methodology Note:

All neighborhood level statistics were gathered via census tract level data from the 2012 and 2017 5-year American Community Survey estimates. Citywide statistics were gathered via the 2017 1-year ACS estimates. The 1990 poverty rate was gathered via poverty estimates from the National Historic Geographic Information Systems. The University of Pittsburgh Library System informed which census tracts comprised a given neighborhood on a given year. 2012 dollar amounts, incomes and values were adjusted for inflation using the consumer price index.

ACS estimates at the census tract level have sizeable margin of error and this may impact results.

Poverty intervals were informed by standards in neighborhood-level poverty research. Specifically, researcher Patrick Sharkey’s poverty intervals were referenced from his book Stuck in Place – regarding what constitutes an extreme, high, moderate, low or very low poverty neighborhood.