Ok, so I'm from Cleveland, born and raised, but went to Pitt 1997-2001.  When I left Cleveland in 1997 the Pittsburgh Post Gazette heralded Cleveland as a revitalization model (new Rock Hall, Science Center, Waterfront Line, Flats, etc, etc).  I was proud to be in Pittsburgh and hearing all of this positive press about Cleveland in our rival city. 

 

Well now I am back in Cleveland and am astonished (not really) at the positive press Pittsburgh is getting in the Plain Dealer and, well everywhere, while Cleveland seems to have lost something we had in the late 1990's.

 

So my questions to the smart people at UO...what happened in these two cities that set them on such separate paths??  What caused what seems to be Cleveland's regression?  Was it crime, poor schools, OH/Cle laws versus PA/Pitt laws, business environment, or was Cleveland's 1990's rebirth simply over hyped? Conversely, what is the source(s) of Pittsburgh's success...lack of forced school busing, terrain that forces tight neighborhoods, formation of the RAD (regional assets district) tax in 1990's (the region pays for their cultural assets, not just Pittsburgh residents), change from 3 county commissioners to county exec/council back in 1990's, better city/state laws, or is this all over hype for Pittsburgh that may fade like Cleveland's 90's hype?

 

My sense is that beyond terrain, these are near twin cities in history, industry, size and culture, so what's the deal??  Don't get me wrong, I'm not hating on Pittsburgh, I love it!  (Some of my best memories are being a student in Oakland) But I love Cleveland too and my sense is these two cities are so similar there have to be lessons that we can learn.  Your thoughts...

 

It's all hype, one way or the other.  Both cities still face similar problems, and have similar opportunities.  If Pittsburgh has an advantage, it's that it's education infrastructure is more concentrated in the center, and not coincidentally, it's poverty is less concentrated in the center of the city.  This drives most of the difference in perception.

I personally believe that A LOT has to do with the terrain. I wrote about this before in The Perception Of Cleveland thread in City Discussions. Quickly summarizing it, Cleveland was planned between the Cuyahoga River, Lake Erie (of course), and Doan Brook---which is on the East Side and about 4-5 miles from the river. The planners essentially located the cultural institutions out there. It seemed perfectly fine at the time...and cities are traditionally arranged around waterways, even though, I know, a Brook is very small. So what this created was a vast expanse between the CBD and the parks/colleges/museums area. The location of present-day Rockefeller Park and University Circle are a result of this.

The topography of the Great Lakes region facilitates this because it is flat and allows for this continual horizontal sprawl. Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo, Milwaukee, etc. pretty much have the same topography, as do cities in other parts of the nation. Conversely, hills and mountains force tighter, denser cities. Exception---Chicago.

I truly believe that Cleveland would be a much different experience if Doan Brook had been only 2 or 3 miles from the River.  Regardless of how flat the shoreline terrain is.

 

Some will probably disagree with me on this but Cleveland's 1990s "Comeback" was probably (or certainly) a little over-hyped. It's just that things were soo bad in the 70s and early 80s that we did come a long way from that. But there still is a way to go.

Most of NYC's population lives on an island. Creates tightness

Boston is criss-crossed with waterways. Creates tightness

DC--- I love it--- but it's a generally affluent over-grown college town. Thrives on intimate, walkable neighborhoods.

All of these and the other old East Coast cities rise to preeminence came before the dawn of the automobile.

The bulk of their urban core's residential and commercial structures were not planned around Ford Fairlanes or Model T's for that matter. Places like Cleveland and Detroit--their boomtown years were 1900 and after , more like the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s. Automobiles!

LA is totally an automobile/ highway age city.

OK so it's not just flatness.

It's landlocked-ness, and certainly the timing of when their growth occurred

Places like Cleveland and Detroit--their boomtown years were 1900 and after , more like the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s. Automobiles!

 

But they increased density until the 30's, the depression and WW2 halted all growth for at least a decade, and then after WW2, real sprawl started. Even with automobiles, it wouldn't have happened without highways and street widenings. Keep in mind the increased speed this brought to a commute. People could live further from work. It's not cars themselves. It's what those cars have to travel on. It took a long time before streets were widened, urban areas were demolished for parking lots, and freeways were built. That's why we look at 1950 as the cutoff census. By 1960, the nation was changed forever.

 

In terms of population density, Detroit and Cleveland actually both peaked between 1930 and 1950, long after the invention of the automobile

 

Invention is one thing, Access to that invention is something else.

Maybe half the families on a block had 1 car !! unfathomable thought nowadays

I think Pittsburgh may have one or two badly placed free-ways.  I also think that it's hard to claim that geography had nothing to do with Pittsburgh maintaining some neighborhoods.  While terrain may not "force" density it certainly facilitates it.  Pittsburgh also has the double-edged sword of population homogeneity.  This kept many neighborhoods intact, I'm sure, but I think you can feel the lack of diversity in Sh!ttsburgh.  It should also be pointed out that East Coast cities were not only developed before the automobile, but the dense centers were developed before street cars (Philly Center City, the Inner Harbor and Fell's Point, whatever the neighborhoods in Boston are called, etc.) 

Quote:  "Um, hills do not force tighter, denser "cities". Human beings pick and choose whether to sprawl or not. The choose their density." 

 

I agree that hills do not force density.  When Las Vegas fills its valley, it will spill over into adjacent vallues as did Los Angeles.  What I notice about US cites that are dense is that they have high core land values, (which means if you put out the money for the land, you better build something substantial on it), which means that there is high demand to be in the core.  Also, heavy industry is not/was not a stones throw from downtown.  In fact, these cities do not not to such a degree depend on heavy industry.  If C-Dawg's assertion that people "choose" to sprawl is correct, then one should ask what are the people fleeing from.  Perhaps originally it was to escape the heavy industry and later,  it was demographic changes.  For example, in what I have seen of Chicago the heavy industry is away from downtown, largely south and southwest.  The downtown has a wealth of non-industrial uses, and has retained amenities that make people want to live there.  Pittsburgh and Cleveland were impacted by the pollution and later decline of these heavy industries leaving a big hole that has had to be filled back in.  During the period of decline 60s-80s, many young people that wanted a fulfilling urban experience, left Cleveland and Pittsburgh for cities that had it, eg NYC, DC, Chicago further removing people that might have wanted to live downtown.  As for the notion that freeways kill the center cities, I would point out that the urban "darlings" SF, NYC, Chicago, Boston, etc are all surrounded by extensive sprawl with miles and miles of freeways.  They have the same sprawling suburbs that we do.  Its just that they still have intact, lively downtowns that were not decimated earlier and a supply of people who want to live in them.  Cleveland and Pittsburgh are trying to entice some of these people back.  One other thing to consider is the cooperation (or lack of cooperation) between the city, the crazy quilt of suburbs, and the county and state in Pittsburgh vs Cleveland.

C-Dawg , you made an important point. Pittsburgh's economy bottomed-out twenty-five years ago, so they've had two decades to recover. We'll probably look back at the early 2000's as Cleveland's bottom in terms of manufacturing. I think this is the biggest difference between the two cities. Overall demographics and topography does help Pittsburgh maintain density. If I were a young professional living in Pittsburgh I would live in either Shady Side or Squirrel Hill. I can't name a suburb of Pittsburgh that I find appealing. However, young professionals living in Greater Cleveland have tons of choices outside of Cleveland proper. Lakewood, Cleveland Hts., and Shaker Hts. are very similar to Shady Side and Squirrel Hill, but these cities are outside Cleveland proper. I also think demographics also played a role. I recently did a paper on deindustrialization and the impact on African-American men.  In my research, I discovered over 70% of all African-American men living in northern cities held "blue collar" jobs. Therefore, when manufacturing jobs began to disappear, a disproportionate number of black men were greatly affected. Cuyahoga, Wayne and Cook County had the largest concentration of African-Americans in the Midwest. On the other hand, Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) had a decent African-American population. If I remember correctly, Allegheny County had just over 100,000 African-Americans compared to 300,000 in Cuyahoga County. Detroit had just under a million and Chicago had over a million African-Americans.

In my opinion, this is what separates Pittsburgh from Cleveland. African-Americans were clustered in large swaths on the Eastside of Cleveland. So, when these jobs disappeared, over 70% of all African-American men in those communities were left without jobs. This is why we see large areas of poverty in Cleveland, Chicago and Detroit. Pittsburgh's African-American communities were also affected, but these neighborhoods weren't clustered on one side of the city. Pittsburgh’s African-American communities are in pockets throughout the city. The Hill District and Homewood are separated by Oakland, Bloomfield, Squirrel Hill and a few other neighborhoods. Also, many of the steel mills in Pittsburgh were outside the city limits heading down the Monongahela. Rankin, Duquesne, and Homestead are pretty distressed towns, but they are independent towns lying just outside of Pittsburgh. 

 

 

Both Cities have some good things going for themselves.  Both also have some serious downfalls.  They each will have and have had their ups and downs in terms of perception.  Pittsburgh just held the G-20 so it is walking around with its chin up right now.  However, I think many locals would tell you that Pitt is currently living in a bubble that could burst at any time.  Cleveland's economy is down but its finances are reasonably stable.  Pittsburgh is just the opposite at present.  In the long run, I have more faith in our mindset of sustainability. 

I also think demographics also played a role. I recently did a paper on deindustrialization and the impact on African-American men. In my research, I discovered over 70% of all African-American men living in northern cities held "blue collar" jobs. Therefore, when manufacturing jobs began to disappear, a disproportionate number of black men were greatly affected.

 

I would say this played the biggest role.  Suddenly you had a large area of unemployed people on the East Side of town.  High unemployment generally leads to a host of bad things and the cycle begins...

... Also, many of the steel mills in Pittsburgh were outside the city limits heading down the Monongahela. 

 

 

 

Yes, exactly. We (Cleveland) got this part backwards...

We should've put University Circle / Rockefeller Pk bordering downtown and the heavy industry away from the CBD. Instead we did the opposite. It makes you ask: "what were they thinking??"

 

 

****This is what I've been trying to say all along!!*****

...Those planners knew what they were doing, a hell of a lot more than we do today...

 

 

Not a correct statement

You folks think that these cities were planned?

^ I think that Jeptha Wade might have something to say about that.

But in a way you're right (at least from Cleveland's standpoint)...hmmm Smokestacks and pollution next to downtown...or, trees, colleges and homes next to downtown?

Maybe it wasn't planned

This is just going to become a pissing match.  Who cares?

I honestly think that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Jacobs Field/Indians resurgence led to a lot of the mid-90s hype. We got a lot of good press when the World Series came to town and Bob Costas would proclaim us "the comeback city" to all the nation. TV loves to polarize things--Jacobs Field was on the cusp of the new wave of baseball's cathedral era. It was truly impressive. Just 6 years earlier, the team itself was permanently pathetic that they made a successful movie about it. This all made for good drama. Just like Slavic Village has made for good drama over the past two years..

 

Take a look at downtown now and compare it to 1995 (subtract Tower City's heath from this equation)--I think downtown is a much nicer place now than it was back then. We have thousands more housing units and a vibrant restaurant scene. If you ask most metro-Clevelanders, they'd probably say the opposite because that is what the media tells them. I realize that we have lost two department stores downtown, but I view that as a national issue.

^ I think that Jeptha Wade might have something to say about that.

But in a way you're right (at least from Cleveland's standpoint)...hmmm Smokestacks and pollution next to downtown...or, trees, colleges and homes next to downtown?

Maybe it wasn't planned

 

It wasn't exactly planned, but the way it happened was logical given Cleveland's development.

 

Downtown was built on a bluff for strategic reasons, and industry grew in the Flats because it needed the water.  Manufacturing developed on the near East Side because of it needed proximity to services downtown, which was a business district, not a residential or entertainment neighborhood, during Cleveland's initial growth period.  (Millionaire's Row is an exception to that generalization.)  Like today, the wealthy lived mainly on the outskirts of the city (many former Euclid Ave. millionaires ultimately moved to University Circle and then into the Heights.)

 

So even though we have this idea of Downtown as a real neighborhood with homes and entertainment today, at the time, the industry that needed to be near downtown for logistical business reasons would have been very much at odds with an idyllic University Circle.

 

Also, fwiw, this aerial map of Pittsburgh from 1902 shows just how close industry and shipping came to their downtown: 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Pittsburgh_Fowler_1902.png

 

Although I'm not positive, I'm pretty sure Oakland is beyond most of the smokey factories in that image, so I think Pittsburgh probably followed the same general land-use patterns.

... Also, many of the steel mills in Pittsburgh were outside the city limits heading down the Monongahela.

 

 

 

Yes, exactly. We (Cleveland) got this part backwards...

We should've put University Circle / Rockefeller Pk bordering downtown and the heavy industry away from the CBD. Instead we did the opposite. It makes you ask: "what were they thinking??"

 

 

****This is what I've been trying to say all along!!*****

 

They were thinking let's centralize our industry on the industrial Cuyahoga River.  Heavy industry needed access to water and rail back then and still do today to some degree.  They could have lined our lake shore with industry... would that have been a better option?  The river was down in a valley that people would not choose to live in back then anyway.

"They" whoever "they" are supposed to be, weren't thinking about centralizing industry, didn't choose density, or didn't do any sort of long range large scale urban planning like we think of it today.  The city largely grew in an ad hoc manner, including Jeptha Wade's donation of a park on the affluent eastern edge of the city.  Housing, industry, offices, and stores were built according to who had what land, and how much and what type building they thought they could profitably put on it.  Main streets developed from regional transportation routes.  Mid sized and side streets were inserted in to gain access to the new lots in developer's subdivisions (even much of what is downtown began as developer's "subdivisions"-in fact Downtown's original plat was really a developer's subdivision).  They were not put into a large scale formal arrangement for any sort of aesthetic or city-level functional reasons. 

 

Cleveland was not planned as such.  It was a place were people congregated for economic reasons and built what they thought would be profitable.  Later it was adorned with some civic infrastructure.  Later than that sections were rebuilt according to planning ideals- think The Malls.  Later even than that we began to try to make master plans for large swaths of the city and the entire city itself.

By 1920, Cleveland had nearly 800,000 people at 14,000 per square mile, insane density by today's standards in Ohio. By contrast, Cincinnati only had 400,000 people at 5,643 per square mile. Cleveland was way bigger and way denser at its peak, but since then....

 

FYI, Cincinnati was a smaller city in land size in 1920 (Bond Hill, Westwood [the city's largest neighborhood], etc weren't even on the map) and the density of Over-the-Rhine through Queensgate alone trumped anything in this country, save Manhattan.  Cincinnati's density was certainly helped by it's age along with topography, like Pittsburgh.  Cincinnati today sprawls like nobody's business but the city itself is the state's most structurally dense city, by far.

 

And we all know population density doesn't equate with urbanity.  There are suburbs of Los Angeles that are "denser" in population than anything in the Midwest, including Chicago, yet I would never say Hawaiian Gardens is "urban."  Not to say Cleveland wasn't urban in 1920 but one couldn't/shouldn't go by population density.  Ever.  Or say hello to St. James Park in Toronto.

 

By 1920, Cleveland had nearly 800,000 people at 14,000 per square mile, insane density by today's standards in Ohio. By contrast, Cincinnati only had 400,000 people at 5,643 per square mile. Cleveland was way bigger and way denser at its peak, but since then....

 

Wow, that is incredible.  Cleveland really was a beast of a city back in the day.  Cincy was once a marquis city, but it was much earlier than Cleveland and thus had much less impressive numbers.  I know everyone here likes to compare Cleveland and Pittsburgh due to the steel connection and their proximity, but their population patterns seem to mirror St. Louis more closely. Perhaps the StL/Cle narrative is more similar than the Cle/Pgh one?

As touched on before, a very real difference between the two cities in terms of quality of urban life: Cleveland's completely suburbanized retail infrastructure.  It's much more than jurisdictional: yes Shady Side is in the city proper and Shaker is it's own municipality, but no matter, because none of Shaker, Cleveland Hts or Lakewood have close to the yuppie retail life still found in the City of Pittsburgh.  That's actually a pretty important amenity, IMHO and makes car-free or even car-light living a lot harder (or at least more unpleasant) in Cleveland than it otherwise could be.  So yeah, Pburgh isn't Shangri-La, but it might be more yuppie-friendly.  Better housing stock too, IMHO.

 

In any case though, I really wonder if Pburgh has that much of a better rep than Cleveland.  Both are rust belt and neither is a big coastal media market, so both are probably dismissed about the same.

Number of units on a certain amount of land isn't the only determination of profit.  I suppose that's a pretty simple statement, but I only got a "C" in capitalism class.  I think there is a tendency to attach a morality to density that doesn't really exist.  Cleveland isn't a "bad" city because it has lost density; no more than Pittsburgh is a "good" city because there is a Talbot's in Shadyside.  The post by "x" is one of the most sensible things I have read on this site in quite a while.  Density is an externality of certain economic choices and conditions. Density occurs where there is economic opportunity, and planning can be a reaction to it, but not a catalyst for it. 

If anything, Cincinnati's smaller land area should have meant more population density, not less. Cleveland had a much, much larger area of urbanity at its peak, no doubt about it, and it was dense as all hell.  Cleveland as a whole was in fact denser. OTR was the single densest neighborhood in the state (by population density) back then, but one neighborhood does not make a whole city. Cleveland's density went out further, hence twice the population in similar land area. Keep in mind too Cleveland had plenty of core neighborhoods with double or triple the density of outer hoods (similar to how Cincinnati, Toledo, and Columbus were set up). The aerials from back then say it all. Don't underestimate how much has been lost in Cleveland.

 

And where exactly are you getting your "density numbers" from?  Are you simply taking the current square milage and dividing it by the population of the time?  In which case, that would be inaccurate.  According to this 1922 map of the city:

 

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~canmaps/1922/Cities/Cincinnati.html

 

The square milage would put Cincinnati around 30 sq mi, which means it would have a population density of 13,375 in 1920, mirroring Cleveland.  And Cincinnati had flight earlier than most cities (due to OTR's deplorable conditions) so that ain't bad for a city that was already beginning to "suburbanize."  And seeing how the city of Cincinnati had a population density of 32,000 per square mile in 1860 (http://wapedia.mobi/en/Over-the-Rhine), I'd say the city was, and is, quite dense.  And yes, hills, like Pittsburgh, helped make that happen.

 

And I don't need to pull out the Queensgate aerial for Cincinnati to counter that Boston image.  So I won't.

 

Yeah, tell that to urban retailers, mass transit planners, etc. There can be no functional urbanity without population density to support it. You have slums when there's structural density (abandonment) without population to support it.

 

No.  Transit usage and urban retailer expectations have nothing to do with functional, structural urbanity.  That's just "duh."  Los Angeles has areas that are very densely populated yet are autocentric and not pedestrian friendly.  Ditto with Miami.  Ditto with Toronto.

 

There's probably not a single area in the world with 14,000 people per square mile that's not intensely urban. We have more structual density in Ohio than functioning urbanity. It's because these areas used to have population density.

 

St. James Park, Toronto.  Baltimore's Sandtown projects.  The old Cabrini-Green.  Pruitt-Igoe, St. Louis, 1961.  All have a huge population density yet none of those places are "intensely urban" because they are essentially towers in the park.  If anything, they reject urbanity (and you can blame a French man + Robert Moses for the concept).  Again, population density means nothing.  Unless you acknowledge Las Vegas having a higher population density in the metro than anything in this state.  Hell, Fresno.

 

And as ugly as parts of LA look, there is a lot of functioning urbanity in the areas with high population density (say over 10,000 people per square mile), and LA is actually densifying.

 

And I guess population density doesn't matter since New York, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago have the highest population densities in the country and everybody knows they're not urban...

 

Yes, because they were built urban.  That doesn't always mean that the more dense the population, the more urban it is.  Outer London doesn't have a high-population density yet it's more urban structurally and functional than anything in Los Angeles or Aventura.  Again, population density ain't everything (and sorry, that's just common sense).

And I'll be back Sunday to see what other "blah blah blah" you got to say so I can dismiss it. :)

Oh, and I just want to say I'm not dissing Cleveland at all in this thread so don't take it THAT way.  I know Cleveland is/was a fully functional, urban city (again, duh).  I'm just nitpicking CDawg's inaccurate Cincinnati/Population density rant.

Oh, and I just want to say I'm not dissing Cleveland at all in this thread so don't take it THAT way.  I know Cleveland is/was a fully functional, urban city (again, duh).  I'm just nitpicking Dag's inaccurate Cincinnati/Population density rant.

 

As I predicted earlier, this has become a pissing match!  Lots of inaccuracies.  I hate "comparison" threads!

That gives me an idea for a thread: "Comparison Threads versus Non-Comparison Threads".

Hey, it works for City-Data.com! :D

I'm not sure that this thread was ever on topic, but let's get back to "Pittsburgh and Cleveland". For pity's sake, I'm unemployed and even *I* don't have as much free time as you knuckleheads!

Dirtbag!  Fine.

 

By 1920, Cleveland had nearly 800,000 people at 14,000 per square mile, insane density by today's standards in Ohio. By contrast, Cincinnati only had 400,000 people at 5,643 per square mile. Cleveland was way bigger and way denser at its peak, but since then....

 

Wow, that is incredible.  Cleveland really was a beast of a city back in the day.  Cincy was once a marquis city, but it was much earlier than Cleveland and thus had much less impressive numbers.  I know everyone here likes to compare Cleveland and Pittsburgh due to the steel connection and their proximity, but their population patterns seem to mirror St. Louis more closely. Perhaps the StL/Cle narrative is more similar than the Cle/Pgh one?

 

Pittsburgh has lost more percentage of population than anywhere in the country since 2000 IIRC, so why would you remove them from the conversation?

The issue is the demographic trends which took different paths in each metro. Pittsburgh doesn't have brain drain like you see in Cleveland, Buffalo, Toledo, etc. If Cleveland retained more college grads, I have no doubt more of the city would have been maintained. Is Pittsburgh better because it has more college grads? Of course not. It just explains some of the economic differences today (though that gap is shrinking). You need good jobs to maintain neighborhoods.

 

You're taking this as a given.  Have you actually looked at the data to see how the two compare?  And I mean metro, not just municipal data.

Well Hong Kong is definitely an example of a place that built vertically due to hills, er, mountains.  New York is dense because it's an island, although it became much denser than Montreal because it's got one of the best natural harbors in the world.It's definitely the case that Cincinnati's basin was one of the most densely populated placed in America up until the demolition of the West End and contemporaneous depopulation of OTR.  OTR densified first and had better buildings because it's above the flood plain whereas the West End wasn't. In fact it's that slight rise above the flood plain (not the more obvious ring of hills) that is the reason why Cincinnati even exists.   

 

The real measure of how dense an area was is to what floor the average commercial and apartment building was built.  Around the country, we often see 19th century neighborhood business districts with 3-4 floor buildings, but in few places were the side streets built to a similar height.  OTR was pretty much the only place outside of the east coast were that happened in the middle 1800's and it happened for about one square mile. 

 

In New York you see 5 and 6 floor tenements, something seen nowhere else, and that more than anything shows just how intense the economics were in New York at that time.  There are maybe 10 buildings built to 5 floors in OTR, and none of them take up a half block or even a quarter block. 

 

OTR covers about the same land area but was built to a greater height and much more densely populated than The French Quarter, Georgetown, and a variety of other famous historic areas.  It was built to about the same height as Boston's North End, but covers more land area. 

 

A lot of Pittsburgh is true row houses -- no space all between buildings -- but few residential areas are consistently built above 2 floors.  In similarly hilly Cincinnati neighborhoods, you will see more 3-floor buildings but space between individual properties. I don't know which is technically denser and frankly it doesn't matter.

 

Ohio City seems pretty dense to me even now, like an outlying New York neighborhood, but there isn't evidence that there was once a lot of other residential density near downtown Cleveland. But around 1920-1930 I'd bet overall Cleveland and Cincinnati were a similar population density and Cleveland was on its way to having a decisively bigger and more impressive downtown.       

 

 

 

 

Well Hong Kong is definitely an example of a place that built vertically due to hills, er, mountains.  New York is dense because it's an island, although it became much denser than Montreal because it's got one of the best natural harbors in the world.It's definitely the case that Cincinnati's basin was one of the most densely populated placed in America up until the demolition of the West End and contemporaneous depopulation of OTR.  OTR densified first and had better buildings because it's above the flood plain whereas the West End wasn't. In fact it's that slight rise above the flood plain (not the more obvious ring of hills) that is the reason why Cincinnati even exists.   

 

The real measure of how dense an area was is to what floor the average commercial and apartment building was built.  Around the country, we often see 19th century neighborhood business districts with 3-4 floor buildings, but in few places were the side streets built to a similar height.  OTR was pretty much the only place outside of the east coast were that happened in the middle 1800's and it happened for about one square mile. 

 

In New York you see 5 and 6 floor tenements, something seen nowhere else, and that more than anything shows just how intense the economics were in New York at that time.  There are maybe 10 buildings built to 5 floors in OTR, and none of them take up a half block or even a quarter block. 

 

OTR covers about the same land area but was built to a greater height and much more densely populated than The French Quarter, Georgetown, and a variety of other famous historic areas.  It was built to about the same height as Boston's North End, but covers more land area. 

 

A lot of Pittsburgh is true row houses -- no space all between buildings -- but few residential areas are consistently built above 2 floors.  In similarly hilly Cincinnati neighborhoods, you will see more 3-floor buildings but space between individual properties. I don't know which is technically denser and frankly it doesn't matter.

 

Ohio City seems pretty dense to me even now, like an outlying New York neighborhood, but there isn't evidence that there was once a lot of other residential density near downtown Cleveland. But around 1920-1930 I'd bet overall Cleveland and Cincinnati were a similar population density and Cleveland was on its way to having a decisively bigger and more impressive downtown.       

 

 

 

 

 

There was.  You look at the area from East sixth to Tri-C, pre innerbelt construction.

Well Hong Kong is definitely an example of a place that built vertically due to hills, er, mountains.  New York is dense because it's an island, although it became much denser than Montreal because it's got one of the best natural harbors in the world.It's definitely the case that Cincinnati's basin was one of the most densely populated placed in America up until the demolition of the West End and contemporaneous depopulation of OTR.  OTR densified first and had better buildings because it's above the flood plain whereas the West End wasn't. In fact it's that slight rise above the flood plain (not the more obvious ring of hills) that is the reason why Cincinnati even exists.   

 

The real measure of how dense an area was is to what floor the average commercial and apartment building was built.  Around the country, we often see 19th century neighborhood business districts with 3-4 floor buildings, but in few places were the side streets built to a similar height.  OTR was pretty much the only place outside of the east coast were that happened in the middle 1800's and it happened for about one square mile. 

 

In New York you see 5 and 6 floor tenements, something seen nowhere else, and that more than anything shows just how intense the economics were in New York at that time.  There are maybe 10 buildings built to 5 floors in OTR, and none of them take up a half block or even a quarter block. 

 

OTR covers about the same land area but was built to a greater height and much more densely populated than The French Quarter, Georgetown, and a variety of other famous historic areas.  It was built to about the same height as Boston's North End, but covers more land area. 

 

A lot of Pittsburgh is true row houses -- no space all between buildings -- but few residential areas are consistently built above 2 floors.  In similarly hilly Cincinnati neighborhoods, you will see more 3-floor buildings but space between individual properties. I don't know which is technically denser and frankly it doesn't matter.

 

Ohio City seems pretty dense to me even now, like an outlying New York neighborhood, but there isn't evidence that there was once a lot of other residential density near downtown Cleveland. But around 1920-1930 I'd bet overall Cleveland and Cincinnati were a similar population density and Cleveland was on its way to having a decisively bigger and more impressive downtown.       

 

 

 

 

 

There was.  You look at the area from East sixth to Tri-C, pre innerbelt construction.

 

 

On topic: the excitement in Cleveland with the Rock Hall was all hype.

 

  On density: there is more than one way to measure density.

 

  Traditionally, nighttime population density per square mile was popular, because you could look up Census data.

 

    Jake's method, the average number of building stories, applies more to the built environment, rather than the people.

 

    Jake didn't mention street widths. The average street width will make a difference. The Floor Area Ratio, or FAR, is a method to take into account street widths. It is the ratio of floor area within a given boundary to the total land area withing that boundary. Over-the-Rhine is mostly 3-story buildings with narrow streets; Paris is mostly 6 and 7 story buildings with wide streets. The two could have similar FAR densities.

 

    A Tower in a Park might have 30 stories, but since the "streets", or the space between the buildings, is so great, the density might be the same as Over-the-Rhine.

 

    Urbanity is related, but not the same as density.

 

On hills:

 

    Not much on this board is written about utilities, but they are SO important. From about 1850 to 1870, Cincinnati had a water works utility, but the infrastructure was not powerful enough to pump up to the top of the hillsides. If you wanted water service, you had to live in the basin. Industries that wanted water service had to locate in the basin. It is unquestionable that hills encouraged density in Cincinnati.

 

    Railroads had to locate in valleys as well, before about 1880.   

 

    Over-the-Rhine peaked in density, by any measurement, in the 1890's, well before automobiles and half a century before Cleveland and Detroit peaked. Yet, Over-the-Rhine had such incredible density that it was STILL dense by 1950 despite all the loss. Then, the 1960's, 70's, and 80's took their toll.

 

   

 

 

Cleveland and Cincinnati can learn from Pittsburgh. They lost their hub and is doing quite well considering.

Cleveland and Cincinnati can learn from Pittsburgh. They lost their hub and is doing quite well considering.

 

Learn what? Losing their hub really had nothign to do with Pittsburgh, but more to do with US Air and it's business plan.

Well the economy didn't lose much when they lost their hub.

Well the economy didn't lose much when they lost their hub.

 

It wasn't an impact to begin with or it would still be open.  Right?

^ unusualfire just got served. 

When they lost their hub, the economy didn't accelerate down is what im saying. They had leaders keeping companies in the region.

Well the economy didn't lose much when they lost their hub.

 

Metro Pittsburgh lost 11,000 USAir jobs in the years following PIT's de-hubbing.  You can probably assume thousands of other jobs that depended on those 11,000 USAir jobs were lost too.  This single corporate decision has been the biggest drag on employment growth in Metro PGH over the past decade.  It took Metro Pittsburgh an extra 3 years to exit the 2001/2002 recession due to this.  Losing the hub was a massive blow to the Pittsburgh region in terms of job loss and a drastic reduction in flight capacity and connectivity.  You can't get anywhere from PIT anymore... and that hurts business. 

 

There have been two positives... though neither comes close to losing 11,000 jobs, 500 flights and dozens of destinations... 1) more competition... several airlines who would've never gone up against USAir's monopoly here have entered the market... most notably Southwest... though the pace of growth has been underwhelming.  2) airfares have fallen from amongst the highest (Cincy's hub airport knows this pain) to one of the lowest.  O&D traffic has steadily grown in recent years, and PIT now attracts value-conscious travelers from nearby territories like Ohio.  Thankfully, Delta has re-established European access and United has stepped up with daily West Coast flights.  USAir has cut down to the bone and eliminated almost every vestige of the hub operation here.

 

It appears Cincy's hub is getting down-scaled... if a PIT-style ravaging takes place... expect lots of pain for years.  I believe Cleveland's hub operation is much smaller than CKY or PIT's former hub... so a de-hubbing there probably wouldn't have as drastic an impact. 

 

Pittsburgh's economy has been resilient despite the de-hubbing of PIT... but I can't help but imagine how much more progress could've been made if PIT would've been favored instead of CLT.  Who knows what locational decisions Pittsburgh might've lost out on due to the declining air service here? 

 

The airport was massively overbuilt when it opened in 1990... as it was designed specifically for USAir's hub operation... (it was one of those post-steel economic "silver bullets" that never panned out) but I think today the market is under-served... one can't get to any Pennsylvania airport other than Philly from PIT, for example.  Several of Pittsburgh's top 30 business markets remain unconnected.

^Wow, I never knew that about Pittsburgh's airport. So is Cleveland's better?

 

11,000 jobs lost is serious business (probably eventually led to over 30,000 jobs being lost given the common multiplier effect). That's a real blow, probably the worst the Pittsburgh market experienced since the 1982 recession. That could also explain some of the population loss this decade.

 

See.  You're trying to turn this into a pissing match!

This is why I hate these type of threads!

Sir2gees made one of the best posts on this thread:

 

If I were a young professional living in Pittsburgh I would live in either Shady Side or Squirrel Hill. I can't name a suburb of Pittsburgh that I find appealing. However, young professionals living in Greater Cleveland have tons of choices outside of Cleveland proper. Lakewood, Cleveland Hts., and Shaker Hts. are very similar to Shady Side and Squirrel Hill, but these cities are outside Cleveland proper.

 

…and this is something Cincinnati and Louisville share with Pittsburgh, that there are “Squirrl Hills” and “Shadysides” within the city limits.

 

 

I also think demographics also played a role. I recently did a paper on deindustrialization and the impact on African-American men.  In my research, I discovered over 70% of all African-American men living in northern cities held "blue collar" jobs. Therefore, when manufacturing jobs began to disappear, a disproportionate number of black men were greatly affected. Cuyahoga, Wayne and Cook County had the largest concentration of African-Americans in the Midwest. On the other hand, Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) had a decent African-American population. If I remember correctly, Allegheny County had just over 100,000 African-Americans compared to 300,000 in Cuyahoga County. Detroit had just under a million and Chicago had over a million African-Americans.

 

In my opinion, this is what separates Pittsburgh from Cleveland. African-Americans were clustered in large swaths on the Eastside of Cleveland. So, when these jobs disappeared, over 70% of all African-American men in those communities were left without jobs. This is why we see large areas of poverty in Cleveland, Chicago and Detroit.

 

…case closed.  This answers the question.  It is a restatement of T.J. Sugrues theses in the opening chapters of The Origins of the Urban Crisis, and was one of the salient points of Massey and Denton’s American Apartheid, From the publishers blurb:

 

The authors demonstrate that this systematic segregation of African Americans leads inexorably to the creation of underclass communities during periods of economic downturn. Under conditions of extreme segregation, any increase in the overall rate of black poverty yields a marked increase in the geographic concentration of indigence and the deterioration of social and economic conditions in black communities.

 

It would be great if sir2sges could post excerpts of his paper as it sounds like he is using Cleveland as a case study which would support the points made in those two books.

 

Ok so I totally did not want this to turn into a "my city is better than yours" competition.  I recently read this article in the Las Vegas Sun which points to Cleveland's shortcomings and Pittsburgh's recent success and I wanted the thoughts of the people who post on this site as to what may be at the root of this.  Both cities have positives and negatives...but we can certainly learn from each other.  That was my goal.

 

As for the article that sparked my idea to pose the initial question...it is here:

 

"...How do we avoid becoming Detroit or Cleveland or Buffalo — once prosperous cities now deeply scarred by decay?

 

More pointedly, what can we learn from their failures? Also, what can Las Vegas learn from those Rust Belt cities that have transformed themselves and are now thriving — cities such as Boston and surprising gems like Pittsburgh?"

 

Full article: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/oct/11/lessons-las-vegas-can-learn-rust-belt/

...if Vegas can learn from Pittsburgh, what can Cleveland?

There was a lengthy discussion about that article somewhere around here.  Along with an article from the PD about how great the Pitt is, then a rebuttal article from a Pitt columnist/blogger about everyone ignoring that Pitt has been in desperate financial straights for years among other things.

Those number don't tell the whole story. I know several people that never went to college and is more successful then people who have.