Rockwell Street: Incremental development is the medium; investments in people, the public realm, and regulatory reform are the catalysts.
Much can be accomplished when people pull together, and philanthropy can play a pivotal role in this aspect of community revitalization. The Annie E. Casey Foundation has just published an extensive summary of the housing progress made in Atlanta’s Pittsburgh neighborhood since our Preservation of Pittsburgh plan, funded by the Foundation and devised with deep public engagement, was created in 2012.
Once it was home to so many industrial jobs— and so much rust and pollution— that it reminded people of smoky northern cities, so they took to calling this part of Atlanta “Pittsburgh.” Neighborhoods like this one are revitalized step by step by many people; planning allows the public and private effort to be coordinated in a great neighborhood building enterprise with some idea of what the whole is meant to become as it evolves. At the urging of a spinoff nonprofit from the Foundation, the Dover-Kohl design team helped establish community consensus and restore expectations, through hands-on design with citizens. Hopefully that shared vision laid the groundwork for the future public support necessary for both preservation and redevelopment.
Redevelopment + preservation efforts underway on Beryl Street. Photo from AECF report
Balance, above all, is the theme in that plan; the many authors of the Preservation of Pittsburgh plan struggled to find equilibrium between equally important goals of historic preservation and a spirit of newness. The “citizen planner” team insisted that the plan include basics upfront like cleaning up vacant lots, preserving affordability, and improving safety while working toward the desired urban image for the heart of the community. The group effort defined Basic First Principles for preservation, revitalization and development without displacement. Today, as new housing is being created and a new neighborhood comeback is underway, those preservation and anti-displacement goals are certainly being tested, and it remains to be seen whether public policy will keep up, now that Pittsburgh is getting noticed. Philanthropy and non-profit organizations will continue to be central to this. Here’s a new story about nonprofits coming back to a reconstruction of one of the neighborhood’s most historic, and visually symbolic, structures.
Annie E. Casey Foundation report suggests Pittsburgh plan’s anti-displacement ideas will be sorely tested
Gradual change over time is the natural means of urban progress. Incremental development is the medium; investment in people, the public realm, and regulatory reform are the catalysts. As confidence returns to a street or neighborhood, each increment of progress should lay the groundwork for the next.
In our Pittsburgh work, we created a pair of “before and after” sequences that illustrate the idea of stepwise change over time. One (above) shows Rockwell Street evolving to include first community gardens, then infrastructure upgrades, then, eventually, new housing.
The second sequence, below, shows gradual transformation of McDaniel Street in the heart of the community. This one bears a pause to re-look, and rethink, in light of the Black Lives Matter movement and concerns over the role of police, because the sequence starts with the appearance of a police car and pop-up installation of a police kiosk. Here’s the backstory: When that watercolor was painted, desperation was high. That “police presence” image came from requests from citizens in the neighborhood; there was yet another shooting on the streets in Pittsburgh during the design charrette week, just steps from the design studio. Some of the neighbors felt like the City and public safety officers had just given up on them. Through today’s lens, though, that image of the overwatch kiosk might conjure fears of authoritarianism, and the anonymous squad car was a poor choice on my part; I wish we’d at least illustrated a cop interacting with neighbors during his/her walking beat, applying community policing principles, instead of that patrol car. I hope that in the years since, all our views about policing and over-policing have become more nuanced and alarmed. In the end, the City of Atlanta never did implement the kiosk idea. —Victor
McDaniel Street: Each increment of progress should lay the groundwork for the next.
Annie E. Casey Foundation Report timeline