Crafton, PA- an Inner Ring Pittsburgh Suburb located along the West Busway

I included all of Crafton with the exception of a small part of the Idlewood neighborhood in the southwestern part of the Borough. Crafton is named after James  Craft, a frontier attorney who was granted land near the “forks of the Ohio” in present-day Oakland. His son divided up the track of land that became modern day Crafton and the town was incorporated as a Borough in 1892 and soon after linked to downtown Pittsburgh by trolley in 1896. Crafton had a population of 2K in 1900 and quickly grew in the early 20th century reaching 7K souls in 1940 and peaking at 8,400 in 1960. Population has shrunk modestly since then bottoming out at 6K in 2010 but the borough saw a small population gain between 2010-2020 and now sits at just above 6K people.

Crafton has managed to stay in-tact especially in its residential areas and has limited blight. Housing prices are pretty health with many homes selling in the 200ks & 300Ks. Crafton also has excellent access to Dwtn Pittsburgh with a 10-15 minute drive or trip on the bus way, which runs right through Dwtn. The Borough has also done an excellent job replacing curbs with modern ADA standards, has good park amenities and decent retail stores. What Crafton needs most to become a better urban area is the redevelopment and occupancy of its historic downtown area. There are many vacant retail spaces and surface parking lots that could easily be redeveloped with quality mixed-use infill given their close proximity to the West Busway. Crafton also needs better bike infrastructure, more 1-bed apartments, better racial diversity and more cultural amenities. Several new restaurants and breweries would go a long way towards sprucing up the Downtown area. New dwtn streetscaping would also greatly enliven dwtn. I would also love to see the Crafton Ingram Shopping Center, a strip mall equipped with a massive parking lot, redeveloped as a mixed-use urban shopping center. But I don’t see that happening any time soon!

Click here to view my Crafton, PA album on my Flickr page

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Generally most intersections across the Borough have ADA compliant curb cuts. Some streets on the edges of the Borough don’t have sidewalks.
* Lots of attractive brick streets and a good mix of large and medium sized historic homes.
* Solid public transit thanks mostly to the busway stop.
 * Convenient access to Dwtn with only a 10-15 minute commute via public transit and driving. Driving to Oakland is about 20 mins but transit access is about 45 minutes.
* Excellent economic diversity with the medium household income tracking the state medium and good representation among all economic classes.
* Overall a safe community with limited blight.
* Tree canopy is generally good in the residential areas but sparse in the Dwtn area.
* Not many 1-beds but plenty of 2-beds that lease btwn 900-1.3K. Some 3-beds as well the lease in the mid-high 1ks.
* Very good for-sale housing diversity except for 1-bed condos. Good # of 2-beds that sell anywhere btwn 50K-300, 3 & 4 beds sell between 80K-350K.
* Good park amenities including the Crafton Creekside Trail running along Chartiers Creek and several medium sized parks, a couple of parkettes, along with an outdoor City pool.
* Decent retail amenities but much of them are located in the awful Crafton Ingram Shopping Center. Retail includes a supermarket, drug store, a busy beaver hardware store, a couple family dollars & drug stores, a handful of clothing and furniture stores, several salons & barber shops, a couple dessert spots and gyms, several banks, a local post office & public library, several churches, & a couple of medical offices.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* Only a handful of attractive historic commercial buildings.
* Connectivity is out but the grid is very irregular including the Dwtn area.
 * Bike infrastructure is pretty much non-existent.
*Almost 90% White and generational diversity is so so.
* In fill is limited to a massive strip mall on the northern edge of the City and a couple other auto centric uses. No quality urban in-fill.
* Density is so so for an urban area.
* Cultural are lacking for the most part other than some restaurants & bars, and an art school & gallery.
* Only one elementary school is located within the Crafton Borough. All other schools are well rated but a 5 min drive from the Borough.
* A couple decent main street blocks Dwtn but the street grid is very chaotic and plenty of surface parking lots and autocentric uses in the Dwtn. The many shopping area is the Crafton Ingram Shopping Center which hosts a strip mall center by an oversized parking lot.
* Streetscaping is outdated (except for ADA curbs) with pretty narrow sidewalks.