Downtown Bethesda, MD- a lesson on how to transform a mid-century American suburb into a thriving urban district

My evaluation for Downtown Bethesda included the dense Bethesda core along with the more urban pre WWII neighborhoods surrounding it. My main criteria was good connectivity to the dwtn and sidewalks. I also used block groups as a general guide to create the boundaries. The boundaries generally include Maple Street and the Columbia Country Club to the east, Chestnut St. to the north, Cluster & Fairfax Rd to the west, and Little Falls Pkwy and Norwood Park to the South. This includes several Chevy Chase neighborhoods (i.e. West Chevy Chase Heights and Chevy Chase Terrace).

Bethesda remained a small crossroads village through the 19th century. A streetcar line was established in 1890 and suburbanization increased in the early 1900s. Bethesda’s population really didn’t explode until the 1920s with the advent of the automobile. Following WWII Bethesda saw several major employers move to the City with the establishment of  National Naval Medical Center and NIH Clinical Center. Rigorous Dwtn growth filled the expansion of the Metrorail into Bethesda in 1984. DC’s height limits also encouraged mid and high-rises to come to Bethesda. Downtown Bethesda’s most recent urban project is the Bethesda Row mall, a well planned new urbanist mixed-use shopping center that integrates well into the Downtown Fabric. There are also several residential subdistricts surrounding Downtown, a mix of large single family homes and apartment/condo buildings.

Downtown Bethesda really excels at creating an retail & cultural amenity rich but walkable environments. It also has good schools, quality parks, great bike infrastructure and convenient transit access. The major area for improve here is more affordable housing. That also drives a lack a racial and economic diversity in the City. 
Click here to view my Bethesda album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Convenient access to Dwtn DC with only a 25 minute metro ride. Car access is also pretty good if traffic is reasonable. The Capital Crescent Trail is a dedicated bike trail that can connects to dwtn in only about an hour.
* Several other bike paths in Bethesda and good bike station coverage in Dwtn.
* Over 50% of households are family households, a very high number for DC. Median age is a bit high. 
* Some affordable housing exists here thanks to progressive Montgomery Co policies, but still not enough.
* Excellent tree canopy including lots of street trees in the core of Dwtn.
* Great mix of parks and recreational amenities including well dispersed urban parks, dwtn plazas, trails, a public pool, recreational centers, and sport fields.
* Great cultural amenities including diverse restaurants, tons of bars, cafes, and live music venues, several theaters including some historic ones, a cineplex, many art galleries and a modest Children’s museum.
* Dwtn Bethesda is also well served retail amenities including several supermarkets & pharmacies, a dwtn target & staples, Bethesda Row (a well integrated urban mall with tons of shops and clothing stores), a post office & Library, and good array of locally owned boutiques, bookstores, and antiques. Several Hospitals are also located a mile north.
* Very safe community with limited blight.
* Solid walkable access to several highly rates public elementary schools and the Chevy Chase High Schools.
* High quality sidewalks and ADA access. A couple spots that are more stingy with sidewalks due to historic suburban layout.
* Very urban and well design in-fill. Less attractive 60-80s buildings remain but have decent urban form. 

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* Street grid is connected but can be confusing at times as many curvilinear roads meet with standard gridded streets.
* Diversity is surprisingly limited in Bethesda (about 82% white). This is also a very wealthy area (Medium income is 150K). Only 2.5% of population lives in poverty.
* Good diversity of For-Sale housing product with a mix of condos and SF homes. But very expensive. 1-bedroom condos sale 250K-500 and 2-bedrooms 350K-600K although new product can be more. 3-bedroom start at 650K and go up into the low Millions. 4-bedrooms above 1-million.
* Rentals start in the 1,000s for Studios, 1-bedrooms start in the high $1,000s, and 3 bedrooms start in the high $2,000s. Lots of product. 

North Berkeley, CA- home of the Berkeley Rose Garden

I included both North Berkeley and the smaller Northside district in this evaluation. North Berkeley is the district just north of Central Berkeley, Downtown, and the Northside. While not as dense or urban as Central Berkeley, North Berkeley is still a high quality urban environment built between the 1900s-1930s. It has several commercial nodes including a couple blocks on Euclid Ave, a long stretch of Shattuck Ave, and several small commercial nodes along MLK way. Its a nice mix of SF, duplexes, triplex, and small multi-family. Larger apartment buildings near Euclid Ave. Walkability is very high in North Berkeley as it is well served by quality public transit and good bike infrastructure.

Like Central Berkeley, housing is very expensive here. There are also limited family households and curb cuts are not always up to current ADA standards. I guess another improvement would be more density and multi-family housing to help alleviate the district’s high housing costs. But that kind of upzoning is best done on a citywide or regional level to avoid creating higher costs through speculation. 
Click here to view my North Berkeley album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Solid urban density allowing most trips to be convenient by foot or bike.
* Much of North Berkeley can still be reached on foot from Downtown Berkeley. Convenient access to Downtown Oakland, and solid access to downtown San Francisco as the BART skirts the southern edge of the neighborhood. Challenging to travel to San Jose or the Silicon Valley where other major employers are concentrated.
* Good  bike infrastructure with plenty of stations but not as many dedicated bike lanes as most Berkeley neighborhoods.
* High percentage of affordable housing options, which helps mitigate the City’s crazy high housing costs. 
* Several high amenities parks and recreational spaces well spread through North Berkeley. Also convenient access to the Cal U campus.
* Lots of small-medium sized museums within Downtown Berkeley or University of California. Good access to museums offered in Oakland and San Francisco. 
* North Berkeley holds a great concentration restaurants, bars, and cafe. Also a good array of art galleries, a community theater, and a couple museums. Still walkable to most North Berkeley residents are all the cultural amenities of  Central Berkeley and Cal U.
* The neighborhood is also well served by walkable retail including a nice mix of independent and chain stores (dwtn targets). There are also a couple service grocery stores and pharmacies. The Target and other important retail conveniences dwtn and walkable to most residents in North Berkeley.
* High quality schools and walkable to almost every Berkeley resident.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* Family households are pretty limited. But good age diversity amongst adults with a mix of students and established households.
* Very wealth off economically but students and young professionals add some nice diversity.
* Good offering of rental product but very expensive here in Berkeley. Most studios start at around 2K and most 2-bedrooms start at 3 K. Most for-sale options start at 650K.
* Great sidewalks and solid curb cuts. Modern ADA curbs are often missing at intersections however.
* Berkeley certainly feels very safe and has very little blight but crime rate is higher than the Nat. average. This may be partially attributable to its  homeless situation.
* Some less attractive modern construction from the 60s-80s but generally still good urban form.

Central Berkeley, CA- Home to UC Berkeley and a Great Urban Environment

Overall, Berkeley lives up to the hype from a city planning and urbanist perspective. Central Berkeley was mostly built out by the 1920s after an explosion of growth following the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. There is quality urbanism on almost every corner of the City supported by medium density typically-10-20K individuals per square mile. Central Berkeley in particular excels from an urban perspective and is in the same class of neighborhood in my opinion as the best of Manhattan, Central Philly, Boston, and Washington DC. Central Berkeley boast great density, access to several subway stops,  excellent cultural and retail amenities, bike convenience, great parks, and UC Berkeley right on its doorstep. The best parallel to Central Berkeley once you throw in a University is probably the portion of Cambridge surrounding Harvard.

Yet like even the best of urban environments, there are still areas that Central Berekely can improve upon. The most important is creating more affordable housing. 1-bedrooms apartments start at $2,000 and small for-sale condos around 500K. There is also a homeless problem in Berkeley, which may be driving the City’s higher than average crime rate.
Click here to view my full Downtown Berkeley album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Great density on bar with many inner San Francisco neighborhoods.
* Central Berkeley has walkable access to a decent amount of jobs in Dwtn Berekely and Cal U. But also great access to Downtown Oakland, and solid access to downtown San Francisco via Bart. Challenging to travel to San Jose or the Silicon Valley where other major employers are concentrated.
* Central Berkeley is highly walkable with great public transit access and dense bike infrastructure.
* High percentage of affordable housing options, which helps mitigate the City’s crazy high housing costs. 
* Nice mix and distribution of small and medium parks Central Berkeley including Ohlone Greenway, MLK Central Park, People’s Park. Also convenient access to all the green space of Cal University.
* Lots of small-medium sized museums within Downtown Berkeley or University of California. Good access to museums offered in Oakland and San Francisco. 
* Great concentration of cultural amenities in Central Berkeley including an extensive range of ethnic restaurants, cafe culture, eclectic live music venues, and many community theaters and several independent movie theaters. 
* Central Berkeley is well served by walkable retail including a nice mix of independent and chain stores (dwtn targets). There are also several service grocery stores and pharmacies. Only thing really missing is a department store.
* High quality schools and walkable to almost every Berkeley resident.
* Curb cuts at all intersections almost always with modern ADA curbs.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* Some less attractive modern construction from the 60s-80s but generally still good urban form.
* Great offering of rental product but very expensive here in Berkeley. Most studios start at around 2K and most 2-bedrooms start at 3 K. Most for-sale options start at 800K. Some smaller studios available in the 400K & 500K but not enough. 
* Crime is relatively low in Berkeley but the homeless situation may increase the perception of crime unfortunately. 

Mt. Oliver, PA Pittsburgh’s most Urban Suburb

The borough is surrounded entirely by the city of Pittsburgh, having resisted annexations by the City. I equate the urban form and level of blight and disinvestment with Mt. Oliver to be very similar to its neighbor, Knoxville, part of the City of Pittsburgh. This is a streetcar suburb that developed in the turn of the century maxing out at 7,000 people in 1930. Currently just over 3,000 residents remain in Mt. Oliver, but the Borough still retains pretty good density and quality urban form along Brownsville Road.

But similar to Knoxville, Mt. Oliver is plagued with disinvestment and shuttered stormfronts. They both share the same main street along Brownsville Rd. Residential streets, while at similar price points to Knoxville, are more in tact and stable than Knoxville overall. Mt. Oliver has great potential to become a viable walkable urban neighborhood with concerted reinvestment and attention. Other areas that could improve its livability include bike infrastructure, better park amenities, and new restaurants, retail, and creative storefronts along Brownsville road. A supermarket would be a huge benefit, but that may be down the road. There is at least a Shop’ n Save near the borough’s southern border. 
Click here to view the entire Mt. Oliver album on my Flickr Page

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Consistent sidewalks throughout but current ADA infrastructure is absent from most residentials streets. Common along the commercial corridor, Brownsville Rd.
* Good tree canopy due to the terrain but limited street trees along the Brownsville Corridor.
* Convenient access to Dwtn via both driving and public transit.
* Good connectivity in the street grid.
* Great ethnically diversity in Mt. Oliver.
* While blighted, Brownsville is a pretty in tact urban businesses district with attractive architecture. Some attention was made the its streetscape several decades ago.
* Good density, especially for a Pittsburgh community that has seen significant disinvestment

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* No bike infrastructure.
* Very high poverty here (around 35%) but a decent middle class population.
*  For Sale Market is still pretty depressed with most homes selling below 50K. Stable well maintained stocks transacting btwn 50K-160K. Decent rental product with a mix of cheap and middle market prices..
* Cultural amenities are pretty limited to a handful of restaurants &  bars. Most residents are still within walking distance to Warrington in Allentown which has many amenities.
* Retail amenities are a bit better including a public library, hardware store, post office, banks, a family dollar, drug store, and hair salons.
* Still safety issues in Mt. Oliver and a fair about of blight along Brownsville and residential pockets.
* An elementary school is within the Mt. Oliver boundaries. Middle and Highschool are not walkable.
* Urban in-fill is pretty limited.
* Park amenities include the medium sized Transverse Park and a cemetery. 

Bridgewater, PA Historic town at the Confluence of the Beaver and Ohio Rivers

This small borough is one of the oldest communities in Beaver County. By 1870 it had a population of just over 1,000. That population grew slowly until 1930 where it maxed out at 1,800. Now about 800 residents remain in the Borough. Yet due to its historic development, Bridgewater has some nice urban attributes including a small but vibrant urban biz district along Bridge St., some nice historic homes laid out on a street grid, and some quality recreational amenities. To improve it urbanity Bridgewater needs to fill in the gaps of its historic main street with some quality mixed-use infill and additional residential to increase its low density. Bridgewater Commons on the Borough’s southern tip where the Beaver and Ohio Rivers meet includes several multi-family buildings set within a quality new park. More projects like this would go a long way to making Bridgewater a quality urban town.

Click here to view my Bridgewater album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* This is a solid middle class community with only a 7% poverty rate and medium income slightly above the state average.
* Median age is pretty high but 50% of households are family households.
* Some blight throughout Bridgewater but pretty low crime rates in the past 5 years.
* Stable for sale market with most housing selling in the 100K. Some product above 200 and below 100K.
* Park amenities included Bridgewater Riverside Park complete with a waterfront trail and amphitheater and the new acre Bridgewater Crossing.
* Nice historic building including lots of architecture from the mid to late 1800s.
* Quality urban form on the northside of Bridge St but mostly parking lots on the southside. 

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* While a lot of intersections have current ADA infrastructure, especially in the commercial district on Bridge St. sidewalks in the residential streets are hit or miss.
* Bridgewater has a country feel to it with its lack of infrastructure and low density.
* Bike infrastructure is limited to a  small disconnected all purpose path along the Beaver River.
* Racial diversity pretty limited. Over 92% White.
* Rental stock is pretty limited here, although the new Bridgewater Commons apartment complex should help with this.
* Cultural amenities include several nice restaurants and bars along Bridge St. Not much else although the quality cultural amenities of Beaver are nearby.
* In additional to restaurants and bars some nice stores along Bridge St including several boutiques and some neighborhood retail. No post office or library in the borough.
* No schools within the Bridgewater Borough limits but a catholic elementary just west of town in Beaver. Also several decent public schools within a 5-10 minute drive.

Connellsville, PA Historic Coke Capital of the World

Most of the City was included in my evaluation except the western and southern extremes south of Green St and west of 9th Street. Connellsville was officially founded as a township in 1793. By 1870 the town had more than 1,000 residents. Population got a boast in 1909, when balloting in New Haven and Connellsville merged the  two adjacent boroughs. New Haven was to the west of the Youghiogheny River and Connellsville to the east. Due to the city’s location in the center of the Connellsville Coalfield, coal mining, coke production became the City’s major sources of employment. Connellsville became known at the “Coke Capital of the World” due to the amount and quality of coke produced in its many beehive ovens. Connellsville also has the distinction of 5 railroads running through it. Many of these historic train stations remain. But like most Western Pennsylvania towns Connellsville has less than half of its historic population, which peaked in 1920 with just under 14,000 souls.

From an urban perspective Connellsville is well built but the scars of deindustrialization and poverty are highly visible. Historic main streets cover a large area along E Crawford Ave (historic Connellsville dwtn), W Crawford Ave (historic New Haven dwtn), Pittsburgh and Apple Streets. Lots of great buildings but only some of them have been stabilized. The Connellsville Redevelopment Authority has done some work to stabilize buildings and bring in new businesses. But there is certainly much more investment needed to make this a viable urban area once again. 
Click here to view my full Connellsville album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Sidewalks are pretty consistent throughout the City. Also ADA curbs are pretty prevalent as well especially in commercial areas.
* Dedicated bike trail passes through the westside of town, part of the larger Great Allegheny Passage.
* Over 50% of households are family households and decent generational diversity in Connellsville.
* Several ballfield sprinkled through but other nice recreational spaces including the bike trail along the Youghiogheny River, the multi-faceted East Park complete with a lake, and a couple other smaller parks.
* Excellent but underinvested historic architecture especially in the historic dwtn. Residential architecture is hit or miss.
* Generally pretty good urban form even with missing teeth and vacant buildings. Several commercial streets spanning both sides of the river.
* Good array of retail throughout Connellsville several main street areas, but never great concentration in one area. Amenities include several drug stores, a public library and post office, a hardware store, nice array of antique stores, and some boutiques, banks, Highlands Hospital, and a full-service supermarket but in a strip mall plaza. 

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* Poverty is pretty high topping 20%. This helps drive down medium income to just over 30K. Racial diversity is also limited as over 90% of the population is White.
* Limited rental housing. For sale housing is a bit better. Half of available housing goes for less than 50K. Still plenty of stable options selling from 75K-200K. Limited product in the 200Ks.
* Cultural amenities consist of several restaurants & bars (mostly Americana and Italian), the art community center (Appalachian Creativity Center), a community theater, and a couple local museums.
* Lots of blight and abandonment here and crime is higher than the Nat. average.
* Decent access to walkable schools with both the Catholic grade school and high school with the City limits. Connellsville public middle & high school are also located within town but located in the extra Northeastern corner in an auto centric part of town. 

Zelienople a charming Western PA town with lots of history

I only evaluated the urban portion of Zelienople I include areas north of McKim/Beaver and excluded the industrial portions of the city along the Connoquenessing Creek.

This quaint historic town was named after its founder’s (Baron Dettmar Basse) eldest daughter. He arrived to modern day Zelienople in 1802.  The village remained small with only 387 people in 1870 but development picked up a bit with the construction of a commuter line in 1879. The town never really saw a great period of decline. In fact, in the 1970s & 1980s it grew due to the construction of the Passavant retirement community. Just over 3,600 souls now reside here. With the construction of 1-79 Zelienople has become more of a bedroom community for upper middle class families enjoying the town’s walkable charm and high quality public education. Main street runs along Perry’s Highway filled with lots of local specially stores, the Strand historic Theater and much more. The town’s housing stock also includes many attractive historic homes.

Areas that Zelienople could improve from an urban perspective include: the addition of dedicated bike lanes, better racial diversity, a walkable supermarket, and more modern in-fill to built upon the few surface parking lots. 
Click here to view my Zelienople album on my Flickr page

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Solid street grid and connectivity.
* Poverty is low here with a good mix of middle-upper middle class residents.
* 50% of households are family ones but a pretty high medium age due to a large retirement community here.
* Stable housing market with a nice mix of for-sale homes between 100K-350K. A handful of high end homes above 350K.
* Most streets have sidewalks and about half have ADA current ramps. Very good streetscape along Perry Highway.
* Zelienople Community Park holds some excellent recreational amenities (pool, playground, sport facilities, open greenspace, and trails). There is also cemetery and underutilized town square here.
* Cultural amenities include a great array of restaurants, bars, cafes, & brewpubs along with the Strand theater, Zelienople Historic Museum and an art gallery.
* Retail amenities include a good array of boutiques and creative stores, a hardware and drug store, library, post office, banks, and other general retail stores.
* Limited blight and low crime rate here.
* Walkable schools include a Catholic and public grade school. Public school system is highly rated. Middle and Highschool located outside the Borough’s limits.
* Nice historic architecture.
* Good tree canopy throughout although they could add more street trees to their main street. 

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* While it’s a 30-35 minute drive to Downtown Pittsburgh Zelienople’s only public transit is a couple commuter buses a day to Downtown.
* No bike infrastructure.
* Very Poor racial diversity. Whites make up 97% of the population.
* Rental housing options are limited.
* No Supermarket or hospital within the Zelienople boundaries.
* Limited modern in-fill but some good stuff in the historic main street. 

Wilmerding, PA historic home of Westinghouse Air Brakes

This evaluation only includes the portion of Wilmerding south of Turtle Creek. That is the most cohesive portion of this small borough. George Westinghouse purchased current day Wilmerding in 1888 as the future site for his Westinghouse Air Brake Company and related facilities. The town quickly began to develop in the 1890s. Wilmerding’s most notable historic structure is the Westinghouse Air Brake Company General Office Building designed by local Pittsburgh architect Frederick J. Osterling.

Wilmerding feels very much like a villagy company town with two hubs. The Air Brake warehouse and factories along Turtle Creek and Wilmerding Town Square where the borough’s modest business district abuts. The town peaked with over 6,000 residents in 1920 and now barely boasts over 2,000. The fortunes of the town really seemed to decline by 1960. The Westinghouse Air Brake Company has gone through several owners through the decades but appears to still be producing train air brakes. To really find new life, Wilmerding needs to rebrand itself and find smaller manufacturing’s and businesses to move to the Borough. With investment in its main street and new retail this could be an attractive little town. Hopefully the conversion of the Westinghouse Historic Offices into a boutique hotel will breath new life and interest into Wilmerding. 
Click here to view my Wilmerding album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Sidewalks are consistent throughout Wilmerding but current ADA curb ramps are rare.
* Wilmerding is only a 25 minute drive to dwtn but public transit options are fair.
* Younger than average population and near 50% are family households. Decent racial diversity.
* Westinghouse built some spectacular historic buildings here including the High School, Westinghouse Airbrake Building, and the Westinghouse historic offices. Residential architecture is pretty good as well.
* While the town has a fair amount of grit, especially in the commercial areas, it feels pretty safe.
* Solid tree canopy thanks to the hillsides that surround the borough’s border and consistent street trees. 

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* No bike infrastructure.
* Poverty is around 25% driving down the town’s medium income to around 38K.
* Rentals are limited and inexpensive. Limited for sale diversity too with most homes selling below 50K. A few sales in the 100Ks.
* Walkable schools are limited but there is the Westinghouse Arts Academy for high schoolers.  This is at the site of the historic Wilmerding Memorial High School.
* Wilmerding Park is the only greenspace in the borough.
* Cultural amenities limited to only a handful of restaurants and bars. Hopefully the Westinghouse Air Brake Office Bldg.’s conversion into a boutique hotel will lead to some additional cultural amenities for the community.
* Some walkable neighborhood retail including a post office, dollar general, a portrait studio.
* There isn’t really a consistent main street, instead several blocks of main street like mixed-use buildings between Station St. and Wilmerding Park. These areas feel tired with little recent investment and TLC. Parts of it even have surface parking. 

West View, PA- once home to the Historic West View Amusement Park

This inner ring suburb, is located just north of the City of Pittsburgh. Interestingly, Westview is surrounded by Ross Township and the portion of the Township between West View and Pittsburgh is much newer. The borough likely developed along a streetcar line creating a historic leapfrog development pattern.

West View is similar to other Pittsburgh streetcar suburbs like Dormont, Mt. Lebanon, and Bellevue and has remained a stable and attractive community. The Borough’s population peaked in 1970 with 8,312 residents and now has around 6,500. Young families are attracted to West View due to its strong schools, convenient access to Downtown, and semi-walkability. Perry Hwy contains several in-tact urban commercial blocks, but many other parts of the Borough are pretty auto centric including the West Park Shopping Plaza built in the early 1980s to replace the historic West View Park Amusement Park. Other areas West View can improve include the addition of at least one street with dedicated bike lanes, better cultural amenities and parks, and more shops and occupancy along Perry Highway.  
Click here to view the full Westview album on my Flickr Page

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Convenient access to dwtn and Oakland via the court. Ok transit access.
* Great generational and economic diversity here.
* Great array of for-sale housing options. Most housing is selling in the 100ks. Good amount. Decent amount of rentals as well medium priced.
* Attractive historic housing. Commercial district architecture is not that interesting.
* Some spots of quality urban business form and streetscaping along Perry and Center Ave.
* Good retail amenities including a supermarket, two drug store, post office, library, and a nice mix of specialty stores and general retail. But a mixed bag of whether stores are located on a walkable main street or strip mall.
* While some blight remains in Westview especially in the commercial corridors, this town has a very low crime rate.
* High quality elementary school located within the borough and is very walkable. Middle and High Schools are just outside of the borough’s border’s but unfortunately accessible on by car.
* High quality tree canopy aided by the hills and valleys of the borough. But a decent amount of street trees as well. 

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* Sidewalks and ADA infrastructure is pretty good in the main street but hit or miss in the residential areas.
* No bike infrastructure in Westview.
* Very white community near 95%. Limited racial diversity.
* Decent but not great park amenities throughout Westview.
* Cultural amenities are limited to several restaurants and bars. Not much else here.
* In-fill architecture is mostly crummy strip mall buildings. 

Sharpsburg, PA historic home of Heinz Glassware

Since its incorporation in 1841 Sharpsburg became an industrial town, manufacturing iron, brick and glass with goods transported through the canal that bisected the borough, along with the Allegheny River. One of the borough’s well-known industries was the H. J. Heinz Company. The Heinz glass works in Sharpsburg once manufactured all glassware for Heinz products. Sharpsburg population maxed out at 9,000 in 1920 and but is now down to just over 1/3 of that at 3,300. Incredibly, the borough still boasts a solid urban density. Imagine how bustling it was in the 1920s!

The quality of home construction in Sharpsburg is not the greatest with lots of cheap wooden rowhouses with ugly aluminum siding put up after WWII. Yet this is outweighed in my opinion by Sharpsburg’s quality urban form with a mostly in-tact Main St. filled with a decent amount of businesses, good transit service, quality parks & recreational spaces, and convenient access to Dwtn Pittsburgh. Due to this urban form, its location within the coveted Fox Chapel School District, and proximity to Pittsburgh, Sharpsburg’s housing market is stabilizing and seeing investment with many homes now selling in the 100Ks and 200Ks.  Areas the Borough can continue to improve from an urban perspective include better bike infrastructure, improved tree canopy, and more retail. 
Click here to view my Sharpsburg album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Good density, especially for a Pittsburgh rivertown that has lost a fair amount of its population.
* Convenient assessed to downtown and good public transit service.
* Large percentage of family households around 50%.
* Nice array of cheap and medium priced apartment buildings.
* The for sale market is stabilizing in Sharpsburg offering a nice range of prices. Most homes sell between 75K-200 but a wide range of options between 50K-300K depending on size and condition.
* Sidewalks are consistent throughout but up to date ADA curb ramps is hit or miss here.
* Several decent small to medium sized parks throughout (Kennedy Park, Marion Gerardi, Heinz Memorial Field & James Sharp Landing, and a recreation center. The expansive Meadow Park is located just across the line in O’Hara Township.
* Nice array neighborhood retail including several drug stores, a post office & library, banks, a bakery, floral shop, and a fair amount of specialty stores.
* Crime is pretty low here.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* Pretty high poverty rate (around 25%). This helps drive the median income to around 35K.
* Tree cover is not the best.
* No bike infrastructure
* Cultural amenities are a bit limited. They include a decent set of restaurants, a bars, two breweries, a cafes. There are also a handful of art galleries.
* This is a gritty town and therefore lots of blight. It certainly has a strong Pittsburgh aesthetic.
* Sadly there are not schools within the Sharpsburg limits but it is in the desirable Fox Chapel district. But one must drive or get a bus.