In the News

$35K study to guide Pittsburgh neighborhood fixes

Jeremy Boren
Tribune-Review, November 1, 2007

A Philadelphia company will analyze problems facing Pittsburgh's 89 neighborhoods and tell the city how to spend money on vacant home demolition, historic preservation and storefront improvements.

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said Wednesday the city will pay The Reinvestment Fund, known as TRF, a one-time fee of $35,000 to complete the study by January.

Ira Goldstein, TRF's policy director, said his employees will tour the city's neighborhoods and pair their observations with data such as housing prices, vacancies, condemned structures and mortgage foreclosures.

Ravenstahl said the city needs "to use data, not politics" to decide how much the city spends to clean up or spur development in each community.

"No neighborhood will be left behind," Ravenstahl said.

Tony Ceoffe, president of neighborhood nonprofit Lawrenceville United, said the analysis will help the city decide how to direct development dollars to his neighborhood.

"It is important to neighborhoods like Lawrenceville that we have a baseline and know where to put our resources," Ceoffe said.

TRF has done similar market-based analyses for cities such as Baltimore, San Antonio, Texas, and Newark.

Pittsburgh's Urban Redevelopment Authority announced in early September that it had teamed with the Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group to enter a contract with TRF to analyze the city's neighborhoods.