Build Pittsburgh keynote speaker, urban designer John Rahaim, returned to Pittsburgh almost 25 years to the month after he left in 1999. Pittsburgh made a big impression on him, as did he on the City. John shared lessons from his more than two decades as Director of City Planning in both Seattle and San Francisco, and brought his insider-outsider perspective back to Pittsburgh and the architecture-design community that launched his career.
The response to his keynote was so positive that we are printing his full talk, edited for clarity, and making his presentation slides available here.
While I grew up in Detroit, I started my career here in Pittsburgh when I was 28, and have a big soft spot for this place. I kind of feel that I grew up here. So it’s great to be back.
Michelle asked me to think about the similarities and differences among the three cities where I’ve worked, and she was kind enough to give me a rundown of some of the issues facing Pittsburgh today. When she did, it was like reading a list of issues facing San Francisco and other coastal cities: homelessness, cost of housing, post-Covid office blues, fentanyl, etc.
So today I’d like to share my experiences and the lessons I’ve learned along the way that might be useful to you. And I hope you won’t mind a few war stories along the way. I chose the title because fundamentally, this is how I’ve seen my job as a city planner for the past 40 years – though I didn’t always use the word “soul”.
First, let me share a bit about Pittsburgh’s connection to the world. In October I was in Rome and had to see a doctor in a hospital. My appointment was at a place called Salvator Mundi. When I walked in the front door, this is what I saw: a giant sign saying UPMC / Salvator Mundi International Hospital [slide 2]. Frankly, I was stunned. But if nothing else, this is an indication that our world has really shrunk these past 25 years. As Tom Friedman says, the world is indeed flat.
I’ve thought about the issues I’ve worked on – from design character, to housing affordability to environmental sustainability. I’ve attempted to maintain the fundamental qualities of a place, its soul, while allowing it to grow and change. Some would say that this is an impossible or fruitless task, but I think otherwise. Some of my colleagues and neighbors in San Francisco say that the city’s soul has been long lost because of the dramatic changes there in the past two decades, but again, I disagree. It’s still a pretty special place.
One of my favorite books about this concept of soul is Gary Kamiya’s Cool Gray City of Love. The book – and even the name, which is one of my favorites of any book – captures the essence of the qualities of San Francisco. He also complains about the changes that the city has undergone, but fundamentally he is arguing in strong support for the place that exist today.
As a way of illustrating the increasing complexity of our cities, I want to show you how my job has changed over the years. By the end of my tenure in San Francisco, our department addressed:
- Current Planning (project approvals)
- Environmental Reviews
- Long Range Policy / Neighborhood Planning
- Historic Preservation
- Urban Design / Public Realm Design
- Environmental Sustainability
- Growth Projections / Data / Economic Analysis
- Transportation Planning
- Climate Change / Sea Level Rise Planning
- Community Development / Equity Planning
This growing complexity is largely because of the expectations of the public and the external forces that are impacting communities, such as climate change and international economic conditions.
When I started my position in Pittsburgh in 1983, there was a staff of seven community planners who worked directly with community groups and acted as a kind of liaison between City Hall and the neighborhoods. Then, Mayor Masloff eliminated this function in the early 1990s. During my time in San Francisco and Seattle, we tried to rekindle that function in many forms. In San Francisco in 2014, I introduced a Community Development function within the Planning Department. This was a direct result of the tension that had developed between neighborhoods and the city over development issues and displacement. Seattle has an entirely separate agency largely devoted to this function, the Department of Neighborhoods, but like in 1980s Pittsburgh, it has been the subject of political maneuvering. I have learned that access to City Hall is not something that some elected officials really like.
In my experience, most mayors and civic leaders embrace growth, whether they like to admit it or not. This was true in a growing city like Seattle, which in the 20-teens was growing by 25,000 people per year; or in 1980s Pittsburgh, which was losing population and was in serious economic distress.
Pittsburgh is not on this US City Growth chart, but I believe it would be similar to Washington state. Growth started later on the West Coast, in the mid 2000s, but is continuing.
Many folks complain about growth and change. But in my experience the challenge has always been not whether cities will grow but how. And I believe that the drop in urban populations in the last half of the 20th century is a temporary aberration in urban development. Even my hometown of Detroit is seeing population growth now.
So in this way, all three cities are similar.
In addition, the West Coast, especially California, suffers from an enormous problem of homelessness. One-third of the country’s homeless population is in California. The San Francisco counts came yesterday and there are 8,500 unhoused people there; shockingly there are over 40,000 in Los Angeles.
Here’s the thing: contrary to popular belief, the primary cause of homelessness is the cost and availability of housing. A recent book by two University of Washington researchers, Homelessness is a Housing Problem, lays out pretty clearly that the most expensive cities are those with the highest homeless population. This is true of New York City as well, though that city has a longstanding court order to provide shelter beds for everyone, which is why homelessness is less visible in New York City than in Los Angeles or San Francisco.
In my world of planning and development, the primary difference between West Coast cities and here is that the West has a more systematic approach to planning and development controls, established by the states. And those state policies generally direct development to urban, walkable places and away from sprawl.
This map shows the results of this policy in Seattle. The state allows each city to establish what are called ‘urban centers’, where dense development is allowed with less environmental review and public review. The city has taken this a step further by establishing ‘urban villages’ where more dense development is also allowed. The vast majority of growth in Seattle has been in these areas, and Seattle’s growth has been huge over the past 20 years.
In California, the state has been less robust in its direction but it has required each designated region in the state to do a regional land use and transportation plan (for us, the Bay Area is one region of 11, and includes the 9 counties that touch the bay). Each county established its ‘priority development areas’ and ‘priority conservation areas’. The result in the city has been that we have created detailed neighborhood plans with substantial upzoning, in the areas you see here [slide 11], and this is where the city growth has happened in the last 20 years. During the 2010s the city was seeing its fastest pace of growth since WWII. Of course, Covid has changed all of this.
Where does this growth lead us? Here we see where Pittsburgh is actually becoming more like San Francisco and Seattle, and not necessarily in a good way. Thirty years ago, Seattle was actually less expensive than Pittsburgh. And now you see what’s happened in the last five years, where Pittsburgh is outpacing San Francisco in housing price increases. As a side note, the Seattle number is interesting. Seattle has built 3-4 times the number of housing units as San Francisco, yet their price increases are greater than San Francisco’s. This is fascinating to me and suggests that housing supply is not the only factor that affects housing prices.
So, what are the effects of all these changes in our cities? I’d like to show you one example of a significant challenge in San Francisco, where housing prices, gentrification and displacement lead us in a different direction. And the thing is, these are not just issues in so-called expensive coastal cities. I’m told The Strip, Lawrenceville and East Liberty are some of Pittsburgh’s most expensive neighborhoods now – this is how it starts.
It’s relative of course and is based on incomes. Median housing price in Pittsburgh is about $250,000 vs. $1.2M in San Francisco. But salaries in San Francisco are about 70% higher as well. Median salary in San Francisco for a family of two is the highest in the US at $120,000. In Pittsburgh it’s $75,000.
In San Francisco this came to a head in the Mission District, which was seeing huge demand for housing in the city’s Latino neighborhood. Public demonstrations occurred, including a march on City Hall and even occupying City Hall for a while.
This resulted in the Planning Dept. taking on a different role as community planners. The neighborhood response to the development boom was to oppose every market rate project, and even take projects to court. Part of the neighborhood’s very smart strategy was to demonize the housing developments by giving them delightful alternative names: the confluence of Bryant Street & Van Ness became the Axis of Evil Development.
Our response was to re-create a community planning functions and co-create an action plan with the community. This was controversial as hell (the mayor delayed the release of the plan). But there was a fundamental problem that we could not deny. Eight thousand Latino families left the Mission in ten years. This is not normal neighborhood churn. This is without question housing cost-related, where residents were impacted by evictions and other forms of displacement.
In response, Mission Action Plan 2020 was born. Fast forward, many, many community responses had nothing to do with development, such as:
- Tenant protections from evictions
- Support to mom and pop stores
Though some did, for example:
- Disallowing storefront mergers to keep small spaces
- Limiting evening restaurant hours outdoors in residential areas
- Special architecture guidelines for the Latino district, Calle 24.
The result? Evictions have been better stabilized and rents have stabilized, though more due to Covid. Perhaps most importantly, the relationship has changed; and we, with the neighborhood, became advocates for stability. Eight hundred units of affordable housing have been built in five years, and the joint advocacy was partially responsible for that.
MAP2020 has been differentiated by the following:
- It is a joint document, City and neighborhoods
- It emphasizes not just deliverables but also the process of trust-building, deep-listening, and honest dialogue.
- It elevated the discussion of equity, diversity and the displacement pressures affecting many cities today.
- It states our commitment to strengthening the neighborhood’s resiliency in light of the trends and to addressing the impacts of the crisis on our most vulnerable city residents.
- It focuses on the socio-economic issues or on the people, and less so on the traditional physical / place-based aspects of planning.
So again, what is soul?
To me those cities that have retained their basic character, their souls, are those that invite everyone to participate economically, socially, racially, culturally. No matter where you are from, how much money you have, what kind of art you produce, or what your sexual orientation may be, or what your political views are.
To be clear, I am not suggesting there were not decades of intolerance and racism and homophobia that tried to keep “those people” out. But still – people came. From all walks of life – they all wanted to come to our cities for a reason, typically for economic opportunity.
Most importantly, for much of that history even in San Francisco, that economic opportunity allowed newcomers to live in the city. For decades now, the City’s population has been 30% Chinese, 15% gay and 15% Latino. And California is now a majority minority state. In the latter half of the 20th century, San Francisco became known as the city that accepted all – no matter how quirky or weird or how much one misbehaved.
This no longer the case. Artists have left; the city is becoming wealthier and less diverse. And since Covid, residents are leaving the state primarily because of housing costs and because they can work from home somewhere else. Some are leaving also for political reasons, though I don’t think those numbers are significant – yet.
Based on what I’ve read and spending a few days here, it seems to me that Pittsburgh is at that moment of inflection, where you have the opportunity to address these issues before they become a full-blown crisis. I believe that if you are simply reactive to the current issues, you will not prevent the crises from occurring. What you have seen in coastal cities is coming to a neighborhood near you sooner than you think.
So how do we create, or re-create, these places? I will leave you with four suggestions based on what I’ve learned in the last 40 years of doing this work in three great American cities.
- What Architects can do:
Understand the broader context: Design context is more than architectural – it is cultural, social, and economic. For example, this is a modest building one block from where I live. It was originally proposed as an all-glass building and the community opposed the project partially based on the design. Their complaint was not necessarily that it was “too modern” but rather that the glass represented, to them, another symbol of gentrification in their neighborhood. This may sound corny, but it was real to them. The project was re-designed as a result, and – somehow in this wild economic climate – recently moved forward.
Support density and growth: In the early 2000s, Seattle was looking to upzone a good part of downtown to accommodate more development and take pressure off suburban areas. An important part of that activity was that the AIA and Sierra Club supported this upzoning. Those zoning changes are a huge reason Seattle has seen the growth in housing and populations in the last few years. That growth is exactly where it should happen: near transit, jobs and services.
Embrace new technologies: We are still building our structures with 19th century technology. Isn’t it time to rethink this? My colleague Arlan Collins, an architect in Seattle, has developed one of the most interesting panelized construction systems in the country. This [slide 22] is the first high-rise built with this system. It’s a completely unique proprietary system, including the structural steel system. This multi-family building was completed in eight months.
Design for stability and livability, not “value”: I often struggled with this in my career – trying to convince developers and elected officials about the value of good design that we bring to the city. I suggest we change this script a bit because when we talk about ‘value’ it is inevitably interpreted as increasing economic value. With the rising cost of housing, and a sense of elitism in our cities, I suggest we should not be talking ‘economic value’ but rather about stability and livability. Some of the best new residential buildings in San Francisco are low-income housing, built well because they have to stand the test of time, and managed by the non-profits that build them. Arguing that better buildings will last longer and serve their residents better is a stronger argument to make in my view.
Advocate for design, construction and development expertise in government (and not just in planning agencies): You have a strong role to play in advocacy in government, especially in cities and counties. Advocate for design and construction and development expertise in city government. This goes way beyond the planning and building department functions, and ideally would include housing expertise, economic development, and more.
Why I moved to Seattle is that the local AIA and the broader design community advocated for the creation of an Urban Design Office within city government. They had a sympathetic ear from Mayor Paul Schell at the time, and so I was hired as the first Director of the office that we named City Design.
- Think broadly about accessibility (and embrace messiness):
Physical, cultural, economic, and environmental accessibility is key to an authentic place. Places must feel like a location that one would want to occupy and that many people are comfortable being in.
In Pittsburgh there has been a long-standing requirement to provide open space in downtown development parcels, not uncommon in other cities. But many of these spaces feel private and corporate, and don’t lend themselves to actual public use. It is both a design problem and a management problem. It also begs the question of whether requiring private developers to provide open space on their site is the right approach. The spaces we have come to enjoy most are a bit messy. I was struck by this small addition [popular outdoor dining space] to one of the PPG buildings [slide 25]. I wonder what Philip Johnson would say.
- Diversify, diversify, diversify:
We are all struggling with diversifying our neighborhoods, especially in our downtowns. I suggest we have to take this idea to the next level in our downtowns, especially now in a post-Covid world. Downtowns cannot be just office districts. I think Pittsburgh has done a pretty good job of adding more diverse uses, including housing and a surprising number of hotels, but far more is needed. Another college campus? Variety of housing types? Using streets more for events and outdoor markets?
For example, Pike Place Market in Seattle is far more than a public market. The district includes an incredible range of uses: there are small spaces at low rental cost for entrepreneurial startups, public housing, high-end housing, a senior center, a child care center, parks and plazas, high-end restaurants and low-end restaurants.
The question is: what would it take to make our downtowns places where we just want to hang out as we do in our neighborhoods? This is where I think the public sector has to expand outside of its traditional role. Pike Place Market is actually publicly controlled by a public development authority.
- Plan for Affordability, don’t react:
Pittsburgh must plan for affordability. This means getting ahead of unaffordability years in advance. If San Francisco had done a better job of this we would likely not be in the mess we are today.
My first and strongest suggestion is not to start with Inclusionary Zoning (IZ). San Francisco was the first large city to adopt this in a big way, and it largely resulted in supressing the development of affordable housing. Now it is almost impossible to think about replacing IZ with a more equitable system. The rate of affordable units required has constantly changed over the years, with economic cycles, from 5 – 25%. Our cities need affordable housing, but I do not think Inclusionary Zoning is the right tool. Other funding mechanisms might be a parcel tax or a real estate transfer tax.
We need a new paradigm. We cannot rely on the private market to address our affordable housing crisis. Through the IZ housing in San Francisco over 30 years, we have produced something like 100 units per year. This is not even close to the need. I have come to believe that the only true way to address affordable housing is by the public and non-profit sectors to be far more involved. In many first world countries, social housing makes up 50-80% of the housing stock. It is how very expensive places like Hong Kong are able to accommodate a large low-income population. San Francisco has the second highest percentage of affordable housing (New York is first) in the US – and it is only 6%. We need to look at models from Maryland and Vienna where the public sector pays developers a fee to develop mid-income housing. The land stays in public ownership and is therefore tax free.
Cities like Pittsburgh are only now starting to deal with this issue, but I assure you, the need for affordable housing is an issue that will continue to grow. It’s super important for cities to plan for this now, before the problem becomes more acute.
This graph [slide 28] shows the relationship between housing, income and population in San Francisco 1995-2015. Income and housing grew 3-4 times faster than employment or population. When you add all this up, what happens?
- Personal Income Adjusted for Inflation has grown four times faster than the population in 20 years.
- The growth in housing prices is impacted not just by population, but income.
- Combining high wages, low housing production, and a growing population contribute to high housing prices.
I thought it might be fun to leave you with some totally random and biased thoughts that have come to me while walking and biking around the Pittsburgh the past three days. I call these Pittsburgh Pet Projects:
- Build an aerial tram (like the new one in Portland, OR) from CCAC to the Allegheny stop on Light Rail, near Acrisure Stadium.
- Tear down the North Shore Expressway and build a boulevard that connects people and place.
- Don’t build out so much open space now. Reserve space for future buildings that will activate communities as they grow or change.
- Worry more about the width of buildings, not the height. For example, city-block size buildings tend to kill street life.
- Don’t easily give up public land – you can never get it back for what you sold it for.
Finally, I’d like to offer some recent thinking I’ve had since the pandemic. I’m starting to believe that there will be substantial interest in small towns and medium sized cities in the coming years and I see two reasons for this:
- Remote work: Working remotely allows employees to live anywhere and walkable urban places are more desirable than ever. There has been a huge increase in housing prices in many of these places.
- Governance: It is becoming increasingly challenging to govern at the scale of a city like San Francisco or Chicago, let alone New York City. If you recall my earlier slide of the growing complexity of planning agencies’ work, I suggest that governing, along with the rest of our society, has become more complex.
This could bode well for a city like Pittsburgh, with modest growth and the compact nature of the city and its strong sense of neighborhoods. Time will tell.
Thank you so much.