The New York Times reports that the slumbering East Liberty neighborhood is reawakening.
In the 1950s, the neighborhood was the state's third-largest shopping district behind Center City Philadelphia and Downtown Pittsburgh. However, urban renewal schemes like high-rise public housing and ring roads drove the area into a "40-year coma." Now, the area is seeing a rise in economic attention. Mosites Company's Eastside and Eastside II developments have introduced Whole Foods, Walgreen's and Borders to the area; a 145,000-square-foot Target is set to take the place of a demolished public housing building; and the Bakery Square office and retail project has landed Google as its anchor tenant.
Sabina Deitrick, a co-director of the Urban and Regional Analysis Program at the University of Pittsburgh, says East Liberty's fortunes finally seem to be on the rise. "Pittsburgh grows so slowly that gentrification means something different here," she says. "The recent stages of development could be a way to reunite neighborhoods that were separated by urban renewal."
Read the complete New York Times article.
Sign up to receive Pop City each week.