Pittsburgh Grapples With Unaffordable Housing
Embattled Pittsburgh mayor Ed Gainey’s ongoing push for a citywide inclusionary zoning ordinance has people across the city asking themselves a familiar question: How do we keep housing affordable in a place that’s lost residents for decades and still struggles to pay its bills? Gainey wants every large new residential development in the city to include set-aside units for lower-income households. On its surface, that sounds fair enough. Gentrification in neighborhoods like Lawrenceville, Polish Hill, Oakland, and Bloomfield has reached levels many longtime Pittsburghers never thought possible, with remote-work carpetbaggers from more expensive cities gobbling up $700,000 rowhouses that might have sold for $40,000 or $50,000 thirty years ago, and only slightly more when Pittsburgh was winning national plaudits for its supposed “livability.”
The new plan would add more mandated affordable units than ever, though developers rightly complain that it raises costs and could reduce the total number of projects built. City Councilor Bob Charland offered a narrower proposal with fewer requirements and an opt-in approach for neighborhoods.
In principle, both ideas are well-intended. But they’re colliding with a deeper reality: wages at many employers like the University of Pittsburgh are so appallingly low, and the city’s population outlook so fragile, that any “affordable” unit measured by current housing metrics might still be out of reach for many working families. Combine that with the city’s ever-shaky finances and an ongoing mayoral race that pits Gainey against County Controller Corey O’Connor – currently out-fundraising and out-polling Gainey in the primary – plus two longshot Republican candidates, Tony Moreno and Thomas West, with their own spins on housing reform, and you have a perfect storm of confusion.
Candidate O’Connor has proposed letting each neighborhood adopt its own approach. That aligns with Charland’s plan, which sets a more flexible threshold for affordability and allows neighborhoods to decide on coverage. Mayor Gainey’s citywide version, in contrast, is more sweeping and would standardize the requirement. He argues that the city should simply demand 10% of units be restricted to households making less than half the area’s median income. It’s hard to justify forcing the entire city into this scheme – some neighborhoods aren’t seeing new, large projects anyway, while others have so many older, slumlord-managed rentals with skyrocketing rents that new developments aren’t the only factor influencing affordability.
There’s also a deeper structural crisis at work. Pittsburgh’s population has dwindled over the past 70 years. The slow bleed hasn’t stopped. Even in the 2020–2023 window – when some parts of the country recovered from pandemic dips – Allegheny County lost nearly 8,000 people, with Pittsburgh’s city proper barely treading water. Pittsburgh Public Schools’ plan to shut down multiple buildings underscores the problem: fewer families with children means less demand for large residential units, which complicates the usual “supply-and-demand” logic behind building more apartments. So the local government is pursuing inclusionary zoning to ensure that, whenever new construction does happen, some is set aside for lower-income folks. But if wages remain stubbornly low even at white-collar employers like Pitt, these set-asides might end up being too expensive for many workers, especially in neighborhoods where prices have soared far above the county median.
This ties back to another fight, earlier this year, about Nippon Steel’s $14.9 billion rescue offer for U.S. Steel. Some local officials and union representatives saw that deal as a way to keep steelmaking jobs in the region – strong union jobs that could help more families afford housing. They argued that losing the chance for that investment meant Pittsburgh missed out on a bigger windfall that might have fueled local spending and local taxes. But Gainey ridiculed the proposed buyout as “a betrayal of Pittsburgh’s industrial heritage,” and the plan hit a wall after then-President Joe Biden blocked the move. It’s possible, though, that ongoing negotiations with a Trump White House that would allow the deal only as an “investment” might get somewhere.
Underneath it all is the city’s financial squeeze. Gainey has had to juggle a backlog of spending needs while facing a serious primary challenge. That means less tolerance for risk. It’s easy to deride Gainey’s “photo op approach” – for instance, distributing recycling bins and painting crosswalks – while the public-works and public-safety backlogs grow. Cynics like me can’t help but feel that his sweeping citywide inclusionary plan might just be the mayor’s attempt to energize the progressive wing of his coalition before a tough reelection campaign, especially since local developers hate it and understandably prefer to wait him out. O’Connor, on the other hand, is running on the promise of common sense: continue building, adjust inclusionary zoning for each neighborhood, use city and state resources to support better wages, and keep taxes stable so families don’t flee to the suburbs.
The question of annexation – whether Pittsburgh should incorporate its wealthier suburbs for the greater good of all – still surfaces as a silver bullet in policy-wonk circles, but it’s not a major talking point in the mayor’s race. In Pennsylvania, annexation remains an uphill battle due to deliberately cumbersome laws that demand broad public consent. For example, if a tiny borough like Rosslyn Farms – home to just 400 residents, with its own council and mayor – wanted to merge with Pittsburgh, its citizens would not only have to vote in favor of the merger but, following a recent state Supreme Court ruling, Pittsburgh’s nearly 300,000 residents would also need to approve the move through a referendum. This ruling, stemming from a failed effort to annex deeply impoverished Wilkinsburg, ensures local buy-in but makes municipal consolidation exceptionally difficult compared with other states, where vast tracts of unincorporated land simplify the expansion process.
All told, the city is stuck with smaller fixes, such as these two dueling inclusionary zoning bills. Gainey’s citywide plan is the bigger, splashier idea. Charland and O’Connor’s more modest approach has the support of people who fear spooking investors: neighborhoods differ, so keep the big developments where they belong and don’t punish every potential midsize builder in every corner of the city – especially parts where transplants aren’t being induced to relocate. Republicans Moreno and West have their own critiques, but in a city where the Democratic primary usually decides the general election outcome, their plans might remain afterthoughts – unless voters’ frustration with the Democratic Party is bigger than we realize.
The final decision will establish Pittsburgh’s housing policy for years – and might define the city’s fate in the short term. If the listing of some properties in Polish Hill for $700,000 is any indication, we don’t have much time to get this right. If O’Connor’s “every-neighborhood-different” approach can boost the stock of housing available at fair prices, that might ease some of the pain. Gainey’s “same-rules-everywhere” concept might lock in an affordability standard across the city, but it will scare away builders and do little for the wage gap, a problem he showed scant interest in solving when he opposed the Nippon Steel merger. (For what it’s worth, the United Steelworkers trade union has backed Gainey in the race.) Soon, voters will help choose which path to take next, but the truly intractable question – Who can afford to live in what was once “America’s most livable city” on the wages local employers are paying? – will stay with us no matter who wins.
