The Pittsburgh Firm That Helped Create The South's Jim-Crow Era Racial Zoning Maps

Most urbanists are painfully aware how today's zoning laws tend to segregate people by race, class and age. Families with kids in large houses live here; Students here; Poor renters here etc....

But, this story I discovered unlocks the not so secret intent of laws which have remained surprisingly unchanged over many decades. They were designed to do exactly that! The first zoning codes were developed in Southern Cities to explicitly segregate blacks from whites, followed by California laws to restrict Asian's

After The Supreme Court struck down those codes, Northern engineering and consulting firms helped create maps that would create these results, legally. Often nothing more was done, other than replace racial designations with letters and numbers. Similar laws soon were adopted across the country, including Pittsburgh's in 1923.

The Pittsburgh based firm of Morris Knowles was instrumental in creating Jim-Crow Era maps for cities like Birmingham and Charleston, South Carolina. It also was a key player in the design of Pittsburgh's first major zoning law.

"The meaning of those diagonal lines isn't stated on the map's key, but what was plainly understood then, in Jim Crow-era Birmingham, is that they represented areas where blacks, by a local law, were allowed to live."

Still learning more about the origin of the laws that still shape our city. Will try to follow up with more several more posts.

Surprising Opposition To Historic Districts Grows In San Francisco

Pittsburgh, has very little of the extreme historic zoning they have in San Francisco.

The Times had a great piece about the revolt by many of the people, working to restore classic houses, one might expect to be avid supporters of these laws.

But even compatible plans can be frustrated by burdensome regulations, some property owners said.

“I consider myself a preservationist, and I encourage preservation,” said Robin Levitt, an architect who lives in an 1890s false-front Victorian house in the Hayes Valley neighborhood. Mr. Levitt said he abandoned plans to replace rotted staircases on the front of his house because historic preservation requirements were too expensive and time-consuming.

“When regulations make it prohibitive economically to make improvements on your property,” Mr. Levitt said, “it’s over the top for me.”

People tend to assume that giving a building or district historic status, instantly preserves the property. The reality is far more complex. Yes, It will make it hard or impossible to tear down the building--right now. But, unless there is lots of money available, it does nothing to fix or restore it. Often, it places barriers or costs that lead to the ultimate death of the structure.

A personal story, from NY which I believe to be true.

Back in the early nineties, I was involved in a group that put together art exhibits and other performance nights in the upper floor of a old courthouse in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. The area at the time was a mix of historic brownstones, but seeing an influx of many poor immigrants.

A few of the people helping with the music events had dreams of opening a non profit music school in a beautiful abandoned police station across the street. These people loved the building and wanted very much to preserve it. They also, didn't have much money, and needed it to function well as a school.

Here--I found a post with pictures and some history.

From what I heard, a big problem they faced was that landmark status made it impossible to make significant changes to the building. In this case--they needed to remove the jail cells-which didn't exactly fit their needs and made using a large part of the building difficult.

Sadly, in the time since, the building has further deteriorated and now is very likely to be torn down. Amazingly, I later heard about an old police station in the Bronx that went through a similar problem and was torn down.

City Of Asylum's Bookstore/Cultural Center Approved In Spite Of Insane Car Oriented Zoning

Sometimes, I think all the posts I do about urbanism and design are a boring distraction on a blog originally started to cover the exciting cultural scene in Pittsburgh. But I'm constantly reminded how important they can be.

You may have been really excited to hear about plans to create a small bookstore/cultural center a few steps away from The Mattress Factory.

After years of complaints from residents about criminal behavior surrounding the bar, the Manteca closed voluntarily in April 2008 under threat of action by the Allegheny County district attorney a month after two patrons were shot, one fatally, upon leaving the bar.

At the time, Mr. Reese had an option to buy the bar as one of three adjacent parcels he wanted for an expansion of City of Asylum's presence and mission.

As Literary Ventures LLC, he bought a house two addresses from the bar in 2006. In October 2008, he bought the vacant lot beside it and the Manteca beside the lot. The two buildings will be razed to accommodate a nearly 4,000-square-foot building with an interior, glassed-in courtyard. The center will house a bookstore, a cafe, a public gathering space for readings, performances and other events, and two upstairs apartments.

What's not to love? A dangerous, poorly kept up bar and small empty lot in a still struggling but improving part the city is replaced by a small cultural center, run by a respected non profit. People can come and listen to poetry and music, thumb through a diverse selection of books, perhaps attend a workshop or class?

Oooops--wait--how many people? WHAT ABOUT PARKING??!!!

From today's Post Gazette

Zoning requirements for the integrated uses -- a cafe, bookstore and two apartments -- required eight spaces.

Thankfully, in this case of a popular project, in a very historic and walkable part of the city-an adjustment to these rules was made-after a study showing peak use would be unlikely to cause problems.

You have to wonder how zoning codes like this effect the rest of the city since the easy, default option is always to make more space for cars and less for people.

Images Of Old Industrial New York

Industrial Queens



Industrial Brooklyn

Many say you can't compare, NYC with Pittsburgh because New York has no industrial past.

In fact--Every major city in the era before modern transport and refrigeration had a large industrial component--ports where cargo was laboriously off loaded by hand, local factories, slaughterhouses, Breweries and hundreds of local warehouses.

New York was of course, the nation's primary port until the early 1960's and it's leading area for shipbuilding, which was very much a heavy industry. It also was a leading manufacturing area for garments, jewelry, toys, electrical components and many other products.

The neighborhoods of NY, with the closest resemblance to Pittsburgh are on the Brooklyn and Queens waterfront, where long before the subways were built, dense clusters of worker housing sprung up around the ports and factories.

Until about early 1980's Manufacturing still accounted for over a half million NY jobs-a number that today is much, much lower. The city's efforts to protect many former manufacturing districts through strict zoning codes, have only very recently changed. Almost all of New York's famous art districts grew up illegally in these former industrial or warehouse areas.

These are a few shots I took around these now very rapidly changing areas in Queens and Brooklyn.

(FYI--Blacks and Puerto Ricans did not originally migrate to NY "to collect welfare", but to find work mostly in New York area factories.)