Reviving depressed downtown shopping districts: Why do it?
Editor’s note: Today’s column concludes a multi-part series detailing the history of and modern-day conditions in Brownsville’s downtown “Neck” business district. This series of Glenn Tunney columns was originally published in the Herald-Standard in 2005.
“The more I think about it, the more I narrow it down to ‘Why?'”
So wrote reader Harry Hackney as he contemplated the suggestions we have shared for addressing the problem of the decaying buildings in Brownsville’s Neck. Harry advised in an email, “Don’t ask your readers how or what or when or where, but why. Ask them why anything should be there [in the Neck]. In that question lies the answer.”
Another way of putting it is this: In this age of malls and Wal-Marts are downtown shopping districts obsolete? What level of resources should Brownsville or any small town devote to attempting to revive a dormant downtown shopping district? Is it critical to continue to try to attract new businesses to the Neck, or would it be sufficient to simply strive to make the Neck no longer an eyesore which perpetuates a negative impression of the entire town? Can Brownsville be a successful and pleasant town in which to live, even without a retail revival of the Neck?
Brownsville native Hank Greenberg of Woodland Hills, Calif., wonders if Brownsville’s movers and shakers aren’t “putting the cart before the horse.”
“Growing up in Brownsville in the 30s, 40s, and 50s was a lot of fun,” Hank recalled, “because we had a lively, thriving community. But that was a different era. That was a time of full production coal mines that employed many miners who lived in Brownsville and the small towns surrounding it. Brownsville was the hub for their families, who couldn’t wait to come to town to shop and have fun.
“That was then and this is now. The population is cut in half or maybe even less than that now. So the question I would ask is this: If the Neck is rejuvenated, who will be there to support the effort after the Neck is rebuilt? If that question could be answered, a solution would naturally be found. I would guess that the ideas that have been tried have failed because the population support isn’t there, physically or financially. Bringing in outside help and trying to fix up buildings is a good start, if you have financially secure families living there already. If they are not, I would ask if the time and effort is worth it. It seems to be putting the cart before the horse.”
A short-term plan of action for Brownsville might be one that would emphasize making Brownsville a clean and safe town, take steps to remove eyesore buildings that are beyond a reasonable hope of repair, encourage tourism through packaged group tours of the town’s historic sites and expanded river recreation on both sides of the Mon, and promote Brownsville as an affordable residential community for those who may work as far away as Pittsburgh. If such a plan could lead to a stable or rising population, it might in turn attract small businesses and services to serve that growing population.
Ask yourself — what are the characteristics of an attractive home town in which you would want to live? Here is a quick assignment for you. Take pen and paper in hand and answer the following three questions: (1) What do you feel are the top 10 characteristics that should be true of an attractive home town? (2) How many of the 10 items that you listed are true of your own home town? (3) If there are listed items your town does not presently have, how far would you have to travel to access them, or what would it take for your town to achieve them? The answers to this mini-quiz could clarify for you how far your own community is from achieving your definition of “ideal home town” status — or perhaps how close it is to achieving it.
This seven-article series on “Brownsville’s Neck — Its Past, Present and Future” was originally prompted by unusually heavy local response to a 15-minute segment shown earlier this year on the weekly WQED television program OnQ. The segment, which was tied in with a Brookings Institution report entitled “Back To Prosperity: A Competitive Agenda For Renewing Pennsylvania,” focused on the deteriorating condition of Brownsville’s Neck.
When the program aired, WQED received so many calls and emails from viewers that a station spokesman described the level of response as “unprecedented” for any OnQ program. Some of those who contacted WQED complained that the Brownsville segment failed to identify any specific remedies to the problems it graphically portrayed.
A WQED official explained that the program is one of a series to be broadcast during the year and is not intended to be a stand-alone presentation of Brownsville’s problems and their solutions. Brownsville’s situation, continued the official, is a microcosm of the type of issues facing many communities, and it illustrates the challenges that the “Back to Prosperity” campaign hopes to address.
The entire Brookings report is available to readers on-line at http://www.brook.edu/es/urban/publications/pa.htm. According to the report, among the potential solutions to problems faced by Brownsville and other towns are regionalism, combining taxes, better planning, curbing urban sprawl, re-channeling development funds, and developing brownfields (abandoned or underused industrial or commercial properties). Chapter 6 is of particular interest, as is a profile of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area (including Fayette County) that includes some revealing statistics about southwestern Pennsylvania’s economic stagnation over the past 15 years.
WQED’s spotlighting of the Brookings Institution report prompted Denbo native Francis Austin of Haymarket, Va., to look over the document.
“The Brookings people have addressed a more global approach aimed at fixing Pennsylvania (rather than a specific one for Brownsville),” Francis summarized. “I was not impressed with the final chapter in the report because it speaks in platitudes about what should be done, but not about how it is to be done or how much is to be done.”
West Brownsville native Shirley Beck Johnson of Pittsburgh recently worked on a Carnegie Mellon project that involved looking at similar issues that face the city of Pittsburgh. Most documents and studies she has seen target their recommendations toward urban areas.
“I haven’t seen anything so far that addresses communities like Brownsville,” she told me, “except for the idea of regionalism — small towns joining together to share the administrative costs of maintaining police and fire protection, street maintenance, etc. I understand that has been talked about some in Brownsville. Regionalism in itself doesn’t revitalize, but it does allow for economies of scale so that public services can be offered more efficiently.”
The jury is split on whether WQED’s OnQ portrayal of the decaying Neck was helpful or harmful to the community’s efforts to revitalize. Mayor Norma Ryan, who escorted a WQED reporter and his crew on a tour of the town, told me she took pains to show the WQED personnel the entire town, not just the Neck.
“But of course, they were here to show the decline of a town that needs help,” she remarked. She added that she regards the program as “an outstanding documentary to be shown to potential sources of grants and truly interested developers who share the vision that the Neck is a diamond in the rough, waiting to be polished.”
Former councilman and retired Brownsville businessman Harold Richardson, who was quoted earlier in this series, is concerned that the WQED program may have given the incorrect impression that the dismal shape of the Neck is a reflection of conditions in the entire community.
“The section of Brownsville that WQED showed was a one-and-one-half block stretch from the cast iron bridge to the Flatiron building,” Harold said, “and it highlighted two of the worst roofs in the area. Eckerd Drugs, the B&R Discount store, and Henry Vulcan Insurance Agency are all active businesses located within that stretch of buildings, yet they were not shown at all.”
Mayor Ryan feels that publicizing the conditions in the Neck may entice potential benefactors or investors to become involved in revitalization efforts, but Harold Richardson worries that “focusing on the negative part of town gets a negative response.”
“The sign at the Brownsville end of the Lane-Bane bridge indicates a right turn is necessary to go to Brownsville,” he said, “but Brownsville is much more than the downtown Neck area. There are many businesses on the South Side and on the North Side.” Harold pointed out that there are also numerous businesses in the rapidly growing commercial district just outside the borough limits near the intersection of Routes 40 and 166, and then added, “Brownsville has a free public library, a full service hospital, a community park, and several nationally recognized historical sites, tourist attractions, and museums. There is much about Brownsville that is positive.”
At the very least, the issue of how to deal with the problems facing Brownsville’s Neck has become an active topic of discussion over the past several months. My past seven columns have been devoted to an examination of the background and ownership of the buildings in Brownsville’s Neck and to reader suggestions on how the Neck may be revived, yet we are still left with several questions whose answers may determine the direction of future plans.
Has too much emphasis been placed on returning retail to dying downtown shopping districts like Brownsville’s? Have we failed to recognize that the era of shopping downtown may have passed? Can Brownsville succeed as a community even without a business district in the Neck?
More generally, we need to answer these questions: What makes a town a place where you would want to live or raise a family? How close is Brownsville to being that kind of town, and what will it take to reach that plateau? What role should the Neck play in meeting that challenge?
Only the future holds the answer to what kind of a community Brownsville will be in the 21st century. Whether it becomes a primarily residential community for those who may work miles beyond the town’s borders, or whether it somehow recaptures its niche in the commercial fabric of southwestern Pennsylvania, the town of Brownsville is about to add yet another chapter to its rich heritage — the heritage of a community that has survived on the banks of the Monongahela River for nearly two and a half centuries.
LOOKING BACK: The Best of Glenn Tunney is now on sale. In its 3rd printing since its October 2010 release, the book features 300 pages of local history and nostalgia and more than 40 vintage photos. It is the first of a planned 5-volume set of collected Glenn Tunney articles and photographs that originally appeared in the Herald-Standard from 1998-2006. All proceeds from sales of this book are being donated by the author to BARC (Brownsville Area Revitalization Corporation) to support historic preservation and community redevelopment in the Brownsville Area.
The book may be purchased with your credit card by calling BARC at 724-785-9331 and may also be purchased at the BARC office in the Flatiron Building, Brownsville. Cost of the book is $19.95 plus tax (and shipping/handling if applicable).