Tag Archives: east liberty

salt of the station street pig & chicken*

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Gentrification. Revitalization. Stabilization. All words that come to mind when you’re thinking about what to do, exactly, with declining urban neighborhoods. But at the core of ‘what to do’ with declining urban neighborhoods is a mindset that urban planners (myself included) are often guilty of – at the end of the day, we can’t ‘do’ anything with property we don’t own, at least not easily or without great cost (financial and otherwise) to the community. This is often why the best examples of neighborhood revitalization and stabilization are usually organic ones – perhaps steered by community development corporations, neighborhood plans, or local planning departments – but at their core driven forward by people on the ground willing to take risks, pour their money (and those of their investors) into a place, develop a business plan, make connections, and hope it sticks.

Here in Pittsburgh, I’ve had a soft spot in my heart for the East Liberty neighborhood for years. Once the third largest shopping district in Pennsylvania, this neighborhood has great history, fantastic architectural gems, a decades-long period of decline, and some fantastically awful centralized planning decisions. Due to hard work and boots on the ground (and decidedly NOT due to anything our backwards local government planning department has done or not done, since they’re only now writing a comprehensive plan for the city) by the neighborhood CDC and countless other stakeholders, this area is hopping once again. Bookended by big box retail in the large spaces surrounding the urban core, the smaller spaces have for the most part been slowly rehabbed and are a mix of established and relatively new businesses.

And here’s the sticky part – who’s the most important stakeholder in this process? The neighborhood resident who’s seen the decline and rebirth? The chamber of commerce, who doesn’t necessarily have the best track record with supporting the small businesses? The CDC, who’s busted its butt trying to get vacant buildings filled with a sustainable mix of tenants only to get flack because they’re the ‘wrong kind’? The mix is critical to success, but everyone is always critical of the mix.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately as I frequent businesses in East Liberty. So many are food-based (yes, I am finally talking about food) – two Ethiopian restaurants, a Jamaican place, the cupcake bakery, the pizza shops, the Parisian bistro, the hip local dive bar, the waffle-centered performance art space, the conflict kitchen, the barbeque place, the hot dog shop, the burger bar, the modern American restaurant. As I write this list off the top of my head, I’m struck by the fact that most of these places are relatively new. One of the pizza shops is a long-time business (though frought with its own issues); the rest have been operating a decade or less. And although most business owners are happy with any patrons, for the most part the clientele seems to be young, non-minority, hip, with disposable income. I think it’s safe to say that the immediate neighborhood residents would not fit that description. So East Liberty is back to being a destination – which, to be fair, is its historical role. And what’s the alternative – predatory businesses (there is a check cashing place in the area, I believe), or no businesses at all?

A conversation with a fellow local food blogger started this whole thought process (and that conversation devolved from a lovely brisket recommendation). What level of investment in a neighborhood is appropriate for someone to come in with? Does that level change if they’re from the neighborhood, the city, the region, or a complete outsider? What about if they bring with them a certain caché, a cult of personality, a track record for excellence in the culinary world? Local foodies know by now that I’m talking about Kevin Sousa and his East End restaurant trimvirate (two of which are in East Liberty, and one in the urban core of the neighborhood). His first restaurant, Salt of the Earth in nearby Garfield, earned major accolades from the broader culinary community (Food and Wine and the James Beard Foundation, among others) and has been lauded locally. Rehabbing the building was seen as a Good Thing too, turning a historic Harley Davidson dealership from the 1920s that most recently was a vacant home decor place into a hot spot on a stretch of Penn Avenue that sorely needed some eyes on the street at night.

He’s followed that up with two restaurants opening almost simultaneously: Station Street Hot Dog Shop, and Union Pig & Chicken, and the grumbling has grown along with his foodie empire. I just don’t get it. The hot dog shop had been vacant for over a year, and is carrying on the tradition of a hot dog shop in that general vicinity (with that name) since 1915. The barbeque place bore the brunt of the complaints, both because people are very opinionated about their barbeque expectations and because a white dude from McKees Rocks is cooking barbeque in the ‘hood (haven’t heard it in quite those terms, but that seems to be the general sentiment).

Food questions aside (though I admit to being an avid fan of Kevin’s cooking), I ask these naysayers these questions: what would you have put in their place? Both of those storefronts were vacant. Both places are continuing the traditions of their locations (a rib joint failed a few years ago in the spot where Union is now). While neither place is the cheapest place I can get a hot dog or some fried chicken, it’s not massively overpriced. When a quarter pounder at Mickey D’s now costs $3.84 for processed crap that’s only recently become pink-slime free, and I can get a hot dog with standard fixings, all made by hand and really good quality product for $4 plus tax, how is that pretentious? If $22 is too much to pay for a really good rack of ribs, why would you willingly pay $20.99 at Damon’s for a mediocre rack?

And if you don’t want a Local Boy Done Good to bring restaurants to your vacant storefronts, where should he go? He’s a successful businessman with a solid following who chose to try new things in a neighborhood that needed it, and said they wanted it (one of the  goals in the neighborhood plan is to become a dining destination, after all). He could have rested on his laurels and replicated his brand in the suburbs, and he didn’t. Why all the crap for someone who’s willing to take a chance? Isn’t *that* the American way?

Me, I’m happy to support a local businessman who serves food that I feel comfortable feeding to my kids in an area of the city that I love. Obviously, a lot of other people feel that way too. This debate isn’t unique to East Liberty, or Pittsburgh.  I lived in another city neighborhood a decade ago whose parochial blue hairs tried to run the Hispanic businesses off the main street – apparently they liked vacant storefronts more. But if you alienate the small business owner, who is supposedly the lifeblood of the American economy, sooner or later you’ll end up in a chain store (or vacant window) wasteland. That’s not what I’m interested in, at all.

*an odd title, I know, but it combines the names of the three Kevin Sousa restaurants: Salt of the Earth, Station Street Hot Dog Shop, and Union Pig & Chicken

How do you define a food desert? Probably not the way I do.

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(I’m having an ongoing conversation with my friend and fellow blogger Leah from Brazen Kitchen about food deserts. We discovered this week that we’ve both been thinking of this topic since it was in the media earlier in the summer. Keep your eye on her blog for a different angle on the issue. It’s so much more fun to be a geek when you’re not alone!)

You may have heard the phrase “food desert” repeatedly this summer, when First Lady Michelle Obama stood up with several major retail chains and announced a deal to plop down some big ole big box stores in food deserts. Which at face value is great – low-income communities, in both urban and rural areas, often have trouble attracting and maintaining grocery stores and other retailers because of a mix of low returns and high risks. Although the program does include a few independent retailers, the highest volume of stores in the initiative are national or regional chains. Commentators were perplexed – did we pretty much guarantee WalMart shareholders huge gains at taxpayer expense? Why not an emphasis on independent, locally owned businesses, or expanding farmers markets and cooking classes focusing on the foods you can buy there?

It looks like it’s grounded in the USDA’s definition of a food desert: “a low-income census tract where a substantial number or share of residents has low access to a supermarket or large grocery store.” Low-income* communities are defined as a census tract having “either: 1) a poverty rate of 20 percent or higher, OR 2) a median family income at or below 80 percent of the area’s median family income;” and a low-access community qualifies if “at least 500 people and/or at least 33 percent of the census tract’s population … reside more than one mile from a supermarket or large grocery store (for rural census tracts, the distance is more than 10 miles).” So access to a supermarket or large grocery store is the only way to get good quality food, and you have to be within a mile (or ten). And it’s the entire census tract that is or isn’t a food desert, regardless of how densely populated it is (population density determines the census tract size). And the definition of grocery store or supermarket is one that has at least $2 million in sales, which rules out smaller, usually locally owned stores.

This isn’t the only definition of a food desert – the CDC says that a food desert is an area that lacks “access to affordable fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat milk, and other foods that make up the full range of a healthy diet.” They also say (the best sentence I’ve found so far on a government website) that “[i]dentifying food deserts is not an exact science….” The 2008 Farm Bill defined a food desert as an “area in the United States with limited access to affordable and nutritious food, particularly such an area composed of predominantly lower income neighborhoods and communities.” Wikipedia, my source for all things not otherwise easily defined, has a two-paragraph definition section on its food desert page.  And Fooddeserts.org has a slew of definitions and uses on its page in many countries. So while the definitions are similar, they’re not exactly interchangeable. The recent USDA definition certainly seems to be the most specific.

I know how I shop – and especially in the summer when local fruits and vegetables are flying fast and furious, I do what I can to avoid major supermarkets (especially the Whole Foods parking lot – this parody is spot on). I don’t feel as if I live in a food desert (which I don’t, according to the USDA) but even so, I can avoid most major grocery stores and still get my basics sorted out. So I started to think about tweaking the definition of a food desert using my neighborhood, because it’s easier to do this in theory than it is to mess with data on a national scale in practice. But I’m just trying to prove a point here.

My neighborhood is an urban one of moderate density. In the past ten years, its access to stores that sell food has vastly increased. In addition to two long-time grocery stores within a mile or two (one which has been greatly expanded), my end of town now has three more big box stores plopped nearby. I’m within spitting distance (relatively speaking) of two Giant Eagles** (one a Market District), a Whole Foods, a Trader Joe’s, and a brand-spanking-new urban Target – with expanded produce section! This region of Pittsburgh (Shadyside/East Liberty/Larimer) is fast returning to its historical roots as a regional shopping district after spending many years languishing in misguided urban planner hell. Oh, plus there’s another Giant Eagle across the river. And my favorite grocery store, the East End Food Co-op, is a little further away.

So, not likely to be a food desert anywhere close to this place. Except that there are three census tracts that are still pink on the food locator’s website nearby.

Exhibit A (general lay of the land):

And closer to the core area I’m referencing:Here’s the grocery stores (that I know of – this is not meant to be exhaustive) added in:

Let’s ignore for a moment that one of the census tracts noted as a food desert actually *has* a grocery store in it, which brings up the question of grocery store data sources (and having good data in general). I’m curious about the one-mile rule, and if a significant chunk of these tracts are actually within a mile of a grocery store. That little tract – 1203 – seems a little suspect:

So at least 500 people and/or 33% of the people in this tract, have to be more than a mile away from a grocery store to be considered low access. This data set says that absolutely everyone fits into that category. This tract also has 57.8% of its population that is both low income and has low access – 1291 people.***

But it looks *so* close to the grocery stores plotted above, doesn’t it? Let’s pull out every planner’s friend, the scale bar, and draw a one-mile radius around Target, Trader Joe’s, the co-op, and the Waterworks GE, since those are the closest grocery stores to that tract (instead of calling the entire tract a desert because of its center point).

A little different when you use a one-mile radius, I’d say. At least half of census tract 1203 (the more populated half, judging by the street grid on the map) is covered by Target or Trader Joe’s. And if you can get to Trader Joe’s, you can get to the Giant Eagle across the street.

What about seasonality? If you put farmers’ markets or farm stands into the mix, how does that change the landscape? Here’s the seasonal markets, a year-round farmers’ market, a farm stand, and several community gardens:

And their coverage in a one-mile radius: ****

At least one of the larger markets takes food stamps (SNAP? WIC? I can’t keep up with what they’re called anymore), which makes purchasing even easier. Not all of the community gardens sell to the public, but some do. So, best case scenario, several months out of the year, more people have access to (fresh, local) food. And two out of the three food desert tracts are now covered by the existing options. In theory, anyway. Note that I didn’t take a look at the transit routes, for example, because I’ve bored you enough already.

So what’s my point to this exercise? Well, I have several:

  • Recognize the limitations of a national definition in a local area. I probably understand the area around these census tracts better than someone crunching numbers in Washington does. And this is a far from comprehensive assessment of the issue at hand. If I’m worried about food access in these areas, I know there’s a lot more to take into consideration than just what I see on the Food Desert Locator.
  • Make sure you have the most up to date data. Self-explanatory, that one.
  • Determine if a definition is the best one for the job. Do we need another huge big box? Or would something else work better instead – maybe a smaller grocer to stabilize a neighborhood business district and augment the existing large supermarkets?
  • Use this as a tool, not as gospel. I direct this one to the USDA and Mrs. Obama – please, please, PLEASE do not develop a new funding stream for food deserts based solely on this tool. It’s a great tool, but it’s just a tool. Build the flexibility in at the local level so people on the ground who understand the context can do good things in their neighborhoods, not just watch as another big box retailer tromps on in.
You may see me hit on this topic again – the issue of food access is so much more complex than the ‘easy’ solution of throwing a WalMart Express in a poor neighborhood makes it out to be.

* Don’t get me started on the fact that the federal government doesn’t define a low-income area consistently. There is a difference between median household and median family income, for example.

**Giant Eagle is the dominant regional grocery store chain.

*** Just so you know, the population data in this tool is from 2000. For this census tract, the 2010 population is down to 1,650. Here’s another question about data – it’s out of date (probably because Census 2010 income-level data has not been released). Will this be updated? Was it possible to use the American Community Survey data to get more recent (and therefore relevant) data on this issue, at least in urban areas?

**** assuming that both a farm stand and a big market would draw from a mile away, that is.