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Originally Posted by eschaton
Of course Fox Chapel, Sewickley, and Mt. Lebanon are not actually in the city. Plus the actual wealth in "Sewickley" isn't in the borough proper, it's in other municipalities in the school system, like Edgeworth, Sewickley Hills, and Sewickley Heights. Sewickley proper is more modest in terms of wealth (median household income of $78,000 according to Justice Map). The Sewickley area was 100% an old money enclave though - built up as a railroad suburb by North Side wealth once they decamped from Allegheny West and Manchester.
I'd also argue Mt. Lebanon was was never an "old money" area though, it was just an upper-middle class area. Looking at real estate listings you can still get houses there for under $300,000, the average listing seems to be around $500,000, and only a handful of homes are $1 million+. It was built out in the interwar period as a suburb for doctors, lawyers, and mid-level managers.
Within the city, I think it's unquestionable that Shadyside and Squirrel Hill (North of Forbes) have been the wealthy areas, with some spillover, like parts of Point Breeze and the Schenley Farms area of Oakland. It's hard to detect the considerable wealth in Shadyside these days looking at median household income however, because the main corridors surrounding the wealthiest portion of Shadyside were converted during the mid-20th century into apartments, and ultimately became student slums. The juxtaposition of the old 19th century homes and the mid-century infill as the estates were broken up is quite weird though - showcasing the area did go "downhill" for a bit in the mid 20th century.
I'd say Highland Park isn't in the same boat though. It resisted white flight, but clearly went downhill more sharply from the 1950s through the 1980s in the areas bordering East Liberty. The area up on the hill west of N Highland maintained itself as kinda a mini-Squirrel Hill though. |
Yeah, I was speaking in location generalities and using the "old money" term rather loosely.
Fox Chapel and Sewickley... yes, east ender and north sider estate-type wealth that goes back centuries in some cases.
Mt. Lebanon, like Squirrel Hill, is a big "neighborhood". Both probably have what 30k residents or so?... with a pretty diverse mix of housing types and income levels. True, Mt. Lebanon isn't "old money"... but rather an upper class suburb that has remained so throughout its existence. For Squirrel Hill and Shadyside, I was speaking generally to encompass Point Breeze as well... obviously quite a mix of incomes these days, but still have maintained as long-standing pockets of wealth within the city limits.
I hear what you're saying about Highland Park, given that a significant chunk of it that fell far out of desirability. However, it was one of Pittsburgh's original "mansion neighborhoods". Some of the original gilded age mansions from the late 1800s/early 1900s remain, but most of them that lined N Highland were torn down by the 1930s... most only existing for a few decades. You can still see some of the stone walls where they stood, now occupied by 1930s Tudors and 1950s ranch style homes. It certainly doesn't have the breadth and consistency of wealth like one finds in Squirrel Hill, but Highland Park was established as a wealthy area, and remained intact as just that... even though parts of it declined substantially.