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It’s 2025. We are living in the future! I was hoping to have assembled some kind of grand, unified theory about how we got here, and where we’re headed — encompassing the future of U.S. Steel, the looming kakistocracy, the Steelers’ month-long faceplant, and some other things that are bugging me. But, alas, I’ve got nothing.
I’m an optimist about Pittsburgh and a pessimist about almost everything else. In the future, it would be nice if we could make decisions based on what’s best for our neighbors, as Mister Rogers hoped, but we probably won’t.
So, what does the future hold for Pittsburgh? Well, a few things will never change. Three rivers will always meet at the forks of the Ohio, Mike Tomlin will always have a job, and we never really know when our glory days were until they’re gone. The rest will change and change again.
Here’s a hot take: this is still probably the best time in history to be a Pittsburgher. This city was a polluted hellhole lorded over by ruthless oligarchs for most of its existence, and the most common jobs were steelworker, coal miner, and coal-miner’s-widow. Sure, early-1900s Pittsburghers probably wouldn’t want our most common jobs, but only because nothing about “software developer,” “nonprofit administrator,” or “influencer” would make any sense.
Hey, only a few decades ago, it was almost inconceivable that Pittsburghers would be good at anything but smashing pieces of metal (I-beams, helmets), and now look at us! We can do lots of things! (We’d probably trade most of them to get slightly better at smashing football helmets, though. Again, we’re not great at deciding what’s best for us, but who is?)
Happy New Year!
For sale: 421 Bausman St., Knoxville, $129,999.
When this house was built in 1918, the First World War was ending (thanks, in part, to Pittsburgh steel), and the future looked bright. Then, a sharply sloping roof seemed like a sensible solution to excessive snowfall accumulation. That house was good enough for a doughboy returning from the war, and it’s good enough for a small family right now — which is kind of amazing when you think about it. Is there a downside? Well, if you put solar panels on that roof, you’d probably blind your neighbors and anyone driving down the street at certain hours.
For rent: 2059 Fair Ave., Brookline, $750/month.
History doesn’t repeat itself as often as you’d think. However, I just saw an ad on Zillow where the prospective homebuyer was a dude with Jaromir Jagr-style hockey hair — and it seemed pretty normal. Last time on the mullet-go-round, $750/month was normal rent; now it’s an outlier. But there are time capsules like this scattered all over Pittsburgh if you know where to look. Maybe that weird, patterned kitchen flooring will come back in style too!
For sale: 1156 Pemberton St., Brighton Heights, $201,800.
It’s probably just bad lighting, but there’s a chance that this house is not just one but two odd hues of blue, which makes it fascinating. Like, this is not what you do if you want your house to sell as soon as possible — it’s what you do if you’re really into the color blue and want your house to reflect that. (Scrolling down, oh, it is a bad photo; it’s actually blue and white. Okay, that does look better). This is a foreclosure and pitched as an investment property (which always makes me a bit queasy), but hey, maybe you’re listening to Kind of Blue right now and this house speaks to you, and you want to live here. No law against that.
For rent: 1627 on the Strip, 1627 Penn Ave., Strip District, $1,300-1,600/month.
Yes, housing in the Strip District is relatively expensive, for Pittsburgh. Some of the new places are expensive for anywhere (though not this one). That’s actually a good thing! Hear me out: imagine there’s a great location full of well-paying jobs, well-served by transit, and walkable. and until the last decade or so, virtually no one lived there. There’s nobody to price out. It would be bad if the Strip’s unique ecosystem of international grocers, cafes, and bootleg black-and-gold vendors was being priced out in favor of national chains, but that doesn’t seem to be happening either. Well, I guess the Produce Terminal has a Chipotle now, which is still better than the decade when it was completely abandoned. Look, I’ll listen to arguments about how Oakland sucks compared to the ’90s, but don’t throw the Strip in that bucket.
For sale: 3079 Mt. Troy Rd., Reserve Township, $178,100.
In most places, houses tend to agree on some basic ground rules, like “your house should be on a road, so people know where to deliver your pizza.” Not in Pittsburgh! This house has an address, but it’s not really sure it wants to commit to hanging out there. It’s just going to peek over the berm and guardrail and see if everything is cool. It was not cool — so here we wait, just peeking up onto the road (since 1950). As moles, power lines, and punk bands can attest, sometimes it’s better to be a little bit underground.
For rent: 2016 Oakview Ave., #2, Swissvale, $1,125/month.
“Sir, your translucent sleep cube is activated— please deposit $150 for a swift and seamless drop into Dreamland.” Look, as dystopias go, this one isn’t the worst. If I’m coming back here to Swissvale after a long day toiling in the word mines, I think I’ll be alright.
This article appears in Jan 8-14, 2025.
