Braddocc PA: Experiments at Housing Ground Zero

Wednesday night the mayor of Braddoc PA appeared as guest interviewee on the popular Colbert Report, a spin-off parody of televised right wing punditry that has attained a cult following among American liberals and the political left.

Mayor John Fetterman is making the talk show rounds these days, hoping to capitalize on the current downturn to showcase Braddocc as a kind of petri dish experimental community poised to guide the U.S. out of the housing meltdown and into a greener, postindustrial age.

Braddock was a thriving steel town for most of its life. In 1861 the McVay Walker foundry was built in Braddock and went on to become the mother of the steel industry there. In 1873 Carnegie-McCandles & Co organized the Edgar Thomson Steel Works in Braddock, and in 1887 the very first Carnegie Library was built there. Andrew Carnegie was one of the great captains of industry (some would say 'robber baron') responsible for transforming the U.S. from an agrarian economy into an industrial power house by the turn of the 20th century.

Between 1950 and 1960, the population of Braddock was over 20,000, due almost entirely to its status as a major center of steel production, but by the 1970s, as U.S. steel production declined, the population of Braddock migrated to Pittsburgh and its outlying suburbs, and the town of Braddock began its slide into rust belt decay. By 1990 the population of Braddock had fallen to 4,682, and by 2000 the population was down to 2,912.

Mayor John Fetterman standing in front of a Braddocc fixer-upper.

Today, only about 2,000 people live in Braddock, which has been rechristened 'Braddocc' at the town website www.15104.com in honor of the 'Crips' gang that frequents the area. The average home price in Braddock is $6,500, but few people buy there. Entire blocks of homes stand in empty and in various stages of decay. There are no major retail or restaurant chains in Braddocc, but the major is currently working on attracting a Subway franchise.

Mayor Fetterman doesn't quite fit the mayoral stereotype, but he fits the town of Braddocc perfectly. At six foot eight inches tall and weighing in at a scant 325 pounds, Mayor Fetterman sports a shaved head, a beard, a tattoo of the town's zip code (15104) on his forearm, and the names of all five of the Braddoc citizens who have died on his four-year watch tatooed on his body. You might not guess it by looking at him, but he also holds an advanced degree in education from Harvard University, and since 2001 has run a successful program of his own design which helps the dislocated youth of Braddoc obtain GEDs, job training, and gainful employment.

What is really exciting about Braddocc is its potential to become a new kind of community populated by independent artisans, ecological pioneers, alternative energy freaks, and just about anyone else who wants to be on the cutting edge of whatever the U.S. is about to become. Most of the huge steel industry buildings are still standing and available for sale, and space is so cheap in Braddocc that entrepreurs who were struggling in high priced coastal lofts have already relocated at a fraction of what they were formerly paying.

The New Guild Studio, a design firm that creates religious art and iconography, has taken up residence in an old church. The former St. Michael's School has been transformed into Unsmoke Systems, a gallery and incubator that rents studio space to Pittsburgh artists. Sustainable urban farming has taken off in parts of the city, and urban artists are gaining national recognition and grants for studio space there. One entrepreneur from Seattle is rehabbing an abandonned used car dealership for studio space.

Braddocc PA is a fascinating area to watch for signs of spring in terms of U.S real estate investment trends. While Mayor Fetterman's vision may seem like pie-in-the-sky to some (with a bit of a Beyond Thunderdome aesthetic), he might actually be onto something. At one time, New York's Greenwich Village wasn't anyplace anyone wanted to be either. The Beat poets embraced the Village, then Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, and the folkrockers, and before anyone could say "Get outta town!" Greenwich Village flats, studios, and rowhouses were appreciating faster than BBQ sauce in McNuggetland.

As U.S. wages continue to fall and opportunities for middle class jobs dry up, more and more college graduates and entrepreneurial lefties are choosing to make their own way with green start-up businesses, small craft shops and design studios, and community gardening and organizing. A significant number of young Americans have moved left of center and are looking for a way to combine their ideals with a viable source of income. The world of virtual work and e-commerce has made location less of an issue than it once was, and a $6,500 place to live and work sounds pretty good to a dreamer.

Sometimes, it pays to dream. If the social experiment at Braddocc works out the way Mayor Fetterman hopes it will, the midwest might turn out to be a better real estate deal than anyone ever imagined.