Pittsburgh Housing Needs Assessment

The City of Pittsburgh engaged HR&A Advisors to conduct an assessment of current and anticipated housing needs in Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Housing Needs Assessment seeks to (1) provide a comprehensive understanding of housing needs and conditions across all household incomes and housing typologies, and (2) establish an objective, data-driven resource on the housing market to guide future policy decisions. Key findings and needs are identified which should inform future phases of housing-related work in the City. This document also recommends specific programs and policies that the City and its partners should pursue to address these needs.

The Pittsburgh Housing Needs Assessment is organized around four sections: an Executive Summary and assessment sections for Demographics and Employment, Housing Stock, and Housing Needs. The Executive Summary condenses the results of the assessments into three needs narratives People Needs, Housing Needs, and Neighborhood Needs. Recommended Strategies address all three needs, with each need integral to the City’s continued economic growth, quality of life, and social welfare.

The growth in households in Pittsburgh has primarily been fueled by high-income renter households. As of 2019, Pittsburgh has 138k households living in the city. Since 2010, 118% of net new households are 1-to-2-person renter households. Additionally, these households have significantly higher incomes and greater degrees of educational attainment compared to city-wide figures, indicating that these new households moving to the City of Pittsburgh do not necessarily mirror the existing demographics of the city.

Household growth in Pittsburgh has been concentrated near Downtown and in a few adjacent neighborhoods. The CBD, Strip District, Allegheny Center, and South Oakland all experienced household growth of over 20% since 2010. These trends indicate that the new residents moving to the city tend to prefer neighborhoods closer to the core of the city, in line with many trends seen amongst high-income renters, nationally. This partially explains Pittsburgh’s household growth rapidly surpassing the region as there is greater demand for more urban and denser locations from these renters.

Also Read: Nova Scotia’s Provincial Housing Needs Assessment Report