PART IV: Notes on Parks and Recreation Facilities
Pittsburgh: Main Thoroughfares and The Down Town District
Frederick Law Olmsted report to The Pittsburgh Civic Commission, 1910
page 109
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Steep Hillsides
The problem of making use of the excessively steep hillsides in the Pittsburgh District is a troublesome one. There is a great deal of such land in the district, amounting, outside of the flat regions of East Liberty and the down town districts, to as much as 30 to 35 per cent of the total area.*
Hillside suggestion from Nice -- Easy gradients and beauty
Generally speaking, the slopes are of little value for business purposes and are not well adapted to residential use, the cost of development being excessive in proportion to the location value of the improved property. The market prices are naturally low, especially for the steeper and rougher slopes and peaks and gulleys; and there the owners of very many of these unavailable properties have been delinquent in their taxes for so many years that the accumulation of taxes and costs of attempted collection form a lien that is much larger than the owner's equity in the property or even than its total value. As a rule these "unavailable areas" are unoccupied and unproductive, and are mainly held by owners not resident in the locality, whose sole interest in them is in the hope -- sometimes a forlorn hope -- of an ultimate speculative profit. In far too many cases they are apt to be wholly uncared for and to become shabby, dirty, and altogether unsightly, depreciating adjacent property and contributing largely to the slatternly conditions in the midst of which so
Hillside road in a park at Nice
* See map between Preface and Introduction.
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