The city's West End is a residential community that, 10 years from now, could go either way.
It is not one of Pittsburgh's posh destination neighborhoods, where outsiders go to shop, eat or be entertained. By the same token, it is not a place that routinely turns up on the nightly news because of shoot-outs, robbery sprees or other mayhem.
It is a good, solid place to live and it deserves to stay that way -- if only real estate values weren't on the decline.
That's why Councilman Alan Hertzberg has been pushing, in the face of some constituent opposition, a neighborhood improvement program that is modeled after a successful initiative in Chicago. City Council passed it last week and Mayor Murphy is expected to sign it.
But even if it becomes law, some residents may challenge it in court. We wish they would give the program a try.
Called the West End Home Assurance Value program, or WE-HAV, it would cover about 8,100 residential property owners in Chartiers City, Crafton Heights, East Carnegie, Elliott, Esplen, Fairywood, Oakwood, Ridgemont, Sheraden, West End, Westwood and Windgap. The owners would be required to pay $20 yearly into a home-equity stabilization fund and would have the option of paying $125 for a property appraisal (about one-third of the going rate).
The appraisals would set a benchmark for home values. If, after five years, a home were to sell for a price less than the appraisal, the owner would be paid the difference from the fund.
It's hard to say whether the token investment of $20 a year focuses people's attention on keeping up their homes, or whether it's all due to the program's requirement to maintain one's property (to guard against fraud). But the results in Chicago are hard to dispute.
In that city's Southwest Side, 4,500 of 60,000 homeowners paid the $125 appraisal fee. In 10 years, according to the Murphy administration, only 10 claims were filed for home-equity insurance. The Wall Street Journal reported that, between 1990 and 1998, median family income in the Chicago neighborhood rose from $31,000 to $44,000 and median home value from $60,000 to $81,000.
If only those numbers were the trend in Pittsburgh's West End.
Perhaps more residents would support the program if they could have voted on it. Perhaps it would feel like a bigger bargain if they didn't have to pay for the $125 appraisal to reap full benefits (although the appraisal could also be used to win a lower property assessment).
But the cost is still modest and, like business owners in Oakland and Downtown who have paid to be part of their own improvement districts, the participants in WE-HAV will be making the statement that their community is worth saving.
That sends a signal that resonates beyond the West End -- the same bullish attitude that should resound from other neighborhoods.
E-mail this story 
