Highland Park, a popular city neighborhood for raising families, has become one of the most racially diverse sections of Pittsburgh. Its residents are about 65 percent white, 30 percent black and 5 percent Asian and other races, a racial makeup that closely resembles that of the entire city.

The growing diversity of Highland Park, which is also home to the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium and one of the city's large parks, is a source of both problems and pride. The community of 6,749 people is experiencing some growing pains and residents have concerns about increased crime. Bryant Street, the commercial corridor, could use some improvement and better recreational opportunities are needed for young people. Despite its affordable, quality housing, many residents don't feel strong ties to the community and don't send their children to neighborhood schools.

Those are some of the conclusions found in Highland Park's first community plan, a self-analysis of the neighborhood which abuts Morningside and East Liberty.

The plan also found a diverse mix of homeowners and renters, residents who are relatively well educated, and a larger number of college graduates and a smaller proportion of high school dropouts than the city of Pittsburgh's average.

Michael Johnson, the volunteer director of the planning process and an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University's H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management, bought a house in the neighborhood because of its cultural diversity.

Johnson, who is African-American, moved to Pittsburgh from Chicago seven years ago. He chose Highland Park because he felt the neighborhood had the potential to become "a really dynamic, diverse urban community," similar to Hyde Park in Chicago or Germantown in Philadelphia.

"I also realized that Highland Park had some ways to go before it could become one of those neighborhoods," he said

In 2001, Johnson said, he and several others, working with the Highland Park Community Club, Highland Park Community Development Corp. and East End Neighborhood Forum, launched an initiative to do an in-depth study and "paint a portrait" of the community.

They got $90,000 in combined grant money from several sources, including the Pittsburgh Foundation, Pittsburgh Partnership for Neighborhood Development, state Department of Community and Economic Development, former city Councilman Jim Ferlo and the city's Neighborhood Needs Program.

With that money, they hired Karen Brean, who has extensive experience in community planning, and a paid coordinator. The coordinator turned the second floor of the Highland Park Farm House into a work and meeting place for local volunteers. The space was leased from the city for $1 a year.

The effort is grass-roots, involving town meetings, surveys, a retreat and personal visits to residents.

David Hance, president of the Highland Park Community Development Corp., said that combating blight in the southwest quadrant that borders East Liberty is the biggest issue facing the community.

"In the past year, we and East Liberty Development Inc., have turned the corner. We are packaging five houses as a major development. Four are in the 800 block of Mellon Street and the other one is on North Negley Avenue," he said.

"The good news is that we have taken problem properties out of the hands of landlords. The not-so-good news is that we have not been able to get them into development."

Shelly Danko+Day and her husband, Brett Day, embody some of the challenges that the community is facing.

The couple bought a $24,900 house in the 900 block of Mellon Street in 1999. The Days loved the house, which was a "fixer-upper." After moving in, they realized that their block had serious problems.

Danko+Day said loiterers buy 40-ounce beers from a deli across from her house, hang out on the street, blaring their stereos and throwing litter in the street. She has seen drug deals and heard gunfire. Several times, her porch was nearly set on fire by lighted cigarettes that were tossed there.

"At the peak, we were calling 911 10 times a week," said Danko+Day, an investor representative for the Allegheny Conference on Community Development.

Through it all, the couple repeatedly contacted police and City Council and wrote letters to slumlords, urging them to evict problem tenants, while trying to be good neighbors. Danko+Day said she has felt alone, but now she hopes the community, as a whole, will recognize the problems and work to prevent the blight from spreading.

"This is just a little troubled part of Highland Park," she said about her street. "It is not beyond repair."

Johnson said recommendations in the plan include an increased emphasis on community outreach, especially organizing lower-income families and renters. He said the plan recognizes that "improving the quality of life in the community requires attention to human services as well as physical development."

Highland Park was settled by Alexander Negley in 1778. By the late 1800s, it had become home to wealthy families who built a Millionaire's Row on Highland Avenue. The zoo opened in 1898 and the park opened in 1889.

As the neighborhood developed in the 20th century, more mansions as well as closely-spaced, modest single-family homes and high-density row houses and apartment buildings were added to the mix, mostly before World War II. The result was solid, sometimes charming houses surrounding a lovely park, a popular place to raise families.

Over the years, many of the community's large homes have been converted into apartments because they were too large for single families, said Bob Staresinic, president of the Highland Park Community Club. This has created a mix of rental properties.

"While there are many high quality rentals," Staresinic said, "you have people who chopped up houses and didn't pay a lot of attention to them."

Even now, Johnson said, the Highland Park plan found quality housing, affordability and friendliness leading the list of community strengths identified by the survey. But the plan also found that while the community's young population is growing, most residents don't send their children to the local elementary school or to Peabody High School.

The writing of a community plan is one of several initiatives designed to improve the quality of life in Highland Park. Others include the reconstruction of the entry gardens to the city park and renovation of the former Union Baptist Church into a community space for arts and community programming.

Hance has spearheaded the nomination of portions of the neighborhood and the city park for the National Register of Historic Places and that is now at the review level.

In addition to its history, Hance said, the neighborhood has "character," is large enough to offer variety but small enough to feel and function as a neighborhood.

"The planning process has helped make us focus on these assets," he said.