Inside Homewood’s Economic Development: 1950s - 1990s Pt. 4

Business-Oriented Approach to Community Development

Image Credit: University of Pittsburgh Archives Service Center

HBRDC’s strategy distinguished it from its predecessors. Unlike HBCIA, the new organization would engage in comprehensive economic planning. Their primary focus would be on the development of small businesses, but they knew they would have to rebuild the neighborhood’s housing stock to have a consumer catchment area that business owners and their lenders would find attractive. Unlike OBB, the new organization required a higher level of technical skill in their staffing. They would have to work in close collaboration with city planners, private financial institutions, developers, and entrepreneurs. When HBCIA realized that OBB saw the new organization as a threat, they realized that HBRDC could be used to vindicate their conservative strategy for community improvement. HBCIA agreed to have their director sit on the board of HBRDC.

Not all of Homewood businesses, however, were happy with HBRDC’s approach to development. Homewood’s bar and tavern owners were determined to remain a force in the community. The decline of traditional family-oriented businesses in Homewood, along with the exodus of most of Homewood’s black middle class left the tavern and bar owners as the dominant business activity in the area. They knew that Homewood’s middle-class residents and family-oriented businesses were wary of them. Homewood’s middle-class families and family-oriented businesses associated the tavern and bar owners with organized crime, public drunkenness, fights, and violence.

The city frequently cited many of the owners for building code violations. The owners accurately suspected that HBRDC had tipped the building inspectors off to shut down their shops. They were also aware of the fact that there was money available for business development and the tavern owners wanted to get their share of the “action.” Unable to compete with the technical skills of HBRDC, the tavern and bar owners used their strong social network, superior organization skills, and sheer numbers to take over the Homewood Chamber of Commerce.

In an attempt to placate the tavern and bar owners, HBRDC offered the Chamber of Commerce, free office space and access to some of the organization’s resources. The owners continued to feel excluded, however, by the Community Development Corporation (CDC), charging HBRDC with favoritism toward richer blacks over poorer blacks, blacks who benefited from intergenerational wealth over blacks with newly acquired wealth, and lighter-skinned blacks over darker-skinned ones.

Meanwhile, OBB, HBRDC and the Chamber of Commerce each pursued different strategies for neighborhood development, putting them on a collision course. HBRDC fought to preserve abandoned housing so that the CDC could acquire such dwellings and rehab them for re-sale. OBB, on the other hand, lobbied the city to demolish these structures, arguing that they were eye-sores and had become targets for vandalism, havens for drug addicts, and infested with vermin. While all of this was happening HBRDC and the Chamber of Commerce fought each other over building code enforcement and HBRDC’s persistent efforts to identify and close down “nuisance bars” associated with public drunkenness and fighting.