Before it became one of the hottest neighborhoods in Pittsburgh,Lawrenceville was once a blighted community – “a blue-collarneighborhood more down-and-out than up-and-coming,” according toPittsburgh Magazine. As blighted, economically depressedcommunities tend to be, it was overtaken by all the usual markers:overgrown weeds, busted sidewalks, boarded up storefronts, vacantresidential properties, poverty, and run-down housing stock. Andstretching for blocks, there were abandoned, obsolete steel millsand factories, once hallmarks of the area's industry andprosperity, turning to rust and decay – a painful reminder ofbetter times.

Now, Lawrenceville is the epicenter of “Robotics Row,” a stripof robotics-focused businesses spanning a stretch of about twomiles that is quickly becoming the area's new economic pillar. Someof these companies, which need large amounts of space and lightmanufacturing capabilities, have repurposed and reclaimed thevacant industrial facilities of the past to create locations oftheir own. The demand for such tech-flex industrial space is now sostrong that it far outstrips supply. Restaurants and otherbusinesses and support services that want to be in these techcompanies' orbits have also contributed to the influx of jobs andpeople into the community. This repopulation has naturally been aboon to the housing market, creating demand for both new andrehabbed housing.