In view of these facts it is urged that the following improvements be made in Grant Boulevard: First, enough additional width should be obtained, where the value of frontage or the character of the land does not make it impracticable, to provide for a planting-strip with shade trees on either side of the roadway. Second, additional width should be secured at certain points along the street, where the opportunity seems most favorable, in order to provide special tree-shaded promenades or overlook terraces, where people may stroll amidst comfortable and agreeable surroundings, or sit upon benches and watch the passing stream of travel or look out upon the broad, distant views. Third, the steep hillsides above the Boulevard, at least those which do not have and are not likely to have in the future any appreciable commercial value, should be controlled by the City and reclaimed from their present status as free dumping-grounds and barren wastes. These hillsides are in fact so closely related to the Boulevard that their appearance is of almost equal import, in the value of the street as a pleasure thoroughfare, with the treatment of the street itself. Neatly kept banks, partially covered with trees and shrubs, would go far toward making this street a boulevard in fact as well as in name. Finally, where the slopes are too steep to stand securely at all times of year and in all kinds of weather, retaining walls should be built to prevent the slumping of clayey hillsides into the road, and the more dangerous falling of large pieces of stone from the disintegrating cliffs. Except for the western portion, the banks are seldom steep enough to require a wall of more than ten feet or so in height, even if the street is widened fifteen or twenty feet; but west of the line of Kirkpatrick Street the bank becomes steeper and is partially supported by strata of rather firm shale. It is where the bank is almost precipitous for a height of 30 to 60 feet that the problem becomes difficult. A regular retaining wall of that height would be a tremendous undertaking and would look none too well in the bargain. It may be noted, however, that these cliffs are not solid ledges of shale, but are composed of separate layers, or strata, of pretty firm shale, between which are layers of loose disintegrated stone and earthy material. It is believed that advantage can be taken of this formation, and that all the necessary retaining can be done by several low walls, built one upon each stratum of ledge, and extending up to the bottom of the next solid stratum above. Each wall would thus retain only the few feet of loose material between two solid strata, and it need not, therefore, be very thick or heavy; and in addition to the work of retaining, each little wall would act as a support for the shale stratum above. Such a device would require less than a quarter of the volume of masonry needed for one large retaining wall. Furthermore, if each little wall, instead of being built directly over the one below it, were set back a foot or two, or even more, as circumstances might require, and if small ledges and pockets were thus left, where little shrubs and vines and other clinging plants could be grown; and if great pains were taken to avoid the stiff monotony of regular cut masonry, it will be possible to make this utilitarian construction a feature of interest and beauty.
Terraced gardens at Bern, effectively using the opportunity offered by steeply sloping land
Steep Hillsides
Hillside suggestion from Nice—Easy gradients and beauty
Hillside road in a park at Nice
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.[24] 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 many of Pittsburgh's working people, no matter how self-respecting and personally cleanly, are compelled to live.