JEFFERSON HILLS

Median home price: $113,500
Population: 9,666
Factoid: Fishing hole: Peters Creek

Elbow Room
The flags snapping on these hillsides, flanking earth-movers and cement mixers, are brilliantly red, white and blue, and their message is as simple, optimistic and all-American as the Stars and Stripes. In this suburban boom town, the flags proclaim, "Model Open."

According to local folklore, Jefferson Hills settlers were so grateful for the help they received from the Native American nicknamed "Good Indian Peter" that they named Peters Creek after him.

Looking for new construction, big lots and wide-open Allegheny County spaces? Consider going south. More than 800 brand-new homes are part of the building boom in Jefferson Hills, 10 minutes from Century III Mall. The opening of Route 43, part of the Mon Valley/Fayette Expressway, has families flocking to West Jefferson Hills School District. Joining them are 60-somethings who like new town-home developments like Jefferson Estates and Patriot Pointe.

"Where you used to go to football games at T.J.'s stadium and look out and see farms and cows, now you see new construction," says William McVicker. A lifelong resident of the area, which was originally Jefferson Borough and renamed Jefferson Hills in 1998, he sees the development firsthand as the local building inspector. "People are spreading out from older South Hills communities. There's lots of property to develop here."

New street names have joined old ones, and school enrollment is exploding. McVicker says the recent sale of three large local farms to developers has sparked the boom. Off Gill Hall Road, huge treeless tracts are dotted with bulldozers and sale signs, making room for Patriot Pointe, 58 townhouse duplexes starting around $200,000, and single-family homes starting around $280,000. More than 265 families have moved to the area since 2000. The borough's population has pushed past 9,000. The biggest local employers are the school district and Jefferson Medical Center.

First settled in 1828, Jefferson Hills still honors the graves of 16 Civil War veterans from the area in three local cemeteries. The borough's open spaces also leave plenty of room for recreation. Stocked streams such as Peters Creek attract trout anglers. Alongside the creek run two sections of the popular, multi-use Montour Trail, which will soon bridge Route 51.

To accommodate the expected surge in population during the mid-1800s, churches were built in the Jefferson Hills neighborhood, including Jefferson Methodist Church.

Retailers haven't yet followed the crowds. With easy access to both Century III and South Hills Village, locals aren't demanding more shopping destinations. But they might like a few more trees.

LAWRENCEVILLE

Median Home Price: $56,000
Population: 10,590
Factoid: Unofficial motto: "Beer, Boutiques and Bowling Since 1988"

Butler Street Boho
Downstairs, it's a 1950s taproom turned into a sleek bar. Upstairs, it's a music club that jumps to the newest DJ beats. Transformed by a couple of New York transplants, brillobox incorporates the history and future of Lawrenceville. Spanning Civil War-era storefronts with fresh coats of chartreuse paint, lace-curtain row homes and a whole new generation of people from somewhere else, Larryville is suddenly on everyone's radar.

"It's a cult," Kitty Julian says conspiratorially. Marketing director for Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History, this eight-year resident may be wrong. The word is definitely out on the city's fastest-changing neighborhood, transforming itself more than two years in advance of a major-league new neighbor: the new Children's Hospital on Penn Avenue.

From the landmark Doughboy statue near 34th Street, where Penn Avenue and Butler Street diverge, Lawrenceville stretches away from downtown along the Allegheny River to 62nd Street. Along the way it picks up a funky shopping stretch, an 1840 cemetery, pre-Civil War housing stock and a collection of artist-hipsters who live happily among families that emigrated from Europe two generations ago.

Gateway to Allegheny Cemetery.

"Allegheny Cemetery is the heart and history of the neighborhood," says Julian, of 47th Street, who frequently takes her toddler there. "It's timeless and uplifting, just amazing to visit. And there's lots of wildlife. When you walk in, it's like, cue the deer! You're surrounded by two centuries of funereal art, with fountains in summer. It's a magical place."

Retail shops--funky clothes, antiques and art--have sprouted on Butler Street, where brightly painted facades beckon. And here, bowling is chic: Arsenal Lanes packs in hipsters for beer, karaoke, live music and gutter balls. Homes on many of the narrow side streets offer prime single-family real estate. Front porches and back alleys give neighbors plenty of face time.

"I'm not worried about gentrification--we have houses of all shapes and sizes--but I am amazed to see people spending more than $200,000," says Julian.

The neoclassical grandeur of PNC Bank enhances Butler Street.

Penn Avenue's transformation has been slower than Butler's, but it's being kick-started by the new-wave brillobox, the former Penn Cafe re-opened by Renee Ickes and Eric Stern last year. "Larryville reminds me of Williamsburg," says Ickes, referring to the Brooklyn neighborhood where she and husband Eric Stern lived before moving here in 2005. "I'm shocked at how vibrant and creative the neighborhood is, and how well it's supported us."

Bus No. 91 zips locals to the Golden Triangle in 15 minutes, but they're equally happy to walk or pedal to destinations. Stern jumps onto his bike and crosses the 31st Street bridge to the North Shore Trail for a workout; dog-walkers like the cemetery and Arsenal Park.