Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Ask 100 St. Louisans...

How do you think most St. Louis area residents would respond to these questions?

1) Do you favor the plan for a sculpture garden for downtown's Gateway Mall?
2) Should public schools in neighboring districts accept students from St. Louis City?
3) Are you pleased with the remaking of the St. Louis University campus in midtown St. Louis?
4) Do you favor the BJC lease of Forest Park lands east of Kingshighway?
5) Do you support Paul McKee's efforts for large scale redevelopment in North St. Louis?
6) Are you happy with the Cardinals decision to build their new ballpark downtown?
7) Do you want Metrolink to expand near your neighborhood?
8) Do you actively follow blogs discussing community renewal efforts in St. Louis?
9) Do you know what is planned next to improve the St. Louis riverfront?
10) Do you favor MoDOT's total shut down plan to rebuild Highway 40 between 270 and the City of St. Louis?
11) Would you patronize a restaurant on the East St. Louis riverfront with panoramic views of downtown St. Louis?
12) Would you move to a riverfront condo on the East St. Louis riverfront with panoramic views of downtown St. Louis?
13) Should pro-choice politicians receive the sacrament of Holy Communion?
14) Should Missouri pay half the cost of a new Mississippi River bridge at downtown St. Louis?
15) Will your next home in the St. Louis area be closer to downtown?

Do you prefer...

16) KMOX or KTRS?
17) Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken?
18) State or local control of the St. Louis City police department?
19) Residency requirements for city employees?
20) The appointed or elected city school board?

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

1.It is better than the empty lots there now although they should never have torn down the original buildings.
2.Absolutely while actively working to fix the city's school district
3.See answer 1
4. Yes in that it will help sustain the rest of the park
5.No
6.Yes
7.Yes
8.Yes
9.Yes
10.see answer 7
11.Absolutely
12 Yes if it were affordable
13 That is a personal matter between them and the priest
14 Absolutely
15 Yes
16 Ktrs only for the ballgame
17 LAl Fraken is funny on purpose so definitely Al
18 city
19 absolutely
20 elected

Mark Groth said...

1. I'd rather see businesses/apartments; but I do like public art

2. No, that would make the suburbanites hate STL even more. You've got to sleep in the bed you made.

3. I didn't know it was remade.

4. I like the lease

5. Yes, if the public has input on what is designed/built

6. Reserve answer until the BPV is completed

7. Absolutely

8. I quit reading the Post as a result of the great info/coverage in the STL blogs

9. No really (do you mean the casino or bottle district?)

10. No

11. Depends on the food

12. No way, you think STL has problems...

13. Yes, they are elected to represent their constituents' majority, not their religious beliefs

14. Yes, if the design is a potential landmark (see Brooklyn bridge, Golden Gate, etc)

15. Yes
16. KMOX, the other one SUCKS!!!
17. Al Franken, if you're gonna bitch and whine all day, at least be funny. Limbaugh is a hater.

18. Local (in theory) makes more sense

19. Yep

20. See #18...no wait, that local didn't work, let's try appointed

Anonymous said...

Trick question. Not what we think, but what we think THEY think.

Anonymous said...

^ I thought so too, but prior to question 16 it says "do you prefer"

Anonymous said...

I'm going to assume that most area residents think exactly like I do.

1. No: hell no. Sculpture garden? Has anyone *ever* been heard to say "What downtown St. Louis really needs is a *sculpture garden*"? Cities are about density, and such a thing lowers density. If we must have a sculpture garden downtown, it would be best to put it on the largely empty and unused grounds of the World's Largest Outdoor Sculpture anyway, not on Market Street.

2. Should neighboring school districts be allowed to take students from the city? Sure, if they get additional funding with it. Should they be forced to? No.

3. SLU campus? No. They're trying to create a rural/suburban campus environment in too-urban area, making too much of it useless to non-SLU people. They should have taken their cues from NYU instead.

4. I support the lease of any tiny chunks of city parks which are cut off by major roads or highways from the parks that they're theoretically a part of.

5. I'm skeptical of any large development plans based around a single company or personality. Something actually worth doing will attract a lot of people hoping to make money.

6. Yes

7. Yes

8. I suppose I do, now that you mention it. But this is one area where I know that most people aren't like me.

9. No. I'm not particularly worried about it, though, because I'm certain it's another boondoggle. People say they love parks, but the Arch grounds create such a huge dead spot that there isn't much that could be done to really help. Lining the levee with barges between the Eads and Poplar Street bridges, and then renting the space out to restaurants, bars, shops, etc. would help, but I'm sure that that's off the table. Maybe a sculpture garden is the answer.

10. Not really, but anything else would cause traffic chaos anyway. It'll be interesting to see what changes the lack of easy E-W travel causes in the area; I think we'll see some positive changes as well as the obvious negative ones. It'll be particularly interesting to see whether any of those changes last after the highway is re-opened.

11. Yes

12. Yes, assuming that there were a competent government there.

13. No. There's nothing wrong with being pro-choice, and there's nothing wrong with being Catholic. As I understand it, though, you cannot really be both at the same time. Perhaps pro-choice Catholics should split off and form their own Protestant denomination.

14. Yes. Or pay all of it and charge tolls. Or count the number of Illinois and Missouri license plates crossing and split the cost between the states that way.

15. Probably not. I prefer quiet and (relative) darkness.

16.KMOX

17. They're both clowns.

18. Local control

19. Let 'em live anywhere they like. But here's a radical idea: how about making the city somewhere where they'd *want* to live?

20. Elected. But the residents of the city have made their own bed, and must be made to lie in it (see #2 above). My real preference would be for the city schools to be abolished, and for the city to pay private or parochial tuition for any school of the parents' choice, up to the amount the city already spends on schools.

Anonymous said...

Are these 100 people natives or transplants?

Sam, reporting from Jerusalem said...

Remember, there are three different sets of people you have to ask, the city residents, the suburban residents, and the Aldermen/developers. You will get quite different answers from each group. Especially on the schools and the preservation fronts.

Anonymous said...

(wild ass guesses here...)

Out of every 100 St. Louis area residents there are something like...

15 City residents
45 St. Louis County residents
20 St. Charles and Jefferson County residents
20 Metro East residents

or...

3 or 4 elected officials
30 African Americans
20-something transplants
40 Catholics
40 under thirty
25 over sixty five
30 or so parochial school educated
5-10 historic preservationists
5-10 urbanists

Anonymous said...

You are only a St. Louisian if you in St. Louis. No ifs ands or buts.

Digitizdat said...

Really? I appreciate your loyalty to the city, but I think from a pragmatic point of view, anyone inside of 270 could call themselves a St. Louisan.

I will admit, however, it has always confused me that most "St. Louisans" do no live in the city, and even despise it to some degree, but are nonetheless proud to refer to themselves as St. Louisans when it's convenient.

Also... is the purpose of this post to get my opinions of the questions asked, or of my fellow "St. Louisans"? If the latter, to determine my degree of cynicism, then yes, I will admit that I think most "St. Louisans" do not know or care about the city, and are, for the most part, fairly conservative. However, I have known many people to move out of the city once their kids get near school age, because the education system is so rotten.

I've often wondered just how many county residents would live in the city if the education system was regarded higher than the county's.

Anonymous said...

"I've often wondered just how many county residents would live in the city if the education system was regarded higher than the county's."

Other than a Special Ed consortium, the County does not have an education system. Rather, it has more than 20 different school districts -- with levels of educational accomplishment that range from unaccredited to high-performing.