Elevated Lanes Being Removed in St. Louis

Minimal Traffic Delays Observed

No, we're not referring to the eyesore elevated lanes of I-70 which cut off downtown from Laclede's Landing and the north riverfront, but rather the elevated lanes of Grand Avenue between Chouteau and the main St. Louis University campus.

Approximating that Grand through this stretch usually carries about 30,000 cars per day*, closing it down and seeing minimal traffic delays demonstrates the vast amount of excess road capacity in St. Louis.

The elevated lanes of Grand are being demolished because they have come to the end of their useful life. The same is true of many of the 1960s and older sections of elevated roads around the country, including the elevated lanes of the soon to be former I-70 through downtown.

With I-70 being rerouted north of downtown over the new Mississippi River Bridge; with gas prices approaching $5 per gallon; with governments running out of money to rebuild aging elevated highway structures; and, with a growing emphasis on reconnecting downtown to the river, is the foundation being laid for the eventual removal of the elevated interstate structure from downtown St. Louis once and for all?

*: revised based on reader "Herbie's" comment.

"Respect the Loop - Foul Language is Offensive"

On Metro trains there are signs that read, "Respect Your Ride - Foul Language is Offensive". The signs seem to be working because rides on Metro are pleasant without the nuisance of people cursing in your ears.

Meanwhile, for the past couple of weeks, news reports have been coming out of the UCity Loop about crowds of unruly young people on the sidewalks disturbing the peace in the area with cursing and rude behaviour.

The news reports gave me ideas for a couple of other possible different titles for this post. "Victim of Its Own Success" was one. Or maybe "We've Never Seen the Loop Like This Before".

"Victim of Its Own Success" is obvious. The Loop is a fun place to be. Spring is here and young people are finishing their school years. It's natural they'd be looking for a good place to go, and the Loop is an obvious choice. It's popular. I wish the town of my youth had a place like it.

"We've Never Seen the Loop Like This Before" is not so obvious. It was a statement made on the air in today's radio news. The comment seems to refer to conduct or groups of people in the Loop that are making the person uncomfortable.

The same person went on to say, "you can't leave a cell phone on a table or it will get stolen". The point of the news story is that there are growing safety and security concerns in the Loop.

It will be interesting to see how the spring and summer go. I suspect things will be good. There may be stepped up security patrols on busy nights. More people coming out to enjoy the area will make the place safer for everyone.

What about adding signs on the sidewalk, "Respect the Loop - Foul Language is Offensive"? They work on Metro. Is is legal to use foul language in public? I think it depends on the municipal ordinances in the city.

If it's illegal to spit on the sidewalk, then it seems reasonable that you shouldn't be able to say "F&%K!" in a loud voice. Maybe the use of loud profanity is protected free speech? I doubt the founding fathers had that in mind when they guaranteed us the right to free speech.

Passing more ordinances doesn't seem like the answer. More people on the street and a stepped up security presence are probably the most effective solutions. Stay tuned. This issue is likely to be around for at least the next month or so.

Pity the Poor Traffic Circle

For the past week, new measures have been put into effect to address the continuing backups at the Hampton Avenue entrance to Forest Park. Traffic gets so congested that it can take forty minutes for cars to get from Interstate 64 into the park. The situation gets dangerous as cars back up onto the traffic lanes of the highway.

This week, Metro started a new trolley in the park to help move people around. The beautiful new traffic roundabout at the southeast corner of the Zoo was closed, forcing drivers entering from Hampton to the eastern side of the park. Unfortunately, these measures don't seem to be helping much.

According to Sunday's Post-Dispatch, there were still long delays for drivers to get into the park on Saturday. The ironic part of this is there are only delays at one entrance: the Hampton entrance off of Interstate 64. This is an easy problem to fix. In fact, it's really a self-imposed "problem". Drivers bring this problem on themselves by all trying to squeeze through the same entrance.

The Post-Dispatch ought to run a "WAR HAS ENDED" style, 3-inch tall banner headline on the front page of the paper, all week if necessary, notifying the public that Forest Park has THREE SIDES, all with multiple entrances. Sub headline: "No Waiting at Kingshighway, Lindell, and Skinker Entrances!".

Imagine instead of an entrance to Forest Park, we're inside a grocery store. At checkout, there are ten cashiers waiting for customers. But everyone lines up to go through the same checkout lane, creating a massive backup in that one lane. All the other lanes are wide open with no waiting. We would think that was pretty silly, wouldn't we?

It's not that different in Forest Park. So long as everyone tries to enter the park through the same entrance, there will always be delays. Pity the poor traffic circle. The traffic problems in Forest Park certainly weren't its fault...

Prop E Highlights Need for New Missouri Compromise

When Missouri entered the union, it was under the Missouri Compromise, whereby Missouri was admitted as a slave state and Maine was admitted as a free state.

Before the Civil War, Missouri wanted to keep slavery, but wanted to remain in the Union. During the Civil War, the governor of Missouri took control of the police department. After the Civil War, the city slowly expanded its boundaries in a westerly direction.

In 1876, St. Louis voted to separate itself from St. Louis County. By 1940, the city, for all intents and purposes, was built out. Between 1950 and 1960, its population peaked at about 850,000.

Since 1960, the city's population has dropped by over 50%, while suburban growth stretched out across Missouri and Illinois, putting St. Louis city at the center of the region.

Today, a little over 1/10 of the regional population lives in the city proper, but many of our regions 2.8 million or so residents think of themselves as St. Louisans. There's a general sense that everyone in the region has some stake in the city, but only a tiny percentage get a vote in the future of what happens here.

Next week, that idea of regionalism will be put to the test. Lots of people are advocating for a "Yes Vote on Prop E", the proposition to retain the city's earnings tax, but only a handful of voters will decide the issue.

The St. Louis Business Journal has come out in favor of Prop E, but in their editorial they state that most of their employees don't live in the city, so they have no vote. They work here, so for now, they pay the earnings tax. In its editorial, The Business Journal warns that if the earnings tax is defeated, they would for the first time be forced to consider moving out of the city - for the health and safety of their employees.

Many are making dire predictions about huge cuts in city services - including cuts to fire and police protection - if the earnings tax is defeated. At the same time massive increases in other taxes, such as sales taxes and real estate taxes, are predicted to follow. It's the sort of one-two punch in the civic gut that could potentially bring the city to its knees. The predictions are not much of a stretch when you consider that 1/3 of the city's budget is funded by the earnings tax.

While Prop E will decide the future of the earnings tax, at the same time, the legislature in Jeff City is debating local control of the city police department. A 150 year old debate about how St. Louisans should be governed continues to this day. While Jeff City debates returning local control of the police department to St. Louis, the region is debating how St. Louis should be governed via its tax structure.

As it was when the city divorced from St. Louis County, a very close vote at the time, so it will be in 2011 when a tiny number of individual voters will have a say in a matter of major regional significance for the future of all St. Louisans.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know if the St. Louis Police Officer's Association has taken a position on Prop E? There is some irony here, because a few years ago the state controlled board of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department significantly reduced the residency requirement for city police officers. So today, like many employees of the St. Louis Business Journal, large numbers of city police officers are not eligible to vote in city elections.

Maybe it's time for a new Missouri Compromise, but this time, make it the St. Louis Compromise, one that creates a sustainable, equitable tax structure for the city of St. Louis as the center of the St. Louis region. Compromises work when there are mutual interests at stake. Under our current system, there are many mutual interests, but our ability to reach a compromise, is, well, seriously compromised.

Too many people have a vested interest in the city of St. Louis with no voice in the outcome of local elections. It's hard to make good decisions about government when there is such a high percentage of our citizens ineligible to participate in the most important decisions.

But, but, but, bt, bt....

Our 2001 Dodge Stratus is on the 4-year plan, namely, we need to keep it running until we're off the tuition train. And that train has at least another 4 years to go.

So it's time for our annual renewal of license plates, this time involving a safety and emissions test. The check engine light has been on for some time, but the car is running strong and there's no visible exhaust coming out of the tail pipe. So it burns a little oil.

Anyway, our mechanic is having a problem getting it to pass the emission test. And today, I'm afraid the updated situation won't be much better. My hunch is that there's some issue with the catalytic converter. Apparently, a car can't pass an emission test with the check engine light on. Or maybe it's a transmission problem.

I have no idea how much it costs to replace a catalytic converter, but from what I've heard, it ain't cheap. And if that's indeed the issue, then I guess we're faced with the lousy choice of sinking a lot of money into an old car, or junking it? And if it's something major with the transmission, well, we know that's a fortune.

I thought there was some limit on how much the state could force you to pay to repair a car under the emission testing requirements? Maybe not.

So, from the sound of this, if indeed we're faced with a choice of repairing the car or junking it, we're in a way dealing with a case of eminent domain - unfortunately with no compensation.

The state may indeed be forcing our otherwise strong running car off the road, with no compensation to us, all for the benefit of the public welfare. Correct? I'll update the post as the situation unfolds...

"The Top 100"

The recent "Open/Closed" conference has lots of people talking about the future of St. Louis and the challenges presented by vacancy and abandonment. In St. Louis, a lot of the vacant land and building inventory is held by the city's Land Reutilization Authority (LRA).

LRA acquires these properties at the end of a long process which ultimately leads to a tax foreclosure sale held on the courthouse steps. By the time LRA gets them, the private market has fully rejected any interest in the properties. As you might expect, most of these suffer from serious deferred maintenance.

Out of the 10,000 or so total properties held in the LRA inventory, fewer than 15 percent of them still have buildings. These 1,000 or so buildings are in varying degrees of condition - generally ranging from bad to worse. Still, some are in better shape than others. And while it's true that many of the buildings in the LRA inventory need to be demolished, the best of them are definitely rehab-able. Call them: "The Top 100".

Would it be possible to start a campaign around these "Top 100" LRA properties? A campaign built on sustainable development, job training, and neighborhood revitalization? Put a value on "The Top 100" LRA buildings of say $10,000 apiece, and if the city were to donate these buildings to the initiative, that puts the city's contribution to the program at $1,000,000 (100 X $10,000).

Identify a foundation purposed with sustainability, community and economic development, and job training, and approach them with a proposal to match the city's contribution to the initiative. Then open up the program to individuals and organizations seeking partnerships and collaboration. YouthBuild and Ranken Tech come to mind as groups looking to train people in the construction trades.

Out of the initiative, a new narrative involving vacancy is possible, one of creative partnerships, community reinvestment, wealth building, and job creation. Is this the sort of possibility that might follow on the path of Open/Closed?

Bee Sanctuary, Greenbelt, or Art Space?

These are some of the possibilites suggested for repurposing abandoned real estate in St. Louis at the Open/Closed Conference held this past weekend at Holy Trinity Church in Hyde Park.

Other ideas included the rebuilding of depleted neighborhoods one parcel at a time. If you look at things this way, the vacant areas of some neighborhoods resemble the St. Louis of 1876 as depicted in Compton Dry's Pictorial St. Louis when the city was first being constructed.

The most likely result will include some combination of all of the above. Indeed there are distressed neighborhoods being rebuilt a parcel at a time and artists are finding their way into abandoned buildings. Such was the start of the revitalization of Washington Avenue's loft district long before the arrival of major tax incentives for the area.

Another opportunity is to begin the unglamorous slog of remediating abandoned properties one lot at a time. Often when you see a vacant lot in a distressed neighborhood, what you don't see are the remains of the former building, now buried under one or two feet of soil.

For years, demolition practices involved simply collapsing unwanted buildings into their basements. At the time, it was the cheapest way to deal with the vacant, abandoned building. Unfortunately, the expedient practice of yesterday leaves us with a legacy of difficult to reuse sites today.

The remains of old buildings under the ground leave behind unbuildable sites today. To build on these usually requires that the old building be excavated and hauled away. As you can imagine, depending on the subsurface conditions, this is a high cost endeavor and from a practical standpoint, renders many redevelopments financially infeasible. With massive buried remains, the land currently has a negative value, especially in weaker market areas.

A dramatic example of this situation is the Pruitt-Igoe site in north St. Louis, whose epic failure and subsequent implosion of dozens of public housing highrise buildings leaves us a vast hole of vacancy on the near north side. Much the same situation exists, albeit on a much smaller scale, for many of the vacant lots in St. Louis.

If the money could be found, especially in the form of a charitable or patient equity investment, the opportunity exists to remediate these sites today. It's a laborious, unglamorous chore, but if we were to create a program to systematically remediate these properties now, we would be creating usable development sites for the future.

How to do it? It's not that complicated. It requires a team of workers (brings jobs), with heavy excavating equipment (brings more jobs), working in concert with neighborhood groups, civic organizations, and planners (yes, more jobs), to phase a mass remediation initiative as the leading edge of a sustainable effort to revitalize currently abandoned properties.

A crew of 6-12 workers, with two or three large excavating tractors and dump trucks, could make major progress at reasonable cost. The more workers and equipment, the faster the process happens. The end result is clean, developable land in the heart of the region. That means more jobs.

To do this, we need to build a list of supporters and seek out those investors of charitable dollars or patient equity. This is doable. Yes, a lot of work, but it's definitely doable.

Cherokee Street Blues

Cherokee Street is one of the storied streets of St. Louis. Over the years it has maintained its focus as one of the city's neighborhood commercial corridors. It runs from the old Lemp Brewery on the east to Gravois on the west. In between, it's a narrow commercial strip, lined with historic buildings, shops, and apartments.

Over the past ten years or so, it has become one of the city's emerging creative areas. Today it is an eclectic mix of ethnic restaurants, small business creative entrepreneurs, and residents. Mostly, it's a group of passionate, dedicated people working together to make the area a better place to live and work.

The greater part of Cherokee Street is shared between the 9th and 20th wards, all of which may change after the next aldermanic ward redistricting. The reason for the change is population losses in the city. The 2010 census showed about an 8% loss in city population, heaviest in the north, but generally pretty even throughout. The net result in terms of ward redistricting will likely be a pulling south of ward boundaries.

So why call this post "Cherokee Street Blues"? Because the blues are about suffering, and we all know there is a lot of pain in St. Louis. The process of ward redistricting is no different. For many, it will cause lots of pain and indigestion.

Since the census was released, there's been a lot of pain expressed about the city's loss of people. Maybe "St. Louis Blues" is another song waiting to be rewritten. A rap version maybe? Whether it's ragtime, blues, or rap, St. Louis is a place of creativity, art, and - yes - pain; and, even though people here don't like it: change.

Most of the city's historic population losses have happened north. In fact, Cherokee Street's 20th ward was formerly part of North City, around the intersection of Kingsighway and West Florissant roads. The ward was moved to south city in the last redistricting of aldermanic wards, and was designated an "opportunity ward" for the election of an African American alderman.

The old northside 20th ward seat had long been held by an African American alderman, and in order to move the ward south, without violating the Voting Rights Act, the city needed to draw a new ward boundary where an African American candidate stood a good chance of being elected. The new southside 20th ward was created, and, since 2000, a white alderman has been elected in the strongly black ward - twice.

In the meantime, north city continues to lose population. According to the 2010 census, since 2000, some northside wards have lost over 20% of their populations. There's no doubt that the next aldermanic ward redistricting will create more pain. Loss of wards in north city creates much concern, as does potential loss of African American elected officials. The new census is foreshadowing of more St. Louis change. As city and regional residents, our challenge is how we move forward.

The first things cited when it comes to city population loss are high crime and lousy schools. There are lots of other reasons, but those two are almost always at the top of the list. Families with school age children move out and people living in high crime neighborhoods leave. In some parts of St. Louis city, population losses have created huge vacancy.

On March 19th, NextSTL is presenting "Open/Closed", a conference on vacant land in St. Louis. The conference will bring together a variety of community leaders and regular St. Louisans to discuss the challenges and opportunties of vacancy in St. Louis.

Thinking back on the challenges causing vacancy, add jobs to the top of the list. With abundant vacant land, shouldn't St. Louis be able to create affordable, attractive site locations for new employment?

What about education? Building on St. Louis' standing as one of the top bio-tech centers in the country, are there ways to connect local institutions, such as our strong universities and biotech companies, with young people in St. Louis to leverage underutilized urban land into opportunities in the emerging fields of green urban agriculture and the green economy? These are some of the ideas which will be explored at the Open/Closed conference.

Heading back down to Cherokee Street, the creative energy will continue. It too shows population losses, but the built environment of the area remains largely intact. Its population losses are not immediately evident, and are more a result of a reduction in household size and number. Old four-family flats might now house one family and a studio or home office. Raw numbers of population loss make headlines, but they do not tell the whole story. As in so much of St. Louis, there are interesting nuances below the surface.

The blues can be slow with lots of pain, or upbeat and filled with hope - like when Chuck Berry and an electric guitar transformed the blues into rock and roll. So whether it's a new version of the St. Louis Blues or the still unwritten Cherokee Street Blues, the way the songs come out will be based on the way we work together. We have the resources. It's up to us to make the best good with them.

Bet: Most STL Traffic Lights Could be Switched to Flashing Red...

...and overall traffic would move easier. Sure, it might sound crazy, but I bet it's true.

Some lights would need to remain on normal cycles, but countless others could be switched to the equivalent of "signalized" stop signs.

Granted, I don't have the scientific facts to back up the bet, just years of anecdotal evidence that every time a light is switched to flashing red, you almost always get through on the first or second waiting of your turn - much faster than you do waiting from a change from red to green. Why? Bottom line: St. Louis just doesn't have that much traffic.

Besides, given the overall extremely courteous nature of St. Louis drivers, it just might work.

Seismic Shifts Coming to St. Louis Political Landscape?

Could the battle for local control of the St. Louis police department be the catalytic event to trigger major structural changes to local government in St. Louis? For years, there has been a struggle over control over the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.

Since the Civil War, the department has been controlled by a board appointed by the governor. And since at least the 1960s, St. Louis leaders, have been fighting to bring control back to the city. Now their call for local control has been joined by Civic Progress and Focus St. Louis.

This year, for the first time since the Civil War, a bill has passed in the Missouri House to return local control of the police department to the City of St. Louis. The Police Officers Association vehemently opposes this effort and has many political allies, both within and outside of the city limits.

The Police Officers Association holds that returning local control to the city will result in two things they don't like: the possibility of political interference with the police department from St. Louis city elected officials, and, of greater concern, local control of their pension system.

The Police Officers Association has an ally in a state senator from University City, Maria Chappelle-Nadal. Senator Nadal opposes local control.

In the past few days, Senator Nadal has raised two interesting ideas. The first was to insert language into Senate version of the local control bill to reduce the number of aldermen in the City of St. Louis from 28 to 14. And today the news is reporting that Senator Nadal is proposing a bill to call for a vote by citizens for the re-entry of the City of St. Louis into St. Louis County.

A return of the City of St. Louis into St. Louis County increases the liklihood of there one day being a region-wide metropolitan police department on the Missouri side of the St. Louis area. Such a system has the potential to save significant cost to Missouri taxpayers.

While STL Rising strongly favors having a local city police department in the City of St. Louis, where neighbors get to personally know their local police department representatives, the idea of a region-wide metropolitan police force is worth serious consideration.

And if all of this work by local leaders results in further streamlined yet strenghtened local government, then perhaps these will be remembered as times of great progress for the St. Louis region.

Pujols...not looking good!

"Albert", "El Hombre", "the man", whatever you want to call him, is not looking too good thanks to his agent and recent contract negotiations flap with the St. Louis Cardinals. Pujols is a great player. However, the handling of his "walk year" is not serving him well.

At the end of this season, if he does not sign a new contract with the Cardinals, Albert Pujols becomes a free agent. So, without a lot of explanation, Pujols imposed an arbitrary "deadline" on negotations of this week. The deadline came and went without an agreement.

The deadline became the top national baseball story. Dozens of reporters are hounding Pujols at spring training. Pujols is featured in sportscasts, standing in the center of a pool of reporters, cameras and microphones in his face, saying things like, "you guys don't have a clue", "if people think I'm greedy, they don't know me", and "we are laughing about this, and so are the Cardinals, I think".

Really? Albert, you're not helping yourself. These are rough economic times. The Cardinals have an imbalanced situation and you're debating between $200,000,000 and $250 or $300 million. Fans are paying $9 for a beer. Ownership is considering giving you an equity position in the team while Ballpark Village sits empty.

I'm over the whole thing. Really, was never too worried about it in the first place. Quick, can anyone even name the Cardinals likely starting infield? Probably not. But everyone can name Pujols. Albert, if you leave town for more money, lots of little kids might get their hearts broken. That's your choice. But for the rest of us, there's a lot more to life than your contract. Hey, you just keep telling everyone that they have "no clue".

When this is all done, you might want to find a new agent.

Big Pepper

For a variety of reasons, I found myself dining alone last night at El Paisano Mexican Restaurant in South City. Suffice it to say that the customer service function at ATT-UVerse has driven us out of our house.

Anyhow, so after looking over the menu while seated at a booth in the bar area of the now smoke-free restaurant, watching Manchester United get roundly spanked by a rival, I order the poblano pepper and pork tamale combination. I asked the waiter how big the pepper was.

With a nod of his head and a muffled grunt, he held his hands out in front of him, creating a space of about 4-5 inches between the palms of his hands. Good enough.

When the plate arrived, the poblano looked like a size 10 shoe. And delicious!

Will NPR Drop Its Needle on St. Louis?

This week NPR is running a series on cities. Today's edition focused on Washington DC. In particular, the series is looking at changing demographics. In DC, a noticeable trend has been the return of white families to the city.

DC has been a majority black city for a long time. But that's been changing, and soon, DC will be less than 50% black. Meanwhile, suburban Prince George County has been a popular destination for middle income African-American families exiting DC. That county is becoming majority African-American. So in DC, there's a trend where white families are returning to the city and black families are moving away.

DC's Anacostia River is a dividing line where traditionally lower income, depressed neighborhoods are located. Low cost by DC standards, home prices in Anacostia are in the $250-$300,000 range. Many DC neighborhoods see prices 3 to 4 times that amount. With its low prices and sense of upside potential, Anacostia is becoming a vogue target area for developers and white home buyers.

In today's segment, NPR previewed that they will also be covering Portland, Oregon. Portland is often held out as the vanguard of progressive hipness and cool urbanism. NPR noted that Portland is one of the "whitest cities in the country". That surprised me. When people think of big cities in particular, or urban places in general, they usually don't think of them as being heavily white. They think of them as places of diversity. Portland has its own challenges: how cool it is to be known as one of the "whitest cities in the country"?

The DC story featured a delivery driver and his wife, a two income black family who had moved from Anacostia to Prince George County. The husband felt sad about leaving his old neighborhood, but moved away to get more house for the money, and because of pressure from his wife who had grown up in the suburbs. In Prince George County the family could buy a 4-5 bedroom home for the same price as a 2-3 bedroom home in the old neighborhood.

So what does all this have to do with St. Louis? When cities are compared, how will St. Louis fare? St. Louis' challenges are much different than Portland's or DC's. St. Louis isn't the cool destination that Portand is (but maybe it should be). And, unlike DC, St. Louis city neighborhoods, especially the blighted ones, don't outprice its suburban neighbors.

St. Louis is high cost in terms of construction, and low priced in terms of values. Like DC, for decades, St. Louis experienced heavy black and white flight from its neighborhoods, especially on the north side. Today St. Louis is experiencing renewal in many parts of the city. There is a noticeably white demographic at city booster events. "City Affair" gatherings are usually 90% percent white, and meetings for the renewal of the Arch grounds were about the same percentage white.

Cherokee Street, the emerging hip district of South St. Louis, is largely a mix of white and hispanic entrepreneurs, while the surrounding neighborhood is high percentage African-American. With an election for alderman coming soon, given the interesting demographic mix of the area, what will the lead issues of the campaign be?

Trends in St. Louis seem to be more elusive. It's hard to make broad generalizations. Things vary greatly from block to block and neighborhood to neighborhood. There are places such as Old North St. Louis and Cherokee Street which get a lot of attention in terms of their renewal, but geographically they represent a tiny percentage of the city. Look at the city's strategic land use plan and you see that roughly 75% of the city's area is designated "Neighborhood Preservation".

Maybe the story of St. Louis is that we have a good thing, and our goal is to keep it that way by working smart on a combination of things both large and small, those with the biggest impact and greatest leveraging?

City Identifies Source to Help Replace Earnings Tax?

In referring to a state law passed in the 1980s, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay may have found a major funding souce to offset a portion of the City's current earning tax.

According to the law, the state of Missouri is responsible for over $100,000,000 of the cost to operate the St. Louis police department.

On a recent newscast, Mayor Slay stated that unless Jefferson City returns control of the department back to St. Louis City, "we could send them a bill".

A St.Louis Police Officers Association representative called the tactic a political manuever. Slay replied "this is not a ploy".

When interviewed by Fox 2 News reporter Charles Jaco, Governor Jay Nixon had "no comment".

St. Louis Mastodons

Created by Ryan Frank
www.firstpunchfilm.com

Open Public Forum - St. Louis City Earnings Tax

When: 6:30 pm, February 17, 2011

Where: Old Post Office, Mall Level, 815 Olive, Downtown St. Louis

Sponsors: Downtown St. Louis Residents Association, League of Women Voters, the UPS Store, Emmis Communications, Webster University, the Holden Public Policy Forum

Presentation and Panel Discussion Featuring: Hon. Francis Slay, Mayor; Hon. Darlene Green, Comptroller; Mark Mantovani, President and CEO, NSI Marketing; Nancy Cross, Vice-President, SEIU St. Louis Local

Paint Louis

Years ago, there was a lot of interest in a project to paint the flood walls south of the Arch. It was called, "Paint Louis" and you can still see the work today.

What about painting murals on the monster flood walls along the riverfront between the Eads Bridge and the Poplar Street Bridge? These could be huge in size and a new draw for visitors to the riverfront.

Cleveland HS and Others Like It

Perusing the other urblogs around Saint Louis, STL Rising is very dismayed to learn, if indeed true, that when it comes to demolition, the historically significant buildings of the St. Louis Public School system are exempted from the city's preservation framework, including Cultural Resource Office and Preservation Board reviews.

As these handsome public school buildings are architectural centerpieces in many city neighborhoods, it's sad news indeed to learn that these physical assets are not protected from short-fused demolitions like most of the city's built environment.

History Museum Event Opens Discussion on Class

On Saturday, an overflow crowd gathered in the Lee Auditorium at the St. Louis History Museum for the start of the new series, Class: the Great Divide. The first installment in the series was a presentation by University of Iowa's Colin Gordon on his work Mapping Decline. If you're into maps and St. Louis history, this was the event for you.

Gordon takes his readers through a detailed history of restrictive covenants in St. Louis and the practices of the St. Louis Real Estate Exchange. It shows the history of white flight and ultimately black flight from St. Louis city. It chronicles the depopulation of St. Louis. And it shows the trend continuing in parts of St. Louis County.

The presentation challenges St. Louis about what we do now? The history is well documented. St. Louis was ground zero in terms of white flight and urban dislocation. While there is no question that the downgrading of neighborhood risk by the St. Louis Real Estate Exchange in the 1950s led to much disinvestment in North St. Louis, it is not as clear that restrictive covenants were the cause of white flight.

1950s St. Louis was a place steeped in racism, practicing legalized segregation. Block busting and panic selling caused more white flight than racial covenants or grading of areas by the St. Louis Real Estate Exchange. The challenge for St. Louis is where do we go from here?

STL Rising is hopeful that the sad history of racism and white flight in St. Louis is being rewritten by young people today who do not carry the racial baggage of their parents', grandparents', and great grandparents' generations. Previous generations did not leave a good legacy for our young people. Thankfully they do not seem to be repeating our mistakes.

Staggered Lanes for the Home of Stagger Lee?

When Stack O' Lee shot Billy near the St. Louis riverfront about a hundred years ago, a St. Louis legend was born that lives to this day in rock and blues clubs around the world.

Will the home of Stack Lee soon be home to staggered lanes in place of Memorial Drive, plus a widened depressed section with two new highway on and off ramps between the Arch grounds and downtown?

It's a little hard to tell based on the renderings, but, according to UrbanSTL, the plan to improve the Arch grounds includes a widening of the depressed section to build two new highway ramps.

Overall, the proposed plans are exciting, especially the work proposed around the Old Court House, the north end of the Arch grounds, the remake of Kiener Plaza, and the ecological improvements to the ponds on the grounds.

More info is needed to understand traffic flow and lane changes. Diverting vehicular traffic from the Old Court House area could be a very good thing.