urbanSTL

Last week, while reflecting on his company’s decision to build an East Coast headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina, Centene Corp. CEO Michael Neidorff noted “there are a lot of things that need to change and improve (in St. Louis).” If they don’t, he made clear that while Clayton remains Centene’s headquarters for now, “whether that continues is ‘not up to us’.”  Particularly concerning is Mr. Neidorff’s threat that he won’t be the one to make that decision. Rather he asserts that “it’s up to the people that create an environment that a Fortune 25 company wants to be in.” 

It is an abdication of responsibility to suggest that business leaders are not among the parties responsible for the region’s economic prosperity. It denies the pivotal role they have played in generations of intentional civic, political, and economic decisions designed to extract as much wealth from St. Louis’ Black communities as possible, then marginalizing, abandoning, and destroying them. These decisions have crippled specific communities (Mill Creek Valley, Meacham Park, and the Greater Ville, among others) and negatively impacted our entire region.

As Walter Johnson thoroughly explains in his recent book, The Broken Heart of America, the environment that makes it hard for Centene to recruit talent to the region did not happen by accident. It is not the byproduct of individual choices or situational lapses in leadership. It is by design. At every opportunity, local, regional, and state leadership — in boardrooms, council meetings, and legislative sessions — have opted to, at best, discourage and, at worst, actively undermine regional growth in order to preserve white wealth and privilege.

The calls to action in the Ferguson Report name specific parties — including corporations — responsible for working together to create a more unified, equitable St. Louis. The report represents the efforts of 3,000 people who contributed 30,000 hours exploring the root causes of our region’s racial inequities. We know what to do, and while there has been some modest progress, our business leaders have largely resisted doing the hard work required to create systemic change. As a result, the system continues to work as designed — putting Centene on track to make $112 billion in revenue this year from the Medicare, Medicaid, military and veteran, and prison health care plans it manages, while failing to create the educated, skilled workforce it needs or the vibrant and attractive business environment it wants — an environment Centene holds others in the region responsible for creating.

What if, instead of shifting blame, corporate leaders doubled down on where they are instead of adopting a strategy of corporate flight? What would be possible if the many years and hundreds of millions of corporate dollars spent, charitable gifts made, and tax dollars deferred were invested in new policy decisions that remedy the root causes of inequity and end systemic racism rather than glossing over, minimizing, or ignoring them? If we made moonshot-scale investments in education, housing, transportation, and health care through the lens of racial equity? And if rather than transactional, zero-sum relationships with our region, corporations stepped up to invest in targeted solutions that produce long-term, mutually beneficial outcomes?

St. Louis deserves to be an environment that is vibrant and attractive, not only so we can attract and retain the people and jobs we need to prosper, but more importantly so we can provide a more equitable community in which those of us already here can thrive and succeed. Nearly six years after the death of Michael Brown, 20 years since the creation of the Regional Business Council, 65 years since the formation of Civic Progress, and 184 years since the founding of the St. Louis Regional Chamber the question remains, do St. Louis’ corporate and civic leaders have the will to make it happen?