urbanSTL

Kirkwood Gadfly wrote a nice piece about planned consolidation of certain police services involving Kirkwood, Glendale, Warson Woods, and Des Peres.
https://kirkwoodgadfly.com/kirkwood-sets-the-example-on-consolidation/

A few months ago, 6 large firetrucks descended on an alarm in downtown Kirkwood from Fenton, Kirkwood, and a number of other stations.  When they saw each other, half of them left.  And it was a false alarm.  We clearly could use more consolidation and coordination of fire services in the county.

I keep being surprised that folks believe low level consolidation of police and fire services can work at the tiny town level, but never at a level as large as the city and county.  But I see no reason why unincorporated patrolled areas of St. Louis County could not merge with policing of St. Louis City, and leave little St. Louis County towns to police themselves and merge with each other as they see fit.  

East and West Germany combined into a single government.  Kirkwood and surrounding towns police are gradually consolidating into a single department.  The city / county consolidation is somewhere between these large and small consolidations.  There is no reason it can't happen.  MSD became a successful cross city/county organization because _____ flows down hill and knows no boundaries, whereas criminals check borders before committing crimes, right?

Stltoday - Measure forcing St. Louis County police departments to merge meets pushback in Missouri House

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/cri ... 4b35d.html

Stl Public Radio - City-County Cooperation On The Mind Of St. Louis Mayoral Contenders — And The Region’s Residents

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/governm ... -residents

Hmmm, looks like the County will miss out on a lot COVID funds they would have otherwise received in a unified city. Another reason they should be interested in merging.

Random question but if a “new” St. Louis were formed and the boundaries were inside of I-270 to the Mississippi River, what would the population and square mileage of the new city be?

I'm not sure the exact answer to that, but I do remember that the Better Together proposal would have put us back in the top 10 for city population, just above Dallas I believe.

The Better Together proposal combining St. Louis City and County would have resulted in a new city of approximately 1.3 million. A new city inside of 270 would be less but I wonder by how much more?

Google maps suggests a consolidated city with I-270 as the boundary would be around 225 sq. mi.  Looks like the population would be somewhere in the 900ks but I think shy of 1M (out of the roughly 1.3M combined city+county total). 

This would be fun. Let's do it.

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I started thinking about a proposal that wasn’t a better together mega-merger and wasn’t the status quo. Perhaps as ballot initiative, the current city re-enters St. Louis County and then automatically expands to I-270 which would be a compromise that could pass the ultimate test of the voters. That area would also be aligned closer politically one would think.

SouthCitySheks wrote: ↑

Jun 17, 2021

I started thinking about a proposal that wasn’t a better together mega-merger and wasn’t the status quo. Perhaps as ballot initiative, the current city re-enters St. Louis County and then automatically expands to I-270 which would be a compromise that could pass the ultimate test of the voters. That area would also be aligned closer politically one would think.

As much as I'd love to see that, the City gobbling up most the County's population (and annihilating most of its municipalities) wouldn't really be a compromise or garner much support outside the City limits. 

^Even my Crestwoodian county girl mother, who always disagrees with me about urban planning, is beginning to see the value in a merger. That's small sample statistics at its worst, but . . . I wonder if we could sell this to more people than we realize. Especially if we concentrate on places that are also beginning to see the folly of the retail subsidy square-dance.

There's no chance that would pass.  It's no different than someone in the county saying "have the city re-enter the county, disincorporate, and then Clayton can annex the entire central corridor." 

Just get the city to reenter the county first, and then consolidation talks can happen with some of the smaller municipalities that may actually be open to it.

pattimagee wrote: ↑

Jun 17, 2021

Once we're in, they are stuck with us. 

 Shhhhh, don't say it too loud!