urbanSTL

^ "Too Dangerous" is a ridiculous tagline. Anyway, given to numbers I'd guarantee that the crime rate on Washington Avenue has decreased over the past five years.

Is crime ever a response to gentrification, and as such possibly a good indicator that the area is further gentrifying?

^ I do think there's some deferred maintenance with the Arch grounds area. That should lead the city to take care of its part well and lean on the NPS to do the same, but instead it leads everyone to sit around and wait and see.

^^ Saint Louis and major cities smelled completely awful during the pre-electric trolley days. Dealing with horse manure was a major problem. And if that wasn't enough, the air pollution from manufacturing would knock you dead. Those were the days!

Re Arch grounds, I went there Saturday morning for the first time in a while. Going, I went down Wash Ave which of course takes you under the overpass. Accessing the park wasn't too bad and hopefully there will be more businesses opening on lower Wash Ave. Once in the park, I did notice a homeless man on a bench along the pathway (near the parking garage). But even more noticable to me were the singinficant number of trees removed from the planters.... not sure if they were diseased or not. Upon leaving, again the crossing of Memorial was not too bad, and I do think the pedestrian crossing improvements made a few years ago are a big improvement.

Overall, my impression of the grounds and access was that it was far from impressive but not a turn-off, either. There was a rather sizeable number of people going to the Arch grounds, btw.... many tourists as well some downtowners, for example a young woman walking her two dogs.

My buddy in south city was complaining about a police chopper circling for what he said felt like hours last night. Now I guess we all know why

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crim ... f6878.html

One of my friends used to live at Nebraska and Gravois and she talked about how packs of teens roam the streets there almost nightly, and it always made her uneasy because the vibe was not a good one. They weren't joking around laughing having fun; it's as if though they would be walking around looking for something/someone.

I thought this comment from one of the commenters on the article is pretty telling. he apparently lives right near where it happened:

"To the both of you...It's a deeply rooted problem embedded in our society... It's a culmination of the collapse of the value system of the country we live in.. More GUNS on the street doesn't solve jack mike.. This incident happened literally right outside my front door... I can look outside my bedroom window and SEE the spot where not only did these to girls get killed but where the entire incident took place.. My family has been living in the neighborhood for the last 10 years and needless, every since the housing market crashed, things have seriously gone south.. There was much promise when we first move in this neighborhood with brand new homes being built 2 blocks up from us, buildings being rehabbed and SOLD, NEW stores opening just blocks from here, etc.. THEN BAM, progress stopped.. the homes that couldn't get sold when the market crashed, were either left vacant or rented out to whomever the owner could get a buck from.. There are TONS of kids around here with absolutely NOTHING to do and nowhere to go.. God knows who or where their parents are.. There have been numerous times where I've had to run kids off from sitting in front of my house in the middle of the night.. Kids are raising themselves and it's sad.. the parents are probably not much older than that of their kids and are suffering from a freaking identity crisis because they had children at a young age and never had the opportunity to be kids themselves because of the choices they've made.. I make excuses for no one at all but for a lot of people, these are the facts.. and it's reality...I agree with Thomas in that it's not a racial issue in the since that "Racism" isn't necessarily involved, BUT, it just so happens that 99.9% of the kids the this crap happens to happen to be black kids..now, as for stop snitching.. I don't buy it because the people who really care about stuff that goes on around here attempt to do the right thing however from my personal experience, TOO ME, it seems as if the police really don't care at times... If they REALLY wanted to do or stop things from going in this neighbor hood and places like it.. Make or put a substation in the area.. I mean, crap happens over here OFTEN these days it seems but heck when stuff kicks off, and I call them, the are always a day late and a dollar short.. the article said NO One called it in.. I wonder why? I stopped calling in random gunfire simply because there is nothing they can do about it because by the time they show up, its peaceful! They needs camera's in the area, remote surveillance, crap they use in other cities that makes up for the lack of police man power.."

My question is, how do the police fail so badly at covering this area? It seems obvious that this 'hood is in dire need of more patrols.