I have to admit, reading this column really got me down. For someone who's always harping on St. Louis' "inferiority complex," pieces like this sure don't help to alleviate it.



http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/c ... enDocument

^ I read that yesterday, it is depressing to think what STL might have been with AT&T. It makes you think about how it seems many community leaders here seem more concerned with their private clubs and exclusive suburbs than with making sure the city is competing economically. They're perfectly happy to keep St. Louis where it is as long as they have their good 'ol boys club and nice, clean Clayton to work in. Maclellan has a knack for these type of cynical columns, in this case I think it was deserved.

It was totally deserved. Just a bit of a downer.

I remember hearing that when SBC moved. we still have some stodgy, old money (elitism) here that you have to be of the right blood lines and family trees to join country clubs. when I think of what might have been downtown STL if SBC had stayed. it haunts me!

Bill McClellan may kvetch about Saint Louis' inferiority complex, but the vast majority (if not all) of his STL-related columns only serve to reinforce it IMHO. I think he's become a tiresome one-trick pony.



But, at least he fits in nicely with the anti-city attitude that seems to dominate the Davenport Post-Disgrace these days. It's hard to believe this is the same paper that, under Cole Campbell's watch, released the Peirce Report nine years ago.



It's a bit of a downer, and I agree that it is deserved in this case, but it's typical McClellan and typical old-school Saint Louis to keep looking in the past. We can always wonder what could've been, and not just with AT&T. If May Company's leadership didn't practically flush what they had down the toilet, they would've been in position to buy Federated a few years ago. But when do we stop looking back, and begin moving forward?



I think Saint Louis is gradually changing for the better, but our community seems to be caught in this fruitless and masochistic cycle. I'm sure the next 1904-related column, from Bill McClellan or someone else in our media, can't be far behind.

A lot of the synicism in the city is drawn from the news media itself. Its painfully obvious to me that the city's worst enemy is the Post Dispatch. They thrive on reporting what's wrong with the city and only report on what's good when shamed by getting scooped. Really folks, liberal press in other big cities isn't this self-deprecating. My Air Force career has taken me to a lot of urban centers and this is the worst I've seen. There's merit in covering both sides of an issue, but the PD's default position should not be negative.

I read that yesterday. Very funny! He's a great columnist.

I actually like Bill McClellan. I think he's a pretty good writer. A lot better than Sylvester Brown.. (although I do enjoy the Pruitt-Igoe stories). But then again, I look at McClellan's -st louis-has-been attitude and it does get old, but then again, so is he.. He epitomized the old, has been the city is a dump, attitude. Same goes for the Post-Dispatch, I honestly wonder how much better shape the region would be in if it was the Globe-Democrat who had become the dominant (only) paper.

As for SBC leaving st louis. when is everyone going to wake up and understand that while st. Louis' renaissance (downtown) is great. We need to make it more BUSINESS FRIENDLY.. Lofts only go so far.. somehow, wean ourselves from the earnings tax, include more business incentives, drop the RIDICULOUS jury verdicts in the city, tax cuts for corporations and make st louis a right to work city.

"Depressing column from Bill McClellan". Now THAT's redundant!

^Is that like a double neghative making a positive?

TheWayoftheArch wrote:The reason AT&T left is that Missouri passed a law stopping all persons and companies from deducted all but a minute portion of their federal taxes. For a middle class family, it was maybe a $10-20,000 hit. For major corporations, it was a big middle finger.



What I wanted to point out is that we suffer as a result of buffoonery in Jefferson City. This is a State of MISERY problem, not the percieved issue hat the City is a leper, as Bill McClellen would have you believe.

TWOTA, I'm glad you brought the specifics up for discussion. I like Bill McClellan even if I take umbrage with some of his columns- he's a smart man, and he's certainly aware of the big picture as it pertains to then-Southwestern Bell's departure. He just refuses to let facts get in the way of his panacea for a slow news period- the tried-and-true "Woe is St. Louis" column.



I guess that's why I liked the P-D better during the Cole Campbell era. Of course the Peirce Report and the Imagine St. Louis series weren't necessarily *the* catalysts for our city's recent success stories by any means, but they seemed to balance healthy and constructive criticism with possible solutions to the problems our community faces. For me at least, just IMHO of course, it seemed like the first time in my life when a local media outlet tackled our toughest issues head-on with any trace of a can-do attitude.



I remember reading editorial pages and columns for years when practically all the news analysis of local issues seemed negative. I read countless lamentations about our moribund downtown, our struggling neighborhoods, our pervasive parochialism, etc. etc.



But now that our community seems to be making tangible progress on those fronts and with other critical issues, it seems that the best the P-D can muster is indifference. At its worst, it does seem like there's an anti-city bias, particularly from the likes of business columnists like Martin Van Der Werf or David Nicklaus.



JCity, while I agree with your call to make St. Louis a more friendly place in which to do business, I think the onus largely falls back on Jefferson City. I'm not suggesting that the city should be complacent on this front by any means. In fact, Mayor Slay announced recently that the city is reviewing its complete tax structure to ensure its fairness. Yes, the city can do more to attract and retain businesses, and FWIW, I do think that's a top priority of the current administration.



However, I think Missouri should be taking the lead to bring businesses and jobs to its communities. We have one of the lowest tax burdens in the nation, yet businesses and people aren't exactly flocking here. I'll stop myself lest I get too political or digress further from the original topic...but the leadership vacuum in Jefferson City negatively impacts economic development in St. Louis AND Kansas City IMHO.



No offense intended, Mr. McClellan, but I think we already have enough suburbanites and outstate residents whose stock rant is to blame all of Missouri's problems on its two major urban centers.

There's another article in today's paper (I haven't been able to find it online) that talks about students coming to St. Louis on spring break to engage in community service projects. One of the quotes from a Gonzaga student who is working with the St. Patrick's Center was something to the effect of, "I thought our downtown was bad, but it's nowhere near as bad as downtown St. Louis."



What?? Is crap like this really necessary? Thanks again for helping out with the inferiority complex, P-D.

DeBaliviere wrote:There's another article in today's paper (I haven't been able to find it online) that talks about students coming to St. Louis on spring break to engage in community service projects. One of the quotes from a Gonzaga student who is working with the St. Patrick's Center was something to the effect of, "I thought our downtown was bad, but it's nowhere near as bad as downtown St. Louis."



What?? Is crap like this really necessary? Thanks again for helping out with the inferiority complex, P-D.

So they shouldn't report what people actually say?

Reporting what people say isn't the issue. The issue is the story's angle.



The story very easily could have been written as a positive piece about college kids coming to St. Louis to help out out community. Instead, the tone was more to the effect of - St. Louis is so bad that college kids come here to do their service projects.

DeBaliviere wrote:Reporting what people say isn't the issue. The issue is the story's angle.



The story very easily could have been written as a positive piece about college kids coming to St. Louis to help out out community. Instead, the tone was more to the effect of - St. Louis is so bad that college kids come here to do their service projects.

I didn't read it that way. Oh well....

here it is...



RANDOM PLAY



Fill in the blank: ?Our city is bad, but it?s not like??

By Kavita Kumar

03/22/2006 11:45 am

It?s spring break season ? which means some socially-conscious college students once again are swapping the beaches of Mexico for community service projects ? and, in doing so, often swapping cities with their peers.



This year one of the hottest spots for alternative spring break trips was Katrina-ravaged New Orleans. But while some St. Louis students were trekking to Mississippi and Louisiana, other college students from afar were coming here to help clean up our very own Arch City. Students from the University of South Dakota and Slippery Rock College in Pennsylvania came to E. St. Louis where they worked in the public schools and at a food bank.



?The students were kind of laughing here,? said Suzanne Kutterer-Siburt, an administrator at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. ?We were leaving and going in the opposite direction to the Cherokee Nation? in Oklahoma.



Students from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., spent last week in downtown St. Louis where they helped pick up trash, did maintenance jobs, and raised funds for St. Patrick?s Center.



Todd Dunfield, a Gonzaga administrator who accompanied the students to St. Louis, said these trips help give students perspective.



?I?ve had a lot of students say, wow, our city is bad but it?s not like downtown St. Louis,? Dunfield said.



In turn, Kutterer-Siburt said SIUE students who travel to the Cherokee Nation often realize that ?our backyard is not that bad? as compared to the poverty they see on the reservation.



The lesson for all the students, it seems, is that degrees of poverty are all relative.



link

The only thing I can say about that article is that it is a blog posting, so I think many people will not even read it. Very much biased though.

It doesn't sound quite as bad, now that I have read it for the second time, but the Gonzaga comment still gets my Irish up.

MattnSTL wrote:The only thing I can say about that article is that it is a blog posting, so I think many people will not even read it. Very much biased though.

I'm sick of what I perceive as the P-D's anti-city bias, and the Gonzaga administrator's comments were simply ignorant. But I've learned to ignore anything posted on the STLtoday.com blogs. The level of dialogue and discourse among most participants is one rung above Town Talk in the Suburban Journals. The mindless blather there is a waste of bandwidth and time just as Town Talk is a waste of several column inches each week. However, I don't think the P-D is interested in tidying up its blogs when it cannot do the same for the newspaper itself.