With nearly 7,000 vacant buildings in St. Louis, the $1 million the city spends annually on demolitions does little more than chip away at decades of white flight and neglect.

It can afford to knock down about 200 or so buildings each year in a long, slow effort to pare its housing stock more befitting a city of 320,000 people, rather than the 850,000 of 65 years ago. A bond issue that included more money for demolitions failed in August, and the recession erased years of progress.

“We’ve got those initial conversations scheduled,” Oswald said. “It’s a great thing. We’re just really appreciative and thrilled with it.”

quincunx wrote:Looks like the demo monster has found a new pot of money.

Stltoday - MSD proposes to spend $13.5 million to demolish vacant St. Louis structures

With nearly 7,000 vacant buildings in St. Louis, the $1 million the city spends annually on demolitions does little more than chip away at decades of white flight and neglect.

It can afford to knock down about 200 or so buildings each year in a long, slow effort to pare its housing stock more befitting a city of 320,000 people, rather than the 850,000 of 65 years ago. A bond issue that included more money for demolitions failed in August, and the recession erased years of progress.

http://m.stltoday.com/business/local/ar ... 2f5a0.html

roger wyoming II wrote:It's a difficult issue... many of these properties are a clear neighborhood nuisance and make it difficult to attract neighborhood investment and drive people out. The key will be to figure out creative ways to get the better properties back into productive re-use and reserve demo for the truly deleterious ones.

quincunx wrote:Car upset with the road closures caused by runoff from vacant buildings, demos building at MLK and Taylor.

http://fox2now.com/2016/01/03/north-st- ... ck-by-car/

ST. LOUIS - Wild animals and drug dealers, those are just just two of the problems neighbors say they have to deal with because of a large, vacant home in their north city neighborhood.