urbanSTL

We find it frustrating to have to continually remind our neighbors of St. Louis City's critical importance for the survival of the entire region.

Fixed it for 'em.

I get your argument. Having NGA next to Scott builds on the significance of Scott and strengthens to inter dependency between Scott and NGA. At least that's my takeaway.

I just don't agree. I don't think the 20 miles between the two weakens their relationship. Nor do I think putting them next to each other strengthens their relationship so much that it justifies taking 3000 jobs from the City. I don't think that putting NGA 20 miles closer to Scott "further feeds the intentional strategy of Scott’s development and viability". I think they already do that for each other.

Okay.....1.) I had to clarify/clean-up my initial response (previous page) posted after the SuperBowl game. 2.) Get ready for this long response.

shimmy wrote:How can people argue that the move will benefit North City but not the Metro East? If more goes into the move as you suggest, Arch City, then no one is going to move and revitalize North City - the area with the worst cities and some of the most violent neighborhoods in the region (according to perception) and no different of a commute than they already have.

There have been plans in place for the lower northside for a while. Some projects – albeit a few – have been built already. Some of that delay was because of lawsuits, the recession etc. Second, I don’t think the main plan is to get NGA workers to build or buy houses in the area. As I understand it, the NGA West campus could help to stimulate the plan that was long already in place. It's only being modified to accommodate the NGA campus. Have you seen the renderings? Visited the website? The campus would only give the plan bigger momentum.

With regards to the Metro East, and I’ve seen this with my own eyes, that the Scott Air Force Base/O’Fallon/Shiloh areas are already thriving. New home subdivisions, apartments, retail, hotels, businesses etc. etc. I have shopped in Fairview Heights and have eaten at Lowata Creek (Sidebar: I don’t understand why this place is not a national chain).

Anyway, your argument that the Metro East is “woe”, doesn’t resonate. Yes, there are challenges over there. I have family in E. St. Louis and Cahokia. I also have a nephew who lives in Missouri and is currently furloughed from Granite City Steel. But this dire picture you are portraying is not accurate. Point is, the Metro East is not dead despite its challenges.

Again, SAFB doesn’t need the NGA to keep it safe. And the NGA is currently working with SAFB NOW – although it is in St. Louis City. Keep in mind too that SAFB was going to be CLOSED, but the NGA would have been in St. Louis City still. SAFB has had hundreds of MILLIONS dollars in investments over the last ten years or so. SAFB doesn’t need the NGA campus.

It is a fear and a farce that is being perpetuated by some in the Metro East.

shimmy wrote:It is on this issue, and really this issue only, that the Metro East actually has an advantage. Either proximity to customers matters or it doesn't. If it does matter, then SAB is a no-brainer for the move and there's a great advantage to have NGA, DISA, TRANSCOM, SDDC all located at a Scott. If it doesn't, then it doesn't matter whether TRANSCOM is located at Scott or Andrews or Langley. If NGA is entrenched in the region, and I'll agree on that point in terms of the workforce being here as opposed to some sense of federal loyalty, then it makes sense for the region to team it with the commands at Scott and make the argument that it's vital that these organizations are co-located.

I totally disagree. It doesn’t make sense especially in the age of long-range inter-continental ballistic missiles. I don’t think it is wise to have that many national defense assets cobbled together in one place. To me, it's stupid...quite frankly.

And all of the BS about the NGA needing to be closer to their customer is ridiculous bunk. What are they doing now?

FYI, the proposed north St. Louis site is only 36 minutes from SAFB - the same as it is now.

shimmy wrote:I acknowledge that it's counter-intuitive to suggest that the city may ultimately gain through this loss. But it's also true in the big picture. If I thought the Metro East had a chance in attracting Centene, Energizer, Rawlings, or Scottrade then I would absolutely be making the argument for that move. But the reality is that it doesn't.

No offense – really. But you need to trust your intuition and stop trying to feed us the soup you are sipping. No offense intended. Seriously…how about going after ADM? Oops. They already moved to Chicago. The Metro East didn’t even squeak a bit when ADM announced its relocation intentions. How about attracting companies that want to leave Chicago, Peoria, Indianapolis, Atlanta, New York or Los Angeles or Europe? Trying to attract companies and HQs from the Missouri-side is a zero sum game.

That’s what some of us are conveying. The Metro East could win, but do they even try? No. Furthermore, the new campus is not going to come with new jobs. As stated by Pat, there is no net benefit to the region except in construction jobs, which are temporary. One part of the region gets more investment. Another gets less.

shimmy wrote:I'd also suspect that if Edwardsville was to build a life science park and starting lure Cortex jobs then people here would be complaining about Edwardsville stealing jobs from the city.

The reality is that the Metro East has a lot of inherent disadvantages when trying to compete. 1. As covered, it's in Illinois. 2. It's a downstate Illinois community. 3. Historic emphasis and reliability on industrial/blue collar jobs. 4. Being 1/6 of the population for a metro area that isn't even in the state.

Again…..why does it have to be about poaching jobs from Missouri or CORTEX? Come on, dude. Are you suggesting Metro East can’t walk on its own? St. Louis (Metro West) would praise a new science or technology park in the Metro East. I personally belief Illinois, despite its problems, is more inclined to invest in those types of ventures/efforts.

The Metro East (with nearly 700,000 inhabitants) must assert itself HARDER in Springfield. It is THE MOST populated area in the State of Illinois outside of Chicago. The Metro East is literally a METRO within Illinois. Illinois senators have forsaken the ME in favor of Chicagoland. Durbin seems to toss the Metro East bones. Then have Metro East residents thinking he’s doing something by trying stealing the NGA from Missouri.

Get out of the industrial cesspool mindset. We are in a new economy. We likely are seeing the last vestiges of old world industry in the U.S. due to deindustrialization, NAFTA, globalization and competition from other emerging economies across the world. The Metro East -and St. Louis in general - need to catch up with new economy/knowledge-based fields.

shimmy wrote:It's one of the major economic engines of the region, and it is really the driving force behind O'Fallon being really the only Illinois community that is continuing to see growth.

You keep trying to make your case, but in reality, it is fake to me.

On one hand, you suggest the SAFB needs the NGA because it makes sense to have all of the military cobbled in one place to save SAFB. But on the other, you discuss the NGA as an economic engine for the Metro East. So it seems what you are saying is that O’Fallon and the Metro East need more growth from the NGA jobs at stake essentially at the expense of tax revenue losses and job losses in St. Louis City.

It’s clear your “re-center” argument is disingenuous because snatching away 3,000 workers only will continue to bleed jobs from St. Louis City further creating employment, population and economic donuts in the center of the region.

You are not concerned about the “re-centering the region”. You are only concerned about the Metro East and Illinois. Keep it real, bro.

shimmy wrote:To summarize, here's what I think our argument should be as a region: The NGA needs St. Louis because of the workforce. TRANSCOM needs to be co-located with NGA because its the biggest customer of the NGA's services. Therefore, TRANSCOM needs Scott. Therefore, the Air Force needs Scott.

The regional argument only should be to keep the NGA West in the St. Louis region. Period. Point-blank. End of story.

SAFB is in Illinois. The NGA is in Missouri – St. Louis City specifically. Why on earth would St. Louis City be okay with losing 3,000 jobs to any community? You are being silly. How about moving and rebuilding all of SAFB in Franklin or Warren counties in Missouri? See how ridiculous that sounds?

shimmy wrote:It also provides the argument for future re-locations of units or organizations from elsewhere because of the cluster of strategic commands and organizations at Scott.

Perhaps, but SAFB is one already one of the largest Air Force bases domestically. They aren’t going to keep giving it candy – especially when Dick Durbin is gone from Congress. The Metro East needs to find a new way to get its candy instead of ripping it off from your neighbor. It needs to stop flying solo and join in with the Metro West in creating a comprehensive economic and job growth plan for the entire region.

shimmy wrote:I think that's a better regional argument than: The NGA needs St. Louis because of the workforce. But co-location with TRANSCOM isn't necessary because it doesn't matter and the city needs the tax revenue and save-of-face.

Like you have your reasons, St. Louis City and Missouri has its reasons.

Jesus... I will read all that later... maybe.

shimmy wrote:The re-centering the region is the big picture. Apparently that's gone over people's heads. No, 3,000 jobs moving to the Metro East is not going to re-center the region. But, the fact of the matter is that downtown is going to continue to struggle against the county as long as 700,000 people live to the east of it and 2.3 million live to the west. There needs to be growth in the Metro East to ultimately make downtown reach it's potential. It's just a sad reality that in this specific case that growth comes at the expense of the city. Apparently 40-50% of downtown's workforce, according to the last editorial I posted, commute from the Metro East. I didn't know that, but it shows that while a strong downtown is good for the Metro East the opposite is also true: a strong Metro East is good for downtown.

shimmy, i don't think you've made enough of a case to be talking down to people. is every other city the center of mass for its region? of course not. in particular, cities near large bodies of water don't have populations that are equally distributed on all sides. i think the argument that an equally-weighted metro leads to a prosperous downtown is questionable, and so far you haven't presented any evidence or any case studies demonstrating otherwise. i have no idea how you can argue with a straight face that jobs in the suburbs are better for downtown than jobs downtown, or that moving jobs to the far east somehow re-centers downtown. re-centers it for what? for west-county commuters on their way to the metro east? furthermore, the bit about a strong metro east being good for downtown isn't a given. people who live in the metro east—or any other far-flung part of the region—have little reason to go downtown if not to work there. and if you're talking about metro east job growth encouraging synergistic job growth downtown, i'd say you're talking about astronomical timescales. downtown would be dead as a employment center long before that happens.

shimmy wrote: Yes, there's a lot of corn between the Arch and O'Fallon, but O'Fallon is the same distance from downtown as Kirkwood is, and O'Fallon is the closest thing the Metro East has to an "exurban" community.

um, no. Scott Airforce base is 27 miles away via I-64—about the same distance as St. Charles. Kirkwood is half that distance from NGIA at 14 miles via I-44. yay, Google Maps.

shimmy wrote:The Metro East (the apparently "far-flung, exurban, far east" land of incompetent leaders of a blue-collar, uneducated populous that refuses do anything for itself - as the argument presented by a multitude of posters here goes) is actually speaking up for once, playing its strongest cards, and people on the Missouri side are baffled and offended that it even dares to.

so then this is in fact a parochial competition, and has nothing to do with what's best for the region overall. i would love to see the metro east succeed and grow on its own merits, not by robbing St. Louis City of 70+ year-old institutions on which it depends for a significant chunk of it's tax base. i'd also like to point out that a synergy that ALREADY exists between downtown St. Louis and St. Clare County—a synergy which you claim would be improved by growth in the metro east—would be destroyed by this move.

^ me too, my preference is they stay in the city as it is already been established their for decades and continue to fulfill their mission

I just don't understand see how taking the jobs out of the city and putting them next to Scott helps the center the region let alone strengthen the downtown/urban core in the long run. Unfortunately this is a different version of Kansas-Missouri border war. In this case, instead of existing businesses relocating in the metro area based on tax incentives you got a border war by trying to get government jobs to stay or relocate. GSA by first moving VA out of downtown and possibly NGIA could put a significant hurt on the city.

Nor do I see how this administration can have any legitimacy in stating a policy of supporting the urban core if NGIA moves out of the city. Especially if NGIA intends to adds up to 2000 jobs on top of the 3000 or so. I find it even more ironic with Feds settlement Ferguson adds a million dollars plus to their budget when at the same time Feds announce that the possibility of new jobs that could come closer to Ferguson are sent farther away.

Finally I have to agree, Metro East is not in a good position in having the smaller population of the metro area. However, Illinois governance and politicians are not helping the situation at all with down state usually taking second fiddle to Chicago, completely missing out on the fracking opportunity and now a budget crises. But I do think a growth plan based on getting federal jobs to come across the river to make a federal presence in Scott AFB even bigger is a terrible approach & will do little to address East St. Louis problems let alone US Steel/Granite City.

shimmy wrote:I'd be genuinely interested to hear how a 100-acre citadel cut-off from everything around it would somehow stabilize or incentivize the development plans for North St. Louis. Apparently the Post-Dispatch's editorial board plans to be presenting this case, and I look forward to hearing this argument.

Are you kidding me? Actually, the same question can be posed to you. How can a campus that would be cut off from everything around it boost the Metro East? The campus is a “citadel” now, yet it benefits the city and the surrounding areas.

shimmy wrote:The Metro East is far from dead, and the area around Scott is doing better than other parts. That's the point. That momentum needs to continue because it's one of the few parts that is seeing that growth.

I would love to see tremendous growth happen in the Metro East – GENUINELY, however, not at the expense of my hometown – St. Louis City. I’m keeping it real. In fact, I don’t want the alternatives to be any other part of the region EXCEPT St. Louis City for this campus. If they decide on SAFB then “it is what it is”.

shimmy wrote:Previously we were arguing about the long commute that moving it to Scott would add. So, is it close enough to where the move is pointless or is it too far for convenience?

Look………Go back a page or two and review the maps I posted. Long commutes to SAFB would be problematic for people who live in the outer Missouri suburbs. Commuting into St. Louis City is not that big of commute/problem for most commuters in the region – even those in the Metro East. St. Louis City IS THE CENTER. The point also was that BOTH locations – the existing and proposed locations – are 36 minutes from SAFB. Missouri commuters will add another 36 minutes – at the least – to their commutes if SAFB is chosen.

AND if the NGA is currently working with SAFB on projects nothing would change in terms of their distance from one another - if north St. Louis is chosen. There’s no need to be “closer” when they are already working together at the same distance. Capiche?

shimmy wrote:And the editorial that I previously posted does a better job than me explaining how it's important for the base to be continually evolving and developing to meet its strategic purpose. I'll direct you to that.

It’s a Metro East newspaper. It’s not credible in this discussion.

shimmy wrote:If an inter-continental missile hits the middle of the U.S. and takes out our senior logistical command then we have bigger issues than worrying about the loss of a mapping agency. I'd take the risk/reward of command and agency cohesion over doomsday preppers.

Okay. This does not compute. If losing a mapping agency is not a big worry, why do you want it at SAFB? Leave it in St. Louis City. Face it, shimmy…..you just want the jobs over there. To your second point……No doomsday “prepper” here. It’s just better to be prepared than not. Sort of like what the Metro East is not. Also, why do you think they are discussing the U.S. Missile Defense Shield? Idea: Maybe that can be set up at SAFB since the central U.S. is so fortified.

shimmy wrote:Now this is an example of a disingenuous argument. Why didn't the Metro East go after ADM? Why doesn't the Metro East attract businesses from LA and Europe? As soon as you figure out how to accomplish that, please let Mayor Slay know so that St. Louis can start recruiting all of these businesses that are apparently just waiting for a call to come here. After all, if it's just as easy as trying to recruit these businesses, then we should have tried that as a region 40 years ago.

Ummm. St. Louis is attracting firms and start-ups from Belgium, Israel, Australia, India, Germany, France, England, Argentina, Peru, Mexico, Canada, Raleigh-Durham, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Kansas City etc. etc. etc.

Hello, where have you been for the last 10 years or so?

shimmy wrote:Plus, what business is going to move from Indianapolis to the Metro East? Indiana is actively recruiting businesses from Illinois because they offer a better business climate: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/bus … 11125529/# . The state hasn’t had a budget for 8 months and now it’s universities are starting to shut down. Please tell me what card you would play to recruit a business to Illinois.

Just because Indiana is doing what it is, it doesn’t mean the Metro East can’t play the game too. And just because the Illinois statehouse is in shambles doesn’t mean the Metro East surrenders. If you act like and feel as though you are a loser or are losing, you will be a loser.

St. Louis is making national headlines for CORTEX and the plant sciences because it decided to capitalize off its local assets. Keep in mind, Missouri as a state hasn’t done squat or has given the bare minimum in these efforts. Missouri couldn’t even give money for a MetroLink station at CORTEX, but that didn't keep CORTEX from seeking funding for it.

Like I said on my previous post…..the Metro East has strong (very strong) energy assets - refining, coal, pipelines, oil, natural gas, biogas, ethanol, steel, chemicals etc. One solar company is even talking about building one of the largest solar farms in the Midwest in East St. Louis.

The Metro East is short-changing itself, I think, by not CAPITALIZING off of these assets. The Metro East should brand these assets with a national brand image. Although these are old economy industries, it doesn’t mean the Metro East can’t build an image and jobs off of them.

It would make more sense for the Metro East to brand energy than the Metro West.

shimmy wrote:Please tell me what you want the Metro East to pursue and invest in, because apparently the city and Missouri called dibs on everything.

See above.

shimmy wrote:You will get no defense of Durbin from me, or Kirk for that matter. But you fall back on the argument of “Well, the Metro East just needs to try harder”. Yes, we’re a Metro Area of 700,000 in a state of 12 milllion, 9 million of whom live in Chicagoland. So being second to Chicago is irrelevant when Chicago is over 10x the size of the Metro East and ¾ of the whole state.

Loser mentality. Not you. Just the mentality. I suspect your leadership over there thinks the same way. It’s okay with bones. Chicago drubs the rest of the state while the politicos toss the rest of the state bones. The Metro East can never get the same attention Chicago gets, obviously, but it can get louder.

I don’t know much about Illinois politics, but the Metro East should form political partnerships with representatives from Peoria, Springfield, Rockford, Quincy, Carbondale, Effingham, Decatur etc. to leverage power against Chicago.

shimmy wrote:The re-centering the region is the big picture. Apparently that's gone over people's heads.

Nope. You do not understand that the center is already St. Louis.

shimmy wrote:No, 3,000 jobs moving to the Metro East is not going to re-center the region. But, the fact of the matter is that downtown is going to continue to struggle against the county as long as 700,000 people live to the east of it and 2.3 million live to the west.

Huh? Dude, 320,000 people live in St. Louis City about 50,000 less than St. Charles County.

shimmy wrote:There needs to be growth in the Metro East to ultimately make downtown reach it's potential.

Downtown St. Louis needs JOBS- not job losses- to reach its potential.

shimmy wrote:It's just a sad reality that in this specific case that growth comes at the expense of the city.

Not so fast.

shimmy wrote:Apparently 40-50% of downtown's workforce, according to the last editorial I posted, commute from the Metro East. I didn't know that, but it shows that while a strong downtown is good for the Metro East the opposite is also true: a strong Metro East is good for downtown.

This rationale does not compute. If 3,000 jobs would move from near downtown to SAFB, it would not be good for downtown. The move would not only hurt downtown St. Louis and the city, the move would actually cause residual job losses too.

shimmy wrote:Again, I'm interested to hear about the NGA helping Mckee's development or whatever. I'm skeptical, to put it politely. But I'll listen and read.

While McKee IS NOT the most trustworthy, it’s really about commerce. Again, visit the website. And by the way, skepticism is healthy.

shimmy wrote:I don't expect the city to be fine with it. I understand the fight that the city is putting up for it. I just think they're wrong and that Scott is the best place for the region, and I think the reason for why has already been presented.

The feelings are mutual. The City of St. Louis, I’m sure, thinks you are wrong.

Guys. Just 3 more months and we'll know where it's going.

Im in agreement with arch city 60 years of exodus and poaching jobs at the expense of the city needs to end.
Making sense is always logical however i think the future of St.Louis which are the children have suffered enough.
If our East siders want growth look for it from outside of the region and not within this instills and keeps stagnation persistent.
This balancing out the population fu fu just sounds silly and is ridiculous..

Remember 60 years of no growth for the city its time to change that keeping something thats sacred to the city history far outweighs anything and can make a true difference.

North St.Louis matters!!!