County residents who don't support a merger are just as short-sighted as the city residents in the 1800's who saw no need to be associated with the county.
Is it so hard for people in this area to take a long-term perspective?
I really don't see any benefits, long or short term through a merger. Before everyone rises up to hang me, let me explain. In Chicago, a city of greater land area and population still has severe crime issues, and their school districts are just as segregated in race and quality. The north city schools are far more white and better than the southern ones, and that won't change (west/east) through a merger. While the city may bring in a lot of money through tax revenues, they still would have to spend them all on an astronomically sized new city, which has oodles of infrastructure it's never had to deal with. The time it would take for the city to adjust to that would be quite large; not to mention the sheer bureaucacy that would need to go in place just to handle all this.
If you think this will help the poor minorities and homeless, you're just dead wrong. While a few more homeless shelters and low income lousing might be built, the city will continue to ignore their plight, due to the incredible new political pressure the city just absorbed. Last time I checked, if someone in Ladue or Clayton wanted something, they got it. Don't forget you're adopting MILLIONS of new WHITE (and in the opinion of many people on here, racist county residents) voters. Call me a cynic, but I can't see any politician willing to alienate those valubale constituants.
County residents have also known exactly where their tax monies are going: right back into their neighborhood. With a merger, tax monies will be distributed across the city. While some people on this site may think that's great, I have no desire to have my quality of life lowered to prop up a city that's made terrible decisions. It's like welfare for a city, and that's far more expensive than welfare for a person. Expect county residents to be extremely protective of their tax dollars and fight any merger attempts.
Don't look at it as just welfare for the city. We can take care of ourselves, we are proving it recently. But we are still weak, and the county is getting weaker. St. Louis County is experiencing some of the problems that plagued the city for 50 years, even if you can't see it from the front door of your mansion in Ladue or Chesterfield. The county and the city need each other to get stronger, and to survive in the future, the region needs to be stronger. We need to get over th parochial attitude of our tax dollars can only be spent in this four block area, not for the common good. Tax dollars need to be collectively spent for the common good of the area, and the city and county combined would have more collective resources for both sides to use. And this would not effect schools at all, because each district is an independant governmental agency, in no way physically tied to municipal government. A mereger is in the best interest of county and city residents, many just need to be shown that it is.
codascoram wrote:Don't forget you're adopting MILLIONS of new WHITE (and in the opinion of many people on here, racist county residents) voters. .
I think this statement shows how little of a clue you have.
Population of St. Louis County-2000 is 1,016,315
Sharing of government resources(roads,trash, sewers) have shown reduced costs due to increased buying power. Just think of Wal-Mart if they didn't have a gazillion stores would the prices be so low?
How can you criticize one city that has made bad decisions? I'm sure Creve Coeur has made bad decisions, I'm sure Kirkwood has made bad decisions, I'm sure E. St Louis has made bad decisions. Do we turn our backs on those people? No!
A County/City merger may or may not be feasible, but I don't think it will lower anyones quality of life. I think the discussion here has been so far pretty good. I'm sure there is a happy medium for city/county residents. Hopefully county residents see the benefits of a merger in terms of $$$ saved in taxes and not personal reasons.
If the city and county merger, I say all or nothing. If the city and county start slowly merging services, such a police, fire, street maintenance, and other areas, the first areas the two will collaborate on will be those areas providing the greatest benefits. A gradual process will only eat up the areas where a merger would help. Then a few years down the line, when people suggest merging, the response will be:
Why bother, we already have merged those areas that really will provide the benefits, why go any farther?
Dooley and Slay are going about this the right way so far, suggesting areas where services could be combined, getting the ideas out there, allowing people to develop the millions of iterations on how a merger would be structured. No move for merging should be started piecemeal because it will just doom the process.
People are underrating the power of the racial divide between city and county. In any merger, black political power could falter as the majority white county combined with south city exercises greater political force. Is this because white people don?t care about the same issue? No! This is gonna happen because the region is not integrated. Therefore, I don?t think the black city politicians would support a merger that would weaken there hold on regional politics. The same scenario already happened earlier this year, when the amendments to the city charter were not passed. Sadly, those in charger prefer the current situation, with the black getting the city and the whites getting the county, and h*ll with what happens to the region.
I never know if we're talking about making the city just another municipality of St. Louis County or merging the entire county into one city.
I'd like to see the city become part of the county - the county seat - before any talk of merging every municipality into a single one. Let's take baby steps before we run.
It is next to impossible to imagine the County agreeing to a merged government. Any feasible City-County cooperation would undoubtedly involve the City rejoining the County as a municipality.
Even the thought of Clayton losing its "seat" status would be unthinkable to Countians.
For Saint Louis a merger could never be a Louisville type all-at-once merger. But instead with 90+ towns in the county we need a more gradual merger, until a critical mass can be achieved.
1) Identify more county towns that would benefit from a merger and generate discussion between those towns like Clayton and Richmond Heights. If not complete merger then just merge services for now.
2) Identity county towns bordering the city, that too have suffered from sprawl and could perhaps merge (completely or just services) with the city
3) Have the city rejoin the county. This is a good baby step and would make mergers between county towns and the city easier. Otherwise border towns would have to leave the county first which I assume make such a process more difficult.
4) Promote the merger of services between the city and the county.
5) Promote regional pride. The city's and county's combined population of 1.3 million deserve a lot more respect than we get as a region now. We should be considered a first teir city rather than a mid-tier city.
6) Stop this "county versus city", "county bad or city bad", "conservative white county versus liberal city" mentality. As a life long resident of the county I am overjoyed whenever a building downtown that for my whole life was descrated shell is rehabbed, now beautiful and alive. But, in what should be a city of 1.3 million there is enough room for an urban high density core and low density suburban shell. A good city should be diverse. An no one will merger with a region that they despise.
As I county resident I have always considered the whole of Saint Louis my home and not just the county, and have never when meeting people on vacation introduced myself as being from "Saint Louis County" but instead just "Saint Louis.". Furthermore, as a typical religious right-wing conservative county resident I don't feel racism is in any way an issue in such a merger as some claim.
I believe the greatest hinderances to a merger is 100+ years of status quo, that people don't see how a merger might benefit them when they are happy the way things are and that politicians never like to give up control of their fiefdoms. The pragmatic benefits of a merger need to be communicated along with a good dose of regional pride.
james wrote:
As I county resident I have always considered the whole of Saint Louis my home and not just the county, and have never when meeting people on vacation introduced myself as being from "Saint Louis County" but instead just "Saint Louis.". Furthermore, as a typical religious right-wing conservative county resident I don't feel racism is in any way an issue in such a merger as some claim.
james wrote: Furthermore, as a typical religious right-wing conservative county resident I don't feel racism is in any way an issue in such a merger as some claim.
codascoram wrote:If you think this will help the poor minorities and homeless, you're just dead wrong. While a few more homeless shelters and low income lousing might be built, the city will continue to ignore their plight, due to the incredible new political pressure the city just absorbed.
Wouldn't, in effect, the County be absorbing the city? And wouldn't the considerable financial power of the county be there to assist in the re-education, training and rehabilitation of the homeless? Or are you insinuating that the MILLIONS of white countians are so heartless they will ignore all the poor minorities, and vote down measures to assist them?...
Minorities are not the only low income people. Whites are 60% of welfare recipients. The County has slightly over one million people not millions and of those a little less than 800,000 are white. Keep in mind that the core or majority of black residents live in the County. So, enough white County verse black City or whatever. Faith based groups tend to the impovershed and those in need more in the County. The County is around 55% to 45% politically liberal and not majority conservative.
The County has been more successful at electing and yes I said Electing a minority gevernment leader than the City in terms of timing, history, and his better abilities than Bosley. I support Dooley and God Bless him.
james wrote: Furthermore, as a typical religious right-wing conservative county resident I don't feel racism is in any way an issue in such a merger as some claim.
Is this sarcasm?
Yes and no. I had just read too many reasons, given in this thread, for why such a merger could never happen. Yeah, it would be hard to achieve but none of the revitalation of the city has ever been easy. I used to work downtown and would take walks to look at the buildings during lunch. I remember watching the Ambasador Theatre being demolished and it seemed that downtown would never get any better. Boy was I wrong!
It seems that many of the reasons given are based on stereotyping of people in either the county or the city. I just felt as one whom much of the county resident stereotype may be considered true, this assumption of "rasism" is not.
Let's just not assume that the majority of Saint Louisians are too petty to work for the common good.
Every time I mention a way in which the City and the county could cooperate, I get an In Box full of nervous phone messages from allies and friends in both the City and the county.
Toronto went through an amalgamation in 1998 with very limited success. The primary motivator was money with initial estimates of saving $300 million a year by eliminating duplication in personnel and services. Then the projection was revised downward to $240 million, then to $150 million. Seven years later there's no evidence that the merger saved any money at all. Moreover, its been the source of a lot of political and labour discontent. If St Louis goes down this path, it should look to other large cities who have been through this to avoid the same mistakes.
The primary motivator of any merger proposal, is, of course efficiency. But that's exactly the wrong way to market it. In the St. Louis area, merger would not be just about efficiency. A merger of city and county into one unit, into one city, or even the city entering the county would be a symbolic move towards regional cooperation.
The County has begun its transitional phase, from a predominantly upper and middle class suburban county to a semi-urban county of all socioeconomic background and races. Diversity seems to invite tension, at least in St. Louis's history. How will the County react in 2010 to the gains in black population and the loss of white population? Will it react the same way City residents did in the later decades of the 20th century with each decennial census? Will there be a mass exodus of the middle class from the older, more urban areas of the County to the greener, more vinyl-clad pastures of western St. Louis MSA Counties?
Why should we, the City and County, address our similar problems as separate and unrelated, especially as we are now ending our polarization and beginning to coalesce in our demography?
Certainly, this is a waste of resources. Obviously, no one municipality--the City or any of the County's 91--can handle the problems of alarmingly rapid sprawl-style suburbia such as is seen in St. Charles County. We will never be a "thriving" urban area without cohesion at the core--which, due to sprawl, now includes much of the County.
The language of any merger proposal in the St. Louis area must not use the deadly term "efficiency" or even "money-saving". Efficiency means the sacrifice of equity, to many, and frugality is a victim of widespread cynicism and, sometimes, as noted above, lack of realization.
I'm fairly confident that an in-depth merger study would find cost-cutting resource pooling and would perhaps be more efficient than the current level of political fragmentation. But, a St. Louis City-County merger would be more symbolic than practical. Even a nominal merger in which nothing really changed would be a huge step forward for St. Louis--so long as the continued status quo were not so easily recognizable. The reason I say this is that St. Louisans believe our parochialism will never be conquered--and, in believing so, help to sustain that attitude. To even merge in name only would entail an extra layer of cooperation between the two most important and powerful, albeit the two most complex and troubled entities in our region. I believe that this type of merger would effect economic development in the older parts of the region, fueled by a newfound sense of regionalism and competition with other Midwestern cities. We're at this point no longer "City" and "County", but "St. Louis", and the natural foil to St. Louis becomes...Kansas City, Indianapolis, Minneapolis.
To clarify, what I mean by a nominal merger is that the City would rejoin the County as a municipality OR the City and the County would minimally share services and assume one name: The Metropolitan Government of St. Louis or Metro St. Louis or New St. Louis.
A nominal merger would prepare St. Louis mentally for its next logical step--to merge more services, and, ultimately, governments. A "real" merger would then make St. Louis, the face of which would be changed internally by the shedding of the typical St. Louis inferiority complex, attractive to investors and the creative class. A Midwestern Mecca then develops in the place of a tattered Rust Belt sleepy city.
Well said. In fact, that was an amazing post. Being relatively new to the area and spending most of my life in Canada, I'm still gaining an appreciation for St Louis' history, both good and bad. I can see your recommendation for a nominal merger as an important first step, and perhaps a move that a lot of local politicians might support given the status quo and other more extreme alternatives. Thanks Matt.
I would encourage the idea of a city-state so as to benefit all parties and attract greater investment. East-West Gateway could be given more responsibilities and teeth.
I must sound like a radical and impractical, but it would greatly benefit the whole region.
I have only read the responses on this last page, but IMO I think a lot of the sentiment on this board is misguided. More government is the LAST thing the city of St. Louis needs.
The petty city government is what has destroyed much of this city--and it is a great credit to the citizens of this city that they have saved so much and are still fighting to take it back--whether well intentioned or the inevitable corruption. The dozens of neighborhoods mercilessly destroyed by HUD to make way for failed housing projects such as the nationally notorious Pruitt-Igoe to Laclede Town to Darst-Webb--just thank your lucky stars that they didn't get Soulard as planned in the 40s!
The Arena, (and from what I gather, I'm out of town) the Century Building, the whole block next to the Wainwright building on the mall, and countless others were vicitim to gov't planning or cronyism.
Most of the crumbling buildings in the city are in such shape because of excessive regulations, taxation, etc. Notice how building renovation has taken off now that taxes are lower because of the historic preservation credit? Now imagine if other taxes like the property tax were lowered, etc!
Don't forget that government subsidizes urban sprawl through forcing people to pay for the suburbanites highways. Also don't forget that "public" transportation was an invention of the private sector. All of New York's subways were built by private companies until the government seized them. The tunnels were originally built relatively fast and never went over budget because that meant the company went out of business, something that unfortunately doesn't happen with government-they just raise taxes more.
Having the county and the city split was a good thing. People voted with their feet and so did many businesses, they went where the taxes were lower. This is the American way. Had the county not been there to provide relief, they might have left the entire region. Want the city to thrive again? Get rid of the pompous aldermen, oppressive taxes, and pathetic services they provide. Let the people live their lives and protect private property. Please don't spread this disease to the county (which I agree is not perfect).
Sorry to rant, but to sum it up: A government that has the power to give also has the power to take it all away. What city do we want to emulate, Detroit (lots of government) or Hong Kong (hardly any government).
<"Having the county and the city split was a good thing. People voted with their feet and so did many businesses, they went where the taxes were lower. This is the American way. Had the county not been there to provide relief, they might have left the entire region. Want the city to thrive again? Get rid of the pompous aldermen, oppressive taxes, and pathetic services they provide. Let the people live their lives and protect private property. Please don't spread this disease to the county (which I agree is not perfect). ">
Ridding of the ward/alderman system would be a way of making a more centralized (i.e., bigger) government for the City. A government containing more municipalities than before need not be more intrusive and bureaucratic. Streamlining services is meant to dismantle political fragmentation and redundancy--and thus to increase efficacy.
It is my opinion that there should be regulations to make incorporation of a new city/town more difficult, especially one looking to incorporate within a metropolitan area. What city of 10 people, such as Champ in North County, needs to incorporate? I wonder what city's fire and police departments serve Champ, where "City" or "Village Hall" is. Can Champ provide services to its very few residents, assuming they're not very wealthy, better than St. Louis County or a larger neighboring municipality? I can't answer that question with certainty, but I can offer that I believe the larger government is more financially suited and is probably better prepared to provide these services.
Bastiat, you say that NY subways were built privately. I would like to point out that the DC Metro system was built publicly/government. If we had waited for private companies to build it, there would be no Metro. It is one of the finest in the US and has one of the highest riderships in the country. Many people credit Metro for helping make DC the great city it is today. The first line opened in 1976 with 4.6 miles and 5 Station. 30 years later it has 103 miles and 83 stations. I point that out because St. Louis Metrolink actually started with a longer line and more stations. Given 30 years that MetroDC has and expanded as planned, St. Louis Metro will have an extremly positive influence on the development of our city, IMO. I think it is an example of government moving St. Louis towards a brighter future.
I think your biggest issue is with a bloated and inefficient government taking over a larger area. That makes the assumption that the City of St. Louis will be taking over the County. However, to make this merger work, that isn't going to be the case. The Merger will have to take a different form to be accepted and workable.
Having a line down the middle doesn't promote good or less government, just a fractured government that isn't working together. Your argument might be good if trying to convince people that government is bad, but it doesn't convince me that Skinker has to be a major divide in the Metro area.
Urban St. Louis spills deep into St. Louis County. Skinker is a false line that divides. Divided we fall. I think it is time for us to join together and stop the fall. The resources of St. Louis City and St. Louis County combined would create a dynamic that would put St. Louis back where it belongs.
It is my opinion that there should be regulations to make incorporation of a new city/town more difficult, especially one looking to incorporate within a metropolitan area. What city of 10 people, such as Champ in North County, needs to incorporate? I wonder what city's fire and police departments serve Champ, where "City" or "Village Hall" is. Can Champ provide services to its very few residents, assuming they're not very wealthy, better than St. Louis County or a larger neighboring municipality? I can't answer that question with certainty, but I can offer that I believe the larger government is more financially suited and is probably better prepared to provide these services.
My grandma used to live in Crystal Lake Park, which is a municipality that's basically the size of a subdivision, located between Des Peres, Frontenac and Town & Country. They contracted police and fire protection through Frontenac, and I can't remember who handled trash pickup. That's probably how Champ (lame name) does it.
I'm sure trash pick-up in Champ is free since it is pretty much a giant landfill owned by Fred Weber Inc.. They incorporated for that purpose alone to avoid zoning restrictions. In fact the village chairman's house is owned by Fred Weber.
