urbanSTL

Private streets and sidewalks are nothing new to St. Louis, in fact, St. Louis is well known for the ones it already has.



According to the Central West End Association's website,

St. Louis is well known for its grand private places. And, because of the strict regulations regarding building standards and single-family zoning, they remain as a rare collection of outstanding turn-of-the-century architecture.



A private place is not the same as a cul-de-sac, although both are plentiful in the CWE. Private streets control traffic and maintain a quiet, almost park-like atmosphere. They are owned by the residents, represented by a Board of Trustees. Each private street has an indenture, or covenant, that outlines its governance and acts as a deed restriction. Property owners pay annual fees to support projects approved by the residents. The City of St. Louis provides police and fire protection, as well as trash removal services. The residents pay for maintaining or paving sidewalks and street surfaces, maintaining or planting the trees, and maintaining or installing street lights and entry gates. A cul-de-sac, such as those in the 4300 blocks of Maryland and Laclede Avenues, serves the same traffic control purpose but remains a public street.

In addition to existing private streets, other previously public streets were incorporated into private streets to fight the post-WWII social problems. The example of Pershing Place is given by the CWE Association's website:

With the end of World War II came the flight to the suburbs. Many St. Louisans moved west to escape the urban blight that threatened their once-peaceful neighborhoods. Some City residents, however, chose to "stay put" and fought to keep their neighborhoods intact. In 1958, residents of the 4500 through 4900 blocks of Pershing Avenue incorporated these two blocks and restricted all residences to single-family dwellings. It was the first time that the City had allowed a private place to be created from a public thoroughfare. The street now was known as "Pershing Place."

Notice how all of the private streets are the ones that remain most intact in this general area of the city? Granted, these were some of the nicest streets to begin with, but many areas of North St. Louis were once wealthy white areas as well. The difference is that the ones who controlled their surrounding environment were better able to hold the neighborhood together. Today Pershing Place is one of the most intact blocks in its area, the same can't be said for the public streets that once boasted nice houses to the north.





Looking at the precident set, why would it be so bad for St. Louis to continue to be a pioneer in this tradition?

loftlover wrote:I guess Larry Rice wants Lucas Park to remain a homeless refuge. Totally not cool, I pitty those loft owners at Knickerbocker . . .







http://www.urbanreviewstl.com/archives/000780.php

Why doesn't Rice let the homeless stay at his house? Rice is a hypocrite who should burn in Hell for the headaches he has caused many people in St. Louis.

Jeff wrote:

Bastiat wrote:Private streets and sidewalks are nothing new to St. Louis, in fact, St. Louis is well known for the ones it already has.

Certainly, these are beautiful, well kept streets, as you point out. However, it is my understanding, that the public is not allowed on these streets. How do you propose we build a vibrant, urban, pedestrian-oriented city when people aren't even allowed to walk on the sidewalks of private places?



Furthermore, these are generally wealthy homeowners who can afford to pay for street upkeep. Do you think this could work today in N. St. Louis or Welston?



I'm not being antagonistic with my questions; I'm just trying to get a better idea of what you have in mind

The whole idea behind the idea of private streets is that the owner gets to decide who gets to walk on them. In the case of the private mansion-lined streets in the CWE, the owners decided that they only wanted the people living on the street and their guests on them. The ideal use of the property was to keep the residential street quiet and safe.



In contrast, the owners of the sidewalks downtown are business owners. They want to make money by having as many customers as possible, which means having as many people as possible attracted to walking on the street. This means wider, well lit and well kept sidewalks. A lot of people rightly complain about bike racks not being available, or when city hall does put them in, they install them incorrectly. A call to city hall will not change this, but if you complain to a business owner about it, he will likely listen to you, because it will mean more customers for him from bike riders, etc.



This also means meters more in-touch with the current retail situation. Most people hate shopping downtown because of meters. The prices could vary, reflecting true demand, rather than city hall trying to squeeze blood from a stone. Is anyone else appalled that the city still checks the meters up by Crown Candy?





The city streets in North St. Louis and Wellston have rotted to a terrible point where it would cost a lot to fix them. If the city had done its job, this would not have been the case. But as I pointed out before, different neighborhoods have to fight each other for the limited funds which are collected citywide (correct me if I'm wrong on that). Should we be suprised that the politically connected in the CWE and Washington Ave get to the table before North St. Louis. I think the proper thing to do would be to redo all of the streets up there and give neighborhoods the property so that they would be responsible for the upkeep to make sure that they don't deteriorate to the point they are now.



I think this would help with individual restoration projects as well. A developer might take on more a neighborhood if they knew they would have control of the sidewalks instead of waiting years for the city to get them redone. It could also keep undesireables from selling drugs from the street corners, etc in the seedier areas. Just a thought.





As for your previous post, I was refering to deinstutionalization, not homelessness. I read about it from interview given to Dr. Thomas Szaz by Reason Magazine.

MSN take on how to handle panhandlers.....



http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Sa ... dlers.aspx

Matt wrote:A neighbor who goes to Soulard Market every Sat. told me that the homeless are becoming so predominant that she's thinking of not going anymore. They panhandle in the market and take up all the space in the park to sit while you eat something. The smell of urine and feces is so strong around the bandstand that it has become completely unusable by the community. The market located a port-a-potty there and someone lit it on fire one night, nearly burning down the entire bandstand.

I'm sure if Francis Slay knew about this there would be police there moving them somewhere else (Why can't they go to East St. Louis)?