urbanSTL

The Fining of Black America
Is Ferguson an anomaly?
http://priceonomics.com/the-fining-of-black-america/

Talk about random, I was watching ESPN the other day. They were showing highlights of Iceland defeating Austria in soccer, the Euro tournament. They were showing the team celebrate after winning in stoppage time. The announcer for Iceland went crazy like I've never heard before. Long story short, for some reason in the middle of the highlights, ESPN showed a clip with the population of St. Louis at 318,000 and the population of Iceland, comparing the two, to illustrate how small the country is.

I know this is kind of an odd "St. Louis in the national media" post. I always find it to be annoying when Misinformed individuals reference the population of the CITY only. Again, odd place for a St. Louis population reference to show up.

hebeters2 wrote:The Fining of Black America
Is Ferguson an anomaly?
http://priceonomics.com/the-fining-of-black-america/

They report 38 municipalities >5,000 people across the country got more than 10% of revs from fines and fees. This leaves out numerous STL munis.

Does small size account for higher portion coming from fines and fees or does it still track with race as with the >5,000 ones?

In many ways this is more clickbait than news, but the headline on my phone was accompanied by this (slightly dated and presumably stock) photo . . .



I knew from the headline that it wasn't going to be a particularly valuable story, but I had to see what accompanied this rather nice shot of Collinsville Avenue: The 10 Most Dangerous States in America 2016. The kicker? They're using the shot to stand in for Missouri. Tennessee gets Beale Street. Louisiana gets Bourbon Street. Nevada gets the Strip . . . and Missouri gets confused with one of the most depressed blocks in Illinois. (Not the most depressed, necessarily. Cairo can give the East Saint some stiff competition.) So the article is poor clickbait that shows Missouri in an unfavorable light (which, to be fair, we do sort of earn) AND it uses a picture from Illinois to do it. Nicely done Street! Ah well. Such is life in "flyover" land.

DogtownBnR wrote: I know this is kind of an odd "St. Louis in the national media" post. I always find it to be annoying when Misinformed individuals reference the population of the CITY only. Again, odd place for a St. Louis population reference to show up.

Seems a bit overly sensitive. The city of St. Louis population stacks up well to that of the country of Iceland. Seems you would have preferred something more along the lines of "Iceland has roughly the same population as the Springfield-Jacksonville-Lincoln, IL Combined Statistical Area." Is that a better picture painted for people watching the game?

Ricke002 wrote:

Seems a bit overly sensitive.

I somewhat disagree. While I understand that the audience actually paying attention or caring about the STL reference is minimal, for some, perception is reality. We here in STL, as you know, often dispute many stereotypes and negative perceptions and base our logic on the skewed stats. Many in the pro-merger circles site the stats causing negative perceptions, as one of many reasons to consolidate STL. When STL is dealing with the 'dying city', 'shrinking city', '2nd largest city in Missouri' & 'the 60th largest US city', having that publicized is never good, even if it happens randomly on some ESPN highlight. There are actually many lazy and uneducated people in the world, that think the region's population, rather than the City of STL population, is down to 318K.

My main point was not to get into that discussion too deeply. I just thought it was odd. By the way, there are a lot of cities that are well-known, that are actually close to Iceland's 330K people. I would rather have one of those cities mentioned. . .

Always amazed by how much people are paying elsewhere on those HGTV shows

^^ They ended up getting it for $100K!

The story was on radio and TV.

Stl Today - Black St. Louis police officers' association wants Chief Dotson to resign

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metr ... 4e50a.html

They certainly have a point on demographics: the police force remains mostly white for a city that certainly isn't mostly white.

A very reliable source told me that Dotson is definitely running for mayor. Whether he does so while remaining Chief will be interesting.

hiddeninput wrote:A very reliable source told me that Dotson is definitely running for mayor. Whether he does so while remaining Chief will be interesting.

He is running. It's a sure bet.


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Here's a nice article written by the Associated Press featuring home buying in St. Louis. It focuses on the affordability of homes here for young people buying their first home. Also a brief mention of the CWE adding tech jobs:

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... 174a2.html

It's interesting to read the full AP version, compared to the edited version printed by the Post.

Nice report on CBS Sunday Morning about the Blues Museum http://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-new-museu ... the-blues/

Young people living in cramped apartments are the cities that succeed. Not ones where people spend their disposable income on homes. Home buying is a common trap STL peeps fall into.


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downtown2007 wrote:Young people living in cramped apartments are the cities that succeed. Not ones where people spend their disposable income on homes. Home buying is a common trap STL peeps fall into.
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Am I the only one that thinks this is ridiculous?

I think successful cities have a place for home-owners as well as apartment/condo dwellers.

framer wrote:I think successful cities have a place for home-owners as well as apartment/condo dwellers.

True but their homeownership rates aren't nearly as high as in STL. It my eyes single family home ownership limits mobility, limits entrepreneurship, and consumes discretionary spending.