urbanSTL

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.

Ebsy wrote:

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?

Yea I think cities can absolutely have both and succeed. Disposable income can especially vary when a renters market blows up and all the sudden your making the same amount and rent increases 15%

downtown2007 wrote:

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.

1) home ownership may limit mobility, but ease of abandoning ones apartment and moving away from St. Louis doesn't really help us. definitely we need more rental units for those transitioning into St. Louis from elsewhere, and for those who intend to stay but don't want to deal with home maintenance, but ultimately we want some significant portion of those transplants to put down permanent roots in the city.

2) there may be a case for majority home ownership limiting entrepreneurship by limiting the flow of fresh blood but i'm not convinced.

3) currently in St. Louis one can make payments on a mortgage that are equivalent to or less than a monthly rent payment, so i'm not buying that it limits discretionary spending—at least not yet. and like joelo suggested, in "hot" rental markets like San Fran and NYC people often have to make numerous sacrifices (i.e. take on multiple roommates, poor location, cramped conditions) in order to have any discretionary income left over.

True but their homeownership rates aren't nearly as high as in STL.

Home ownership rates aren't nearly as high because owning a house is rediculously expensive in some other cities. Young people are priced out of that market.

It my eyes single family home ownership limits mobility, limits entrepreneurship, and consumes discretionary spending.

How so? My mortgage is cheaper than rent in most places. I assume by mobility you mean you can't just pick up and move to another city as easily because you own a house? How is being stuck in a year lease for an apartment that much different than owning a house you have to sell?

I don't think home ownership is a problem, but 30 year mortgages might be.

https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation ... -right-now

Nice write-up on St. Louis on Thrillist!

There are some inaccuracies with regards to neighborhood proximity to Downtown, but overall, positive article.

^Yep. Very nice article. Worth sharing.

You're not kidding about the distance issue. I'm so used to suburbanites (like my mother) insisting that Forest Park is downtown that hearing that Soulard is "considerably outside" a neighborhood it abuts or that the loop is "ten miles" from a city that makes its eastern border is amusing. (As it happens, U.City City Hall is just under seven miles from city hall via Delmar/Skinker/FPP/Market. Six and a half to Blueberry Hill . . . which was the real center of U. City until Silly House II defeated Edwards.) So to my mother the city is downtown. To millennials downtown is the city?

Don't you know that Everything east of skinker is "downtown?"

This article kind of slams on downtown. Ignores Wash Ave and the fact our downtown DID get converted into "loft spaces en masse".


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Our time is coming. All the cards are in place