urbanSTL

My bet is we'll be getting some sweet travel pieces when the Arch Museum finally opens up next year.... regardless of opinions on the C+A+R project overall, I think that new entrance is going to provide some killer visuals and be very well received. Hopefully by that time we'll also have some more big projects underway to further juice the downtown story-line.

DogtownBnR wrote: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.

Positive article overall yes, and I appreciate that. It is at the expense of downtown somewhat, but the STL-area neighborhoods in the city and county do deserve some love.

You can forgive the Miami-based author for flubbing some of the locations (Soulard being "considerably outside downtown", for example). But the most egregious errors IMO come from the quotes of Brian Hall. You'd think someone with the title of Executive Director of the St. Louis Civic Pride Foundation - a part of the St. Louis CVC, no less - would have some clue that the Delmar Loop is not "10 miles outside of the city" and neither is Lafayette Square anywhere near "basically on the border of the city." That's surprising.

-RBB

In St. Louis schools, water fountains are symbols of inequality again
Dangerous levels of lead in dozens of public schools have made the water undrinkable — but not for white, wealthy kids.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/postever ... 6533a79392

The STL Zoo wins best free attraction in the US...

http://www.10best.com/awards/travel/bes ... ttraction/

The metros with large labor force slowdowns include some energy-driven metros where employment growth has slowed or gone negative – Houston, Oklahoma City, Tulsa – and a couple that have had a modest recovery from the Great Recession – St. Louis, Kansas City.
https://larrylittlefield.wordpress.com/ ... of-living/

^ interesting is the note about labor force size changes don't necessarily corresponds to number of jobs changes. Since wasn't there a note in the same timeframe more new jobs locally than any point since 2008. Also remembered some years ago people noted that there was going to likely be a shrinking labor pool locally due to how age distribution is here with many retiring. This could be what is going on here in part, which could contribute to a labor crunch locally.

Here's some favorable news:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/st- ... -frontier/

That is nice news. Of course the very first comment is from a fellow in Columbus suggesting that Columbus is "Arch City" and we should fight over "Gateway to the West" with Forth Worth. I suspect someone doesn't understand how nicknames work. Anyway, sorry for the distraction. It's good to see the recognition coming from one of my favorite websites.

I'm not remotely familiar with Viceland, but that looks good. Not sure if you're willing or able, but I hope you might provide a link after the show actually airs.

I'm not sure that anything on television compares to the depth of reporting of the closest not on television proxy, and that may just be the nature of the beast. Anything time sensitive like TV, or even radio, will necessarily cover things more quickly and or cover fewer things. That said, once in a while it's worth watching an interesting story in video format. I just try not to make a habit of it.

St. Louis Schools: ABANDONED (Trailer)

^After watching the Cleveland malls episode and the STL schools preview, I can already tell this show is going to make STL look horrible and....well...."abandoned".

We have Ferguson!
Arent we already horrible?
What city doesn't have any abandoned buildings? Yes we have abandoned school buildings however we're not alone .
Besides who cares what people think if you're happy to be a Saint.Louis resident whether city county region then it shouldn't bother you..
We're perfectly flawed STL style!

The show on Vice was actually very cool. Definitely worth watching the episode on St. Louis. And probably worth watching other ones too. Very well done production, lots of great camera shots, good use of music, and really candid and interesting local interviews, I thought. While the general topic is abandoned buildings, it was not a ruin porn show, or sensationalistic in any way and was actually inspiring I thought. I highly recommend checking it out.

It's on youtube now, if you don't mind low res windowed versions. It wasn't without flaw, but yes, in general I can agree with Americancitizen, it was pretty good and well worth a watch.

St. Louis officer accused of planting gun on man that he shot after chase
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.2801097

Gaahdamn, that St. Louis Abandoned Schools episode was depressing. Inspiring in some parts but it left me feeling overwhelmed at everything it's going to take to restore, not only, the city but the schools. And to think we might lose more schools, or they may be re-purposed never to be used as schools again.

We desperately need an infusion of population, investment and an inclusive vision. Even the 'We Live Here' NGA episode on public radio left me feeling the same way. Black neighborhoods have always been valued lowest and have always been prone to disinvestment, poverty, blight and finally, the target for displacement.

I'd like to see what St. Louis looks like with stable neighborhoods that can hold their shape for generations.

The entire country has been in a state of slow, but real flux. I'm not sure that neighborhood exists in the whole of the country. Or if it does, it's a thing of the unusually homogeneous. Places that were German or Italian are now Vietnamese, or Bosnian, or African American, or Gay, or Hipster. I've no real problem with schools not being schools anymore. I'd like to see beautiful buildings preserved. But does that mean that every building must be the same as it once was? I'd love to see Union Station as a railroad station, but we don't need anything remotely resembling thirty three odd tracks of terminal anymore. Four is more or less sufficient. Is that bad? Railroads aren't the dominant means of passenger transit anymore and haven't been for longer than I've been alive. St. Louis is less dense now. Families of four don't want to live in five hundred square feet anymore. Is that really bad? It's just . . . the way things went. The disinvestment in African American neighborhoods is sickening. The racial anger is infuriating. But the fact that my dad's school isn't the one that made the cut? I'd like to see it saved. I'm not going to lose a lot of sleep if it turns into apartments, or offices, or artists' lofts, or what have you. If there were a problem with overcrowding . . . but there's not. And to be frank, the parochial schools are closing too. (Maybe just a little less. And stealing money from the public schools to fund them pisses me off.) And the churches are closing. For every round of school closings there's been a similar round of church closings. In the end, the biggest problem we face is simply declining population density and no way to spread the tax burden beyond fixed borders. And the only way to change that might be to fundamentally change the way we get around. That will probably happen on its own, but I don't know that I see St. Louis ever reaching 800,000 people in such a small area again. And . . . I'm okay with that, actually. This isn't Germany. And it sure isn't Vietnam. And to be frank, I'm glad it isn't. I love both places. They're both wonderful places to visit. But lord is it crowded. (Well, Vietnam, anyway. Germany . . . maybe not so much now that I've been to Asia. Strange as that seems.)

I agree. St. Louis City might have been built for a million, but I don't think it would be a very pleasant place to live with a million people crammed into the City limits. Sure, half a million could fit comfortably in dense and flourishing neighborhoods, but a million? Quality of life likely wouldn't be anywhere near what it is now.

There's a lot of room to fix things or to build new, but we'll probably never need as many schools again.

Ebsy wrote:I agree. St. Louis City might have been built for a million, but I don't think it would be a very pleasant place to live with a million people crammed into the City limits. Sure, half a million could fit comfortably in dense and flourishing neighborhoods, but a million? Quality of life likely wouldn't be anywhere near what it is now.

Don't know if I agree with that; the city certainly would be different and more dense but overall quality of life would be shaped by many different factors. Just a quick snapshot, but if we look at compact cities like ours with different current (estimated) density levels we'd be looking at around the following population...

Minneapolis: 488,000 (7.5k/sq. mi.)
Boston: 861,000 (13k/sq.mi.)
San Francisco: 1,141,000 (18.5k/ sq. mi.)

Each of those growing cities continues to increase density and while facing their own challenges, I'd say that they enjoy an average quality of life that is at least near what we have now.

^ With those comparisons the Boston and San Francisco numbers have a couple of caveats that exist. Mainly the presence of oceans/bays that act as development barriers and also very high housing costs that's several times what it is here. also it would be interesting to note for different cities how much as a percentage of the land is places like parks and industrial areas that lower density overall, but are important land uses.