urbanSTL

Greatest St. Louis wrote:

roger wyoming II wrote:^ Investments have been made in the area, are being made in the area, and will continue to be made in the area. Let's not be distracted by the shiny object and concentrate on city building in our high-potential areas. Again, it might be possible to fit in a stadium and still get decent urban form (see Banks, etc.) but in general, look at where all these single-use NFL stadiums are being placed in more healthy cities in the past few years.... Boston, San Fran, D.C., Philadelphia, etc. That should tell us something.

Could you elaborate on the investments currently being made in the area, and the ones that are on the horizon?

Further, what should it tell us? In that same timeframe, we've seen stadiums built in Cleveland, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, etc. on the edges of downtown, right next to the highway and/or body of water... just like ours.

Good questions.... I feel like what we're having a rams stadium question on 40 different threads so I'm going to take this over the rams thread.

At times it is embarrassing to be from Saint Louis.

I am NEVER embarrassed of being from the city I love greatly. I am embarrassed for the idiots that are getting the press.

^ That's all you got out of that piece? I thought it was excellent and a nice personal insight into the experience of one black middle class family in Saint Louis that in many ways seems representative of many others. I see his parents left Pershing in 1995... I can imagine the block is a lot better now than then.

^^ I don't think he is encouraging others to leave; he left the region long ago as he began his career but now he is also leaving the ghosts of Saint Louis behind. And he realizes that although he doesn't experience the ghosts of racist pasts of other cities he's lived in, other African Americans living there do. But he can't quite dump his ghosts.

^ the only people being whiney and insincere are those who dismiss voices like those of the author with such ease.

What I find tiresome, or more disturbing, is that with the Ferguson riots and pending loss of the Rams, it's become fashionable for those with a grudge against St. Louis to come out of the woodwork and kick it while its down. And I feel the author was doing that. And worse, sensed he was exploiting the top-of-mind events in Ferguson to garner himself another published piece and a little buzz.

arch city wrote:http://www.progressive.org/news/2015/02 ... y-hometown

I don't understand why people are blaming the author for his genuine seemingly heart-felt observations. It is interesting. He's a native. Listen. He'd f**kin' rather live in f**kin' Ft. Wayne, Indiana than in St. Louis.

For the record, Maya Angelou and Josephine Baker both BLASTED St. Louis for its racial problems. They left and never returned.

Also, I love reading a lot of the comments here about how "St. Louis is no different than Atlanta or Chicago, etc." in regards to race. That sh*t is HILARIOUS to me. People typically don't move to where they will feel uncomfortable. St. Louis has lost a lot of people to those cities.

As I see it, long-time generational St. Louisans are oblivious to the depth/scope of the racial problems in St. Louis. The problem is deeply entrenched with many tentacles and layers that have yet to be lanced.

People who live in St. Louis and have never lived anywhere else don't know how bad it is in St. Louis. They are like the man and woman caught in a cycle of domestic violence. The husband/boyfriend abuses the woman and she accepts and tolerates the abuse until she has had enough OR an epiphany. She's been in the madness for too long. Once she's gone and leaves the abuse behind to become free, she then wonders why did she stay and take it for so long. Her eyes are wide open.

Still, the husband (or boyfriend) is miffed and finds her actions incredible because he doesn't see himself as having done anything wrong despite years and years of perpetrating abuse (institutional racism). He's in big time denial and thinks she just needs to stay in her place. "She's the problem", "It's her own fault" while never taking ownership of his own behaviors. Meanwhile everybody leaves and shuns him and considers him a pariah.

Ferguson was ground zero and the straw that broke the camel's back. St. Louis truly is a cesspool of racial strife and divisiveness. Any one who denies it likely hasn't lived anywhere else. They haven't broken away from the cycle of racial animus to have their eyes opened. It's pretty sad and disgusting to see. Looking at residential segregation statistics of other cities don't portray the overall social livability of a city or region. So while other cities surely have racial tensions, St. Louis' unlike any other I've experienced. EVER. St. Louis is a social dump. Look around you!

I've lived in different cities and have traveled pretty well inside and outside of the United States - and the only place I've ever been called (multiple unprovoked times) "nigger" is in St. Louis and on the Internet by cyber chumps.

St. Louis is a dump - at least socially and racially. Hopefully, Ferguson is the impetus for change in St. Louis.

It is my hope millennials, diehard progressives, new immigrants and "post-racial" advocates will save it from itself. It is also my hope they won't fall into that anti-social "Delmar Divide" mentality that exists in St. Louis. I would rather them leave or not come at all.

St. Louis has enough problems.

shadrach wrote:What I find tiresome, or more disturbing, is that with the Ferguson riots and pending loss of the Rams, it's become fashionable for those with a grudge against St. Louis to come out of the woodwork and kick it while its down. And I feel the author was doing that. And worse, sensed he was exploiting the top-of-mind events in Ferguson to garner himself another published piece and a little buzz.

The blood is in the water and the rural Missourah politician sharks are about to have a feeding frenzy. I get the feeling that between now and the 2016 elections the primary goal of the state legislature will be to tear St. Louis down: literally and figuratively.

dweebe wrote:The blood is in the water and the rural Missourah politician sharks are about to have a feeding frenzy. I get the feeling that between now and the 2016 elections the primary goal of the state legislature will be to tear St. Louis down: literally and figuratively.

Sometimes sh*t has to be torn down then rebuilt.

How about getting rid of all of the RACISTS and bigots - including a few on this board!

arch city wrote:

dweebe wrote:The blood is in the water and the rural Missourah politician sharks are about to have a feeding frenzy. I get the feeling that between now and the 2016 elections the primary goal of the state legislature will be to tear St. Louis down: literally and figuratively.

Sometimes sh*t has to be torn down then rebuilt.

The problem is living in the house while it's in the process of being torn down.

dweebe wrote:The problem is living in the house while it's in the process of being torn down.

The house is already dilapidated and damn-near condemned.