Alex left. 

He was the best. Not only reporting, but telling a story about each development and how that would affect St. Louis.

Biggest thing missing in current waves is context. Developments are simply reported. Emphasis is more on aesthetics, construction process, and $$. No architectural dissection, no talk about density, no analyzing current neighborhoods, properties, etc. 

When a development was proposed, it seemed the conversation would go on for months. Now, new development is only filtered and factual. 

I expect NextSTL to come back. The platform is there and they have the followers, they just need to reorganize and come back. Maybe now they are finally getting that redesign which is why nothing has been written for a month. 

chaifetz10 wrote:They got a redesign just a few years ago - as part of a major fundraising campaign that also benefited this site too.  Zero reason to redesign a site that doesn't have consistent new content.

Their logo was the only thing changed. UrbanSTL was the biggest change. I was part of their Slack at the time, I remember seeing the conceptual design they were going with. What we have now is no where even close to what their vision was post-fundraiser.

I do wonder where the money I pledged went.  The site was not redesigned as promised, though this one was.  

Sad to see - that was really the site that brought a huge cultural shift to how a lot of people viewed St. Louis.  The new owner really got over his tips. Love the passion and enthusiasm but if you don't have the time you aren't actually helping anyone.

NextSTL to me is lot like Socketsite for the San Francisco/Bay Area.  It has to be a lot of work for the owner to maintain and provide a steady stream of content for the rest of us to engage in.  I can see where it works well in San Fran with the a lot of content to write on as well as enough clicks to get added revenue for the time that goes into it.   So more power to NextSTL if they can find the energy to keep it going because it will need a consistent stream of content to make it work in my mind.

What I think works well with Urbanstl and its format is a lot of the content is added in the discussion and posts as well as a development can go quiet, or in active but more times than not the thread is revived when someone learns, hears or has some content to add.  It just works well for the size of St. Louis,  the amount of development and the number of users your going to keep it financially viable for the time put into it in my mind.   

Like both so hope that both can keep going as well as Chris work.  I think it is impressive how much you can find and engage in when it comes to discussing St. Louis built environment.  I can find something on San Fran but very little in terms of discussing Oakland/Berkeley area built environment even though I drive by a lot of tower cranes dotting Oakland and countless rehabs over the last couple of years (Oakland had more residential units under construction in 2017-2018 than San Fran, it might have flipped again).  

Mark Groth wrote: Anyone know the future of NextSTL? Haven't seen a lot of new content in a couple months. Really miss it. I learned a lot from that site.

Is it basically a zombie site? 

The last four posts are as follows: 
June 2nd: Sowing Insolvency: Parking Lot on Kingshighway
May 27th: Demo Alert: 1500 S Grand (this article is 138 words) 
May 24th: Remembering Brentwood’s ‘Garden of Eden’
April 16th: Campbell House Museum to Begin Million Dollar Addition (this article is 251 words) 

Have there not been any significant urban development issues to highlight in the last 2-1/2 months? I would like to see nextstl succeed, but averaging one article per month for four months, not a single one of which discusses a significant new development or investment in the City (sorry Campbell House) or even County means it's just irrelevant. 

People will say, "well they don't just want to regurgitate basic development announcements that are broken by the P-D, Biz Journal, etc...." But the thing is, there was a time when, even if nextstl didn't break a story, I still wanted to hear their (generally Alex's) take on it. A new 200+ apartment mid-rise replacing a 60s-70s 40+ apartment building and townhome on Laclede? A soccer stadium being added to Downtown West? Bunge moving their HQ to St. Louis? Wash. U. completing their huge East Campus project? The accelerating transformation of Botanical Heights? SLU Hospital entering a new era with new facilities? The Downtown boutique hotel boom? To name a few. 

Whatever it was, even if it wasn't breaking news, I looked to NextSTL for incisive critique and analysis. That's just not the case anymore. I wonder if it might not be best off closing up shop at this point. Or maybe it's already a sort of living dead. 

The lack of content has been disappointing for sure.
I've been on the road most of the summer so haven't written anything. Also I'm by far not the best person to write about development.
While Alex wrote the lion's share or articles, there has been over 150 different authors during nextstl's existance. Anyone is welcome to write something. Submit it to richard@nextstl.com and I'll work on getting it published.

That's pretty much been the plan for some time now. Mustering the capacity to execute it has been the challenge.

If anyone wants to give blanket permission to repost their development photos that they post in the forum, I'll put them on the nextstl Twitter. (maybe we do that by default by posting them here, idk)

^I’d have to disagree. Reposting photos on a Twitter account is not the right start to get NextSTL back to relevance.

Reposting Tweets is actually most of what it has been doing (not to take anything away from you’re diligence and effort at that) over the last few months, but just aggregating Tweets is not what drove people to or will drive people to the NextSTL website.

Mark Groth wrote: Really happy to see people still care like I do. What made NextSTL valuable to me was not really the constant development announcements. That was the feel good, and it was good to have it in one centralized place.  But the critical eye and sense of good/bad was the thing. Mainstream media won't provide this. Journalists are paid to report facts and at worst just circulate press releases. 

I learned things from reading NextSTL. I merely get informed from Post-Dispatch, etc, but don't feel challenged in any way after reading it.

I've learned more and wanted to be an engaged citizen and keep an eye on the good/bad of this city from Steve Patterson, Alex, Michael Allen, Matt Fernandez (who I think is still active here) and Rick Bonasch's STL Rising blog. They were the OGs who got me thinking larger. Steve is still at it, Ecology of Absence is long gone, I haven't heard from the others in awhile in website/long form. It was the criticism and bigger thinking, the education they provided that really changed me.

I try to keep that flame alive, but I always felt NextSTL was the perfect mix of boosterism and criticism, and they had a huge audience and respectability. Alex had incredible drive and I miss it.

Reading this makes me hopeful NextSTL is still in the public consciousness and could be the place to learn about good urbanism and expose some of the failures and limitations of our current political and city systems.

Trust me, we need it. And we need a consortium of like minded people to challenge the status quo. A team.

+1000000 

I found all these amazing resources as a teenager back 10-12 years ago, really changed the way I saw the area and really the world!

Agreed. Was a 14 year old in rural Missouri when I found NextSTL. It launched both a love for STL and a career in urban planning.

I've always wondered if Alex is involved in anything similar in Cincy.