Someone mentioned "camera infrastructure" as one of the cool new things coming to the riverfront. I wondered what that is. Why would "camera infrastructure" be part of the draw to bring more visitors to the Riverfront.

According to a Google search, it appears "camera infrastructure" is a form of stepped up security. Great.

A drawing card to attract more visitors to the riverfront is stepped up security. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't exactly call that a drawing card.

If I am fearful for my personal safety, I'm not going to decide to go to a sketchy area because there are now security cameras.

Security cameras might help to improve already popular destinations, like the CWE and Laclede's Landing.

But to turn a dead area into a live one, we're offering stepped up security?

What are we now? Everything is run through the lens of personal safety, cop vision, and security? And appealing to the people that would be comforted by such measures is our target demographic for enlivening the riverfront?

Excuse me while I reach for the air sickness bag!

It's somewhere in the "Arch Project HIts a Snag" thread.

Security cameras don't make me feel any better. They just move crime someplace else. If they do anything. Maybe they help solve crimes, but I doubt they're much of a deterrent.

Having cameras helps solve crimes, solving crimes helps punish criminals, punishing criminals has a deterrent effect. Can't hurt to have them there.

Part of the design for LKS Blvd includes installation of fiber optic cable the length of most of the project. The existing cameras would be connected. And if the SLDC can win a grant they've applied for, they would install more cameras north of Eads Bridge and south of Poplar.

The existing cameras have been pretty successful from what I've been told by the SLDC.

Leonor K. Sullivan has a very real crime problem. Be it drag races (anybody remember the "shadow driver" a year or two back who surfed his car into the PSB legs?), violence or drug use/sale, after the park closes the Riverfront is an interesting scene, to say the least.

The cameras are necessary (and appreciated!) going forward to make a safer, more accessible downtown Riverfront. If you remember, the originally-selected City+Arch+River plan had LKS converted to a car-free area between Poplar and the Eads. That would have been horrible, of course, but it was a first response to an existing issue.