urbanSTL

I think a lot of people see a place like Indianapolis growing and think its some kind of urban success story... that is so far from reality. Yes, there are some good things goind on downtown just as there is here with our Central Corridor but it is far less dense than we are and growth is largely growing in greenfileds, which we don't have. Here's what's typical of Indy growth... I give you the excitement of Edenwilde!

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.6589538 ... 312!8i6656

Keep in mind, this is in the city... most of their growth is occurring in the suburbs, particularly in the hotbed of Hamilton County

If the thing we called St Louis city were as big as Indy it'd include places like Edenwilde. Marion County still has greenfields on the edge to build on wheres StL City and County not so much at present.
In 1970 Stl City and County had plenty of greenfields on the edge and since has lost 268k in population while Marion has added 158k.

^ Saint Lois City had greenfields on its edges in 1970?

Also Center Township, roughly "Old Indianapolis," lost just as high a percentage as we did since 1970. The dynamics are largely the same... it would have been nice to have merged but it didn't happen and I don't think our development pattern would have changed that much even if we did; we still would have been a people leaving the core for greener pastures and then more recently seeing more people starting to come back to greater downtown but still having huge problems with crime and poverty.
(Statistically we;re better on income and education and slightly lower on violent crime.) But we can't change the past; onty the future... we need to cooperate where we can and where it makes sense but we gotta be realistic on our situation and recognize other places aren't to be idealized just b/c they're 'merged."

The good folks over at New York YIMBY are decrying the "highly inaccurate...incompetent" estimates for NY, saying they "make no sense whatsoever".

Interesting reading:

https://newyorkyimby.com/2018/03/new-ce ... urate.html

No, I meant City and County, the ~590 sq miles of land area, had greenfields on the edge.

Who is idealizing? Indy has massive street/road repair bill, $800M just to get them up to a 4 out of 10. At least hey know. Who knows what the equivalent stat is here.

The forces spreading out cities apply to Indy of course. Fragmentation exacerbates them here like how munis are incentivized to subsidize retail, so the leap frogging is accelerated.

Right, we can change the future. Fragmentation is something we have total control over, unlike the weather, or how much the state supports education, how much driving is subsidized, etc.

quincunx wrote: ↑

Mar 24, 2018

No, I meant City and County, the ~590 sq miles of land area, had greenfields on the edge.

Who is idealizing? Indy has massive street/road repair bill, $800M just to get them up to a 4 out of 10. At least hey know. Who knows what the equivalent stat is here.

The forces spreading out cities apply to Indy of course. Fragmentation exacerbates them here like how munis are incentivized to subsidize retail, so the leap frogging is accelerated.

Right, we can change the future. Fragmentation is something we have total control over, unlike the weather, or how much the state supports education, how much driving is subsidized, etc.

I think the pro-merger folks who put Indianapolis on the pedestal as an example that we have to follow if we want to grow essentially are idealizing that town. Those folks are out there and they make me want to throw up... and I say that as a former Hoosier who lived in downtown Indy more or less before it was a thing. Trust me; it's a rather nice but very problematic city; there are many more peers to look at if we want to improve our urban quality of life.

Anyway, hopefully the County consolidates as much as it can and we cooperate better throughout the region on a sustainable,urbanist agenda. That's the key and we don't need Indy-style merger to do that;nor would merger necessarily have that outcome.

The problem with gaining immigrant population is that nobody from Mexico to Syria to Sudan wants to live anywhere near American style ghetto. They don't like it. Nobody globally likes it.

Only chance is to take the failed space and boldly create urban infill.

MattnSTL wrote: ↑

Mar 23, 2018

St.Louis1764 wrote: ↑

Mar 23, 2018

I don't see why this is surprising? North St.Louis is an utter ghetto cesspool . Frankly it seems like the entire region is controlled by this urban monstrosity plagued by 1-2 murders per day with almost no end in sight. Call it what you want but you can't put lip stick on a pig and call it pretty.. Believe it or not that area effects each and everyone of us thats making good while these imbeciles make no effort what so ever.

Hard not to feel personally attacked by this comment, and see an attack on my neighbors, many of which are out working on their neighborhoods on a daily basis. While there are a lot of people causing problems on the northside, there are just as many people doing good work. Get around North St. Louis a little more. There are a lot of good and stable areas, but those areas have to deal with the same perception issues as the worst areas.

Much of what plagues North St. Louis are structural and institutional issues that individuals and neighborhoods don't have control over. An area this large can't be revitalized without resources, and the system we as a nation have built does not provide resources anywhere close to the level needed. The private side and the public side have made choices for decades that have continued to compound the problems. While we have found crumbs here and there to make differences in some neighborhoods, many other neighborhoods have no chance. Nothing is going to change on a large scale until we have a community based plan with real teeth and resources start flowing on a large scale from all levels of government and private business. And we have to recognize that 70 years of decline is not going to turn around overnight. Complaining does nothing, action does.

If you seriously feel attacked by my comment then you're in for a real hurting on what people say about St.Louis on other forums...

RFT - A Very Scientific Breakdown of the 556 People St. Louis Gained in 2017

https://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblo ... ed-in-2017

MattnSTL wrote: ↑

Mar 23, 2018

Hard not to feel personally attacked by this comment, and see an attack on my neighbors, many of which are out working on their neighborhoods on a daily basis. While there are a lot of people causing problems on the northside, there are just as many people doing good work. Get around North St. Louis a little more. There are a lot of good and stable areas, but those areas have to deal with the same perception issues as the worst areas.

Much of what plagues North St. Louis are structural and institutional issues that individuals and neighborhoods don't have control over. An area this large can't be revitalized without resources, and the system we as a nation have built does not provide resources anywhere close to the level needed. The private side and the public side have made choices for decades that have continued to compound the problems. While we have found crumbs here and there to make differences in some neighborhoods, many other neighborhoods have no chance. Nothing is going to change on a large scale until we have a community based plan with real teeth and resources start flowing on a large scale from all levels of government and private business. And we have to recognize that 70 years of decline is not going to turn around overnight. Complaining does nothing, action does.

Hear hear! Nicely said.

St.Louis1764 wrote: ↑

Mar 24, 2018

If you seriously feel attacked by my comment then you're in for a real hurting on what people say about St.Louis on other forums...

I said I felt attacked. I didn't say I feel hurt. Takes a lot more to do that to me. I have lived in St. Louis City all 31 years of my life and I have a Master's in Urban Planning. I'm not some naive person. I'm out in the trenches every single day in both a professional and personal capacity. I know what people say, and I know how wrong most people are because they speak in stereotypes and perceptions, not any first-hand knowledge. Pretty much like many of your posts that are borderline troll behavior. If anything is going to change on a large scale we as a region have to get serious about acknowledging the cause of all the problems and the myriad underlying issues, and then actually providing attention and resources instead of just complaining from the suburbs like we're somehow not one region that loses and wins together.

^ nice post, once again,

Here's a pretty decent piece from our peer Baltimore, which again is like us in terms of city being split from county...

Let's not explain away Baltimore's population loss. It really is a bad sign.

When you combine city & county, I have Baltimore city/county losing 4,273 people or -0.3% and Saint Louis city/county losing 6,008 people or -0.5%. However, since 2010 Baltimire County gains have more than made up for city loses, with the two adding roughly 18,000 people while Saint Louis County and City have both lost since 2010, a cumulative drop of roughly 13,000. Yes, the performance for STL City needs to improve, but so, too, does the County. Very low performer.

Not sure where to post this but thought it was pretty accurate...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

^ I'm less familiar with Milwaukee and Cincy so I'll leave those two aside, and I agree that we have a larger swath of intact neighborhoods (followed by Cleveland and then Detroit) but he has his facts wrong about density... all three had the same population density of 5,100 ppl./sq. mi. in the 2010 census and each has dropped below 5,000 since with the estimates. This gives you an idea of how challenged North of Delmar really is. We have more concentrated prosperity and more concentrated poverty at the same time, which I think helps explain why we have things like the highest homicide rate while at the same time having a high brew pub rate.

I love all three cities dearly and each has its own peculiar charms and challenges, but I think we're pretty much in the same boat... growing central area and needing to figure out how to boost distressed neighborhoods in a sustainable, inclusive manner.. I think Detroit has the most challenge in terms of the depth of the neighborhoods issue (one of the benefits of being a smaller geographic city is we have less real estate to tackle) but I certainly wouldn't count them out as they hustle harder as the saying goes.

My favorite midwest cities outside of St.Louis
1.Minneapolis
2.Cincinatti
3.Grand Rapids
4.Kansas City
5.Des Moines
6.Detroit
7.Cleveland
8.Inianapolis
9.Columbus
10.Chicago
I don't know much about Milwaukee i only drove through it on my way back from Duluth Minnesota and never had enough time experience that city since i was on my way to Chicago to meet up with a friend for dinner.
I really believe St.Louis again is the midwest most underrated city & if i offended anyone from previous post i do apologize i just get aggravated with the north side situation.. Im not here to make enemies just to correspond & speak my mind some & have fun interesting convo's

I've always considered KC to be more similar to a Denver, Omaha, or Tulsa. It just feels very different from STL and our peer cities, more western.

Parts of St. Louis look and feel like they could easily be from an east coast city. I've definitely never gotten that vibe anywhere in KC.

I can't claim to be extremely familiar with Milwaukee, but I liked it. I've spent precisely one day there, driving around neighborhoods, helping a friend look at a car, and generally walking around downtown and going out to dinner. It felt comfortable and familiar in a way Chicago, Kansas City, Minneapolis, and even Cincinnati do not. Might be the beer and Germanishness, but just the general built environment surely played a roll.

And while I trust STLrainbow is correct on the general numbers, there is a way in which St. Louis really does feel somewhat more dense to me than some of our peers, and clearly far more so than any to the west. Perception is doubtless based more on minimums and maximums than averages, on neighborhoods, on what we personally experience. The human brain is bad at statistics. Could it be that the denser healthier neighborhoods across the street from assorted parks here are denser than comparable neighborhoods the author might have experienced elsewhere? And since he, perhaps, didn't accurately average in all the empty . . .

Anyway, yes, I believe this is a quite underrated town. But to make it thrive we will need to find a way to attract people: draw people back in from the exurbs, draw people from other regions, attract immigrants. And perhaps most of all, we'll need to find a way to keep those already here: college students from out of town, old timers, kids growing up, and so forth. Had a somewhat depressing conversation the other day with a couple where she was from Bavaria and he Chicago. He came here for college to expand his opportunities. They both like the place. They're planning to move to New York. Makes me weep.

MattnSTL wrote: ↑

Mar 24, 2018

St.Louis1764 wrote: ↑

Mar 24, 2018

If you seriously feel attacked by my comment then you're in for a real hurting on what people say about St.Louis on other forums...

I said I felt attacked. I didn't say I feel hurt. Takes a lot more to do that to me. I have lived in St. Louis City all 31 years of my life and I have a Master's in Urban Planning. I'm not some naive person. I'm out in the trenches every single day in both a professional and personal capacity. I know what people say, and I know how wrong most people are because they speak in stereotypes and perceptions, not any first-hand knowledge. Pretty much like many of your posts that are borderline troll behavior. If anything is going to change on a large scale we as a region have to get serious about acknowledging the cause of all the problems and the myriad underlying issues, and then actually providing attention and resources instead of just complaining from the suburbs like we're somehow not one region that loses and wins together.

Good for you that you have a little bit more knowledge than some...
I'm not here to justify myself to you or anyone and if some of my comments are borderline troll then thats life..
I see bias everyday i'm not only in the city I'm all over the region.. I see stereotypes from both sides
I know whats right from wrong i see what i see in person i don't need to stereotype anyone I'm beyond that stage in my life. I know what my knowledge's are. Life is far more important than the petty bull that i not only see in this country but see around the world..
I speak my mind freely without any inhibitions I've learned freeing yourself of the truth is the most responsible way to be and not feel guilty about it..
This forum is nothing but a little extra free time for myself... Me responding back to this is petty & not even worth corresponding back.
So i'll leave here.
#speakyourmind
#speakfromtheheart
#peace
#emmagonzalez
#mayaangelou

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Mar 26, 2018

And while I trust STLrainbow is correct on the general numbers, there is a way in which St. Louis really does feel somewhat more dense to me than some of our peers, and clearly far more so than any to the west. Perception is doubtless based more on minimums and maximums than averages, on neighborhoods, on what we personally experience. The human brain is bad at statistics. Could it be that the denser healthier neighborhoods across the street from assorted parks here are denser than comparable neighborhoods the author might have experienced elsewhere? And since he, perhaps, didn't accurately average in all the empty.

I cooked up some broad numbers from the 2010 Census STL City had population densities of around 6,000 per sq. mi. in South, 4,700 in Central, and 4,000 in North; again averaging out to 5,100 citywide. I don't have easy numbers for Detroit and Cleveland, but my sense is that the same citywide population density in those two cities were more evenly spread. Of course, other factors such as extent of commutes into the city for work can change densities for daytime population, especially in downtown core, and affect perceptions, too. Finally, there's always the issue of drive-by observations... if you only visit a place a few times and for the same purposes and area, you're not going to get a really strong perspective. But yeah I think overall if you;re hanging in Central West End/South City area the city will feel more dense than many of our peers.

I think 2020 Census numbers will be a surprise for St.Louis in a good way. There has been so much residential added in the last 3-4 years that its hard to square away with the July 1 2017 update.

Fun times in the County.... last year Chesterfield lost population and Maplewood gained population!

Adding: Other losers in the edges of the County include Valley Park, Wildwood, Manchester, Ballwin, Maryland Heights and Bridgeton. Closer in, Brentwood, Crestwood. Sunset Hills, Richmond Heights, Webster Groves and University City saw declines.

Gainers besides Maplewood include Creve Couer, Clayton and Kirkwood. But there were far more decliners than adders in the County.

And fwiw, St. Peters out in St. Chuck's Co also saw an estimated drop altho of course the County as a whole gained (albeit at a smaller pace than last decade.)