urbanSTL

Wish our alderman would do what Kansas City is doing. 
https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/ka ... n-the-city

southcitygent wrote: ↑

May 29, 2021

Wish our alderman would do what Kansas City is doing. 
https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/ka ... n-the-city

That’s assuming it actually gets enforced. It already isn’t legal and isn’t stopping them.

Despite all the stupidity, downtown was very busy today. Lines at all the breakfast places, at salt and smoke, at the STL sign at ballpark village for photos.

^^Downtown as an EV only zone.

dweebe wrote: ↑

May 29, 2021

I say we just make all Dodge Challengers, Ford Mustangs and Chevy Camaros completely illegal in a zone that’s Choteau, Grand, Cass and the river. Doesn’t matter how you are driving, the time of day or even if you have the base engine. Drive one of those cars in the zone and its automatic $100 ticket.

(I’m joking. Well maybe not totally.)

You know, my first car was a '67 Mustang. I still managed not to ever once do a burnout, attend a street race, or cause an accident. (I did get tagged in a parking lot once, but his insurance paid for the damage no questions asked, so that probably tells you all you need to know.) Cars don't drive stupid. People drive stupid.

. . . On the other hand, given the source of that slogan I don't know that I like the precedent. You win. Ban the muscle cars. It'll be okay.

As long as the powers-that-be lack the political courage to enforce existing laws and regulations, nothing will change. 

framer wrote: ↑

May 30, 2021

As long as the powers-that-be lack the political courage to enforce existing laws and regulations, nothing will change. 

I'm not sure it's that simple.  I suppose what it would take to end violent crime downtown would be a good amount of police walking the beat 24/7 and going the extra mile to do good police work with their hearts in the right place.

I'm hesitant to criticize the SLMPD officers.  I'm sure there are plenty of hard working, well intended individuals on the force, and it's commendable they're putting their lives in danger on a daily basis to protect the people living or visiting the city.

However I'm willing to bet that there are also enough officers on the force who (justified or not) are jaded or apathetic enough at this point to not go that extra mile that's needed.

If so, I imagine then the problem is, even if the city *could* replace these officers, which I'm guessing it couldn't b/c it's probably not easy to terminate employment of a low performing officer, but even if they could, there doesn't exist a pool of applicants who could possibly perform better.

^ but what violent crime tho? Downtown has plenty of annoying crime- speeding, other dangerous driving, and yes once a while two drug dealers shot at each other. But to say it has a “violent crime” problem isn’t reality for someone that walks 10-15 miles a day in and around downtown.

^ dangerous driving and shoot-outs aren't violent? they're just annoying? jfc. c'mon.

Also, walking around downtown during the day and walking 10-15 miles around downtown on a Saturday night or evening aren’t the same thing.

Name a day and an hour and I’ve walked in down here. And as I’ve said yes once a while idiots settle arguments with guns. That’s not a downtown issue that’s a far right Missouri legislature handcuffing the police to a point where they cannot even stop anyone even if they see a weapon- thanks to our permit-less open carry

How many folks do we have on here that actually live Downtown? I would wager their opinions hold a little more water.

Honestly, I'd love to hear more from folks who are actually living the day to day.  I'm just south of Downtown.  It's fun to play the urban planning game on how to fix the issues, but at some point a lot of us are just getting the watered down, sometimes-sensational reporting and playing along with idealist notions of what can happen to the urbanity of the region's welcome mat.

bwcrow1s wrote: ↑

May 31, 2021

How many folks do we have on here that actually live Downtown? I would wager their opinions hold a little more water.

Honestly, I'd love to hear more from folks who are actually living the day to day.  I'm just south of Downtown.  It's fun to play the urban planning game on how to fix the issues, but at some point a lot of us are just getting the watered down, sometimes-sensational reporting and playing along with idealist notions of what can happen to the urbanity of the region's welcome mat.

2017-2019- Washington and 19th
2019-present- Tucker and Olive

I don’t know what to tell you- I don’t have an sense of “it’s unsafe”.  

in any given year (pre covid) between sports, conventions, workers, concerts, tourists etc well over 65,000,000 cumulative people go through downtown and in 2019, the last normal year with data, there was 189 crimes against persons in downtown and 156 in downtown west, so less then 1 a day.    1 in 179,000 chance.  I mean if you drive from west county to here you have a better chance at a serious car accident

(For Comp- with much many less residents/visitors, the Central West End had a 164 crimes against a person in 2019)

Comp 2. Chances of dying from covid is 1 in 550 (330,000,000 Americans/600,000 deaths) so about 320 times more likely then being a victim of a crime against you in downtown

I lived downtown from late 2014 to mid 2020. I didn't hear any gun shots until NYE going into 2019, then maybe heard gun shots 2 more times in the next 18 months. I was in my apartment all of those times, never actually out walking around. There isn't a time of day I haven't been walking around, mostly due to getting home late on weekends and walking the dog at 4 a.m. I would say I had one uncomfortable interaction with a stranger in 5+ years. 
My first Wash Ave loft was a shotgun unit so my bedroom was pretty buried in the building. I would hear sirens and the occasional motorcycle but it was never an issue. Unfortunately my second loft had a bedroom directly facing Wash Ave. I thank mother Gaia every night I don't have listen to the revving cars, motorcycles, RTVs, motorcycles and slingshots with speakers mounted on them blasting '90s R&B. So I'm basically saying that car noise is a 20x bigger issue than violent crime, in my opinion. And that's one street and only if your bedroom overlooks that street. 

If there are minorities and/or women that don't feel safe walking around downtown, I'm not going to dismiss their concerns. However, I will always question the complete false association of the presence of homelessness and violent crime. I will always question the complete false association of the presence of young black men and violent crime. Downtown doesn't have a violent crime issues, it has a KMOV needs the clickies issue. 

Stltoday - After difficult, violent summer of 2020, downtown St. Louis at a crossroads

https://www.stltoday.com/business/local ... 0af2f.html

quincunx wrote: ↑

May 31, 2021

Stltoday - After difficult, violent summer of 2020, downtown St. Louis at a crossroads

https://www.stltoday.com/business/local ... 0af2f.html

I talked to the writer of that about the June 2020 assault stat. If you look at May and July of the same year, clearly June is an outliner, why? Bc police arrest bunch of people on Assault/other during the Floyd protests. That context is important, will they explain it? Doubt it but they did add a line about the protests but never really explained the correlation

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

May 31, 2021

quincunx wrote: ↑

May 31, 2021

Stltoday - After difficult, violent summer of 2020, downtown St. Louis at a crossroads

https://www.stltoday.com/business/local ... 0af2f.html

I talked to the writer of that about the June 2020 assault stat.  If you look at May and July of the same year, clearly June is an outliner, why?  Bc police arrest bunch of people on Assault/other during the Floyd protests.   That context is important, will they explain it? Doubt it but they did add a line about the protests but never really explained the correlation

That is important context.  Incidentally, I've lived downtown for 5 years now, and the only time it's ever felt truly unsafe was exactly a year ago during the riot.  (To be clear, that's not commentary on the BLM movement, especially since many of the worst offenders I saw looked like they had no affiliation whatsoever with the earlier protests).

In my time downtown, I've been out walking at almost all hours of the day and have only had one brief encounter with someone on the street who made me uncomfortable, and even that was pretty minor and didn't result in anything.

As of right now, I think most people in my building would agree that the street racing and cruising are having a bigger impact on downtown quality of life than violent crime.

I lived downtown from 2008 to 2015.  Some random violence against seemingly innocent bystanders happened from time-to-time but nothing really regular.  I only recall waking to what were clearly gunshots once - a rolling gun battle that went many blocks down Olive at early morning hours and was witnessed by numerous individuals (probably the biggest Nextdoor thread I'd seen when living down there).

I didn't really leave b/c of the crime, I love the city and downtown's potential and even considered buying downtown in Fall of 2018 and then the police behavior of Stockley protesters happened and yeah, that kept me from committing.

Since then my current stance is pretty much that I'm done living anywhere where gunfire is happening on any sort of regular basis.  I know the chances are pretty slim that'd me or visiting friends/family would be a victim of random violence, a reckless driving incident or catch a bullet not intended for me, but why take the chance?  For whatever reason, it just doesn't make sense anymore to live where stuff like that is happening.

BTW, yes, I'm sure KMOV is highly click motivated and people love to read the sky is falling, but regardless, stuff like this, that happened just last night, is happening in the heart of downtown way too much:

https://www.kmov.com/news/women-crash-c ... 966fa.html

OnTheEdge wrote: ↑

Jun 01, 2021

I lived downtown from 2008 to 2015.  Some random violence against seemingly innocent bystanders happened from time-to-time but nothing really regular.  I only recall waking to what were clearly gunshots once - a rolling gun battle that went many blocks down Olive at early morning hours and was witnessed by numerous individuals (probably the biggest Nextdoor thread I'd seen when living down there).

I didn't really leave b/c of the crime, I love the city and downtown's potential and even considered buying downtown in Fall of 2018 and then the police behavior of Stockley protesters happened and yeah, that kept me from committing.

Since then my current stance is pretty much that I'm done living anywhere where gunfire is happening on any sort of regular basis.  I know the chances are pretty slim that'd me or visiting friends/family would be a victim of random violence, a reckless driving incident or catch a bullet not intended for me, but why take the chance?  For whatever reason, it just doesn't make sense anymore to live where stuff like that is happening.

BTW, yes, I'm sure KMOV is highly click motivated and people love to read the sky is falling, but regardless, stuff like this, that happened just last night, is happening in the heart of downtown way too much:

https://www.kmov.com/news/women-crash-c ... 966fa.html

Agreed on the media coverage.  Although, it feels like anything happening within a five mile radius inspires the local news to include Downtown somewhere in the title.  That's an exaggeration, but I am unsure why incidents that happen north of Cass Ave are considered "near Downtown" in stories written by KMOV and KSDK.  Surely there is enough occurring in Downtown (like the article from last night) that we don't need to also mention crimes that happened miles from Downtown.

I am also in the camp of not wanting to live near those types of incidents that you mention anymore (not that I think anyone really wants to live with that).  My partner and I originally chose to live Downtown in an attempt to be part of the stabilization of the neighborhood.  I think we were first drawn by the nice perks that came with the neighborhood (walkability, some nice eating establishments, cool architecture, etc.).  After 4 years, however, we are burned out on the noise and crime (not necessarily violent) and will be moving to Shaw in July.  Yes, crime is mobile and many neighborhoods experience gunfire at least sporadically.  Yes, people drive like idiots everywhere.  For whatever reason, it feels like all these issues compound in Downtown and are made way worse than they are perhaps individually.  Maybe living off Washington would help too.  

I am still hopeful that Downtown will turn things around and succeed in being a neighborhood that people are excited to live in, but I won't/can't continue to live in Downtown until something changes.

There was a 7am shootout Thanksgiving morning outside my window. More recently, really close gunfire woke me twice in the span of a week a month or so back.

The gunfire is regular enough to be really disconcerting. And none of this; stuff I'm referencing made the news, so I assume nobody was hit. The media-reported gunfire downtown is just the tip of the iceberg. I don't even bother calling 911.