urbanSTL

^Well done, sir. Bravo and thanks for the great excuse to watch the second best sci-fi/action movie of the 80s for the 1001st time.

You all will be shocked to know that crime in stl is actually down about 30% from 2010 to 2020. 33,800 total crimes to 23,685.  Heck it’s even down 4 % from 2019 to 2020.  

Yes the headline making homicides are up but when the police can’t even stop a known felon with a gun what do you expect?
Even homicides need context- 95% the shooter and the victim know each other, of that 65% is related to drug buying, selling or making, the majority of the rest is a domestic violence/cheating scores settling with a gun

Stltoday - Jefferson County sheriff's deputy recovering following deadly shootout

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/cri ... 237af.html

KSDK - Vacationing family shot at on I-55 in Jefferson County, dad injured

https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/crime ... dad90af181

In an apparent effort to kill fewer people, police departments across the country are investing in what is basically a high-tech lasso designed to automatically restrain suspects without cops having to electrocute or shoot them.
https://gizmodo.com/cops-are-now-using-an-electric-lasso-on-people-1847034020

And the trend continues - https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/cri ... op-story-1

KSDK - Woman charged in I-55 road rage shooting involving vacationing family

https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/crime ... bd31134fe7

^Is he also advocating state financing of this endeavor rather than purely regional financing?

^I'd love to see the court arguments that would arise out of a measure where the state attempts to seize control of city assets. They've done so in the past with schools, but only after the schools failed to meet federal accreditation guidelines. (And as soon as the schools got provisional accreditation the state was compelled to hand control back to the local authority, as I recall.) So far as I am aware the police department remains fully accredited. (For whatever that might or might not be worth.) This should be rich.

SB in BH wrote: ↑

Jun 02, 2021

Definitely the world's (2nd?) most successful capitalist is secretly a communist.

Bezos is currently #2 on the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List (which gets updated daily), but #1 probably isn't who you think. Bernard Arnault (French Louis Vuitton billionaire) is currently an eyelash ahead of Bezos, with about $600M higher net worth.

Tesla dude has lost a sh*tload of money in the past month, I'm guessing in part because of the crypto crash. He's down to #3 with about $154B, about $40B less than Bezos (and $50B less than he was worth a few months ago).

Just a reminder that the out-of-control drivers are a nationwide thing:

 "Residents, grieving families call for action to slow extreme speeders in NC"

https://www.yahoo.com/news/residents-gr ... 20477.html

OMG

"Over the past five years, prosecutors in North Carolina let almost 218,000 extreme speeders take advantage of a loophole in state law that allows them to claim, with no proof, that their speedometers weren’t working properly. These “improper-equipment” deals let drivers resolve their speeding cases without any license or insurance penalties."

I am becoming convinced that the only way to reduce the crime "rate" number in the City of St. Louis, is to work on the denominator.  In other words, work harder to raise the population of the city -- by attracting more foreign immigrants.  In this week's Post-Dispatch "The Chat Room", Tony Messenger and Aisha Sultan make the case for actively recruiting immigrants to, not just St. Louis City, but also KC, Columbia, and Springfield.  

When you look at factors that fuel large population increases in cities like Denver, Dallas, Houston, etc., we learn it is primarily driven by foreign immigrants.  St. Louis' influx of immigrants is very very low by comparison.  We have had tremendous success in revitalizing the city with immigrants from Bosnia and other countries -- we need to multiply that success. 

Messenger and Sultan argue that CEOs of metro area corporations unhappy with the direction the city and the state are going to need to do more than donate to Republicans.  They need to lead the campaign to attract more workers to Missouri from other countries as companies did more than a century ago to make St. Louis a city of immagrants and hence a huge center for manufacturing and commerce back then.  I agree.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/multimedia/videos/the-chat-room-how-can-st-louis-attract-more-immigrants-to-the-city/video_fba7853e-7600-51e3-8c30-8d227f4b28e1.html#tracking-source=home-top-story-1    

sc4mayor wrote: ↑

Jun 11, 2021

^ That really doesn’t sound all that much different than how it’s done here.  I’ve not seen the speedometer thing, but here you just pay more money (usually via a lawyer) and they’ll reduce it to a noise violation or window tinting or something so it stays off your license and your insurance.

I got a speeding ticket on 55 in Illinois last month and there you just pay the fine and they put you on “supervision” for 90 days.  If you don’t get any tickets during that time…nothing goes on your record.

Kansas is similar…though they make you pay more.  It’s called a diversion there, but I think it lasts 6 months instead of just 90 days.

I'm actually in favor of pay as you go being an option for most traffic offense, say up to a certain speed limit or any traffic offenses not defined as reckless, but in say a more legal way rather then say you get pulled over in Mexico beach town & pay off the policemen.   Essentially, you declare guilty and pay a fine at reduced rate on the spot via credit card (vs cash without a digital footprint).  Of course, expecting a reduced rate as it should reduced the needs of additional clerk, court fees and time on the back end.   The insurance folks will probably hollar but since it is digital the DMV could easily track offenses, so on.   The transaction could go straight into whatever local govt account it needs to go.     

gary kreie wrote: ↑

Jun 14, 2021

I am becoming convinced that the only way to reduce the crime "rate" number in the City of St. Louis, is to work on the denominator.  In other words, work harder to raise the population of the city -- by attracting more foreign immigrants.  In this week's Post-Dispatch "The Chat Room", Tony Messenger and Aisha Sultan make the case for actively recruiting immigrants to, not just St. Louis City, but also KC, Columbia, and Springfield.  

When you look at factors that fuel large population increases in cities like Denver, Dallas, Houston, etc., we learn it is primarily driven by foreign immigrants.  St. Louis' influx of immigrants is very very low by comparison.  We have had tremendous success in revitalizing the city with immigrants from Bosnia and other countries -- we need to multiply that success. 

Messenger and Sultan argue that CEOs of metro area corporations unhappy with the direction the city and the state are going to need to do more than donate to Republicans.  They need to lead the campaign to attract more workers to Missouri from other countries as companies did more than a century ago to make St. Louis a city of immagrants and hence a huge center for manufacturing and commerce back then.  I agree.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/multimedia/videos/the-chat-room-how-can-st-louis-attract-more-immigrants-to-the-city/video_fba7853e-7600-51e3-8c30-8d227f4b28e1.html#tracking-source=home-top-story-1    

I agree. It also makes sense because its one of the few areas that the State government can't really touch. 

^I've long felt that some sort of initiative to help them deal with the legal complexities of recruiting abroad would be good. You don't even honestly need to go abroad. You just need to recruit the student visa grads out of the local universities. But the complexities of visa applications and the associated legal complications are . . . non-trivial. We could use some kind of initiative to push them.

"I agree. It also makes sense because its one of the few areas that the State government can't really touch."

I agree too, but you can bet if the reactionary morons in the MO General Assembly think the commies in StL are importing non-white terrarist anchor babies into Missourah they will do everything in their power to stop it. The MOGAs of the 70s/80s/90s were a much different group, the Bosnians are white enough for them to accept, and they were fleeing a communist hellhole to boot. Good luck finding a foreign population that wants to come here and fits that political "sweet spot" in today's environment.

Also, there is little that can be done on immigration without explicit federal govt support. The US immigration system is already byzantine as it is, even if you are a qualified white European immigrant. I know many people who came to the US for grad school (often in STEM, and many who graduated from WashU) who would love to stay but end up having to return to their home countries because of US visa/residency rules.

^Good point! 

Reminds me of this 2018 Article from the RFT about a group from Syria. Apparently they had a... challenging... time settling in their new war zone/community.

gary kreie wrote: ↑

Jun 14, 2021

I am becoming convinced that the only way to reduce the crime "rate" number in the City of St. Louis, is to work on the denominator.  In other words, work harder to raise the population of the city -- by attracting more foreign immigrants.  In this week's Post-Dispatch "The Chat Room", Tony Messenger and Aisha Sultan make the case for actively recruiting immigrants to, not just St. Louis City, but also KC, Columbia, and Springfield.  

When you look at factors that fuel large population increases in cities like Denver, Dallas, Houston, etc., we learn it is primarily driven by foreign immigrants.  St. Louis' influx of immigrants is very very low by comparison.  We have had tremendous success in revitalizing the city with immigrants from Bosnia and other countries -- we need to multiply that success. 

Messenger and Sultan argue that CEOs of metro area corporations unhappy with the direction the city and the state are going to need to do more than donate to Republicans.  They need to lead the campaign to attract more workers to Missouri from other countries as companies did more than a century ago to make St. Louis a city of immagrants and hence a huge center for manufacturing and commerce back then.  I agree.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/multimedia/videos/the-chat-room-how-can-st-louis-attract-more-immigrants-to-the-city/video_fba7853e-7600-51e3-8c30-8d227f4b28e1.html#tracking-source=home-top-story-1    

I'm not disagreeing, but I wanted to add that rehabbing or demoing all of the vacant housing would be just as impactful on crime. If the new immigrants (or new residents) could be enticed to move into the rehabbed buildings, it would go a long way. 

I think vacancy and blight is the glaring blindspot of the STL community and should be the full focus of all philanthropic and business community efforts for the next decade. By fixing up the homes, so many other problems get resolved (more tax revenue, more neighbors, more eyes on the street, more commerce, etc.).

One program I've thought would be great would be a small scale, EB-5 type visa program for vacant property. An immigrant moves to the US, and they get to stay as long as they improve and maintain a vacant home or building. 

^Good points. The city needs better tools to go after delinquent property owners, starting with levying/collecting fines or taxes and probably up to seizing the property itself, and better programs to get that property back into private hands that will actually do something with it. 

I know they already do those things to some degree (via the LRA?). Does anyone on this forum have expertise on this and can help me understand current state?

I've long been an advocate of shifting real estate taxes toward more of a "pure" Land Value Tax as a way to both incentivize development and stabilize the tax base, but that would of course require consent from the dopes in Jeff City. LVT was part of the Rex Sinquefiled/Show-me Institute platform when I interned for them in the '00s. Don't know whether it still is, but I doubt our resident oligarch would go for any kind of tax change that doesn't reduce total revenue. Without a conservative megabucks donor behind it there no way it gets through MOGA.

SB in BH wrote: ↑

Jun 16, 2021

, the Bosnians are white enough for them to accept, and they were fleeing a communist hellhole to boot.

Bosnians are white and I don't think they were fleeing communism. 

^Agree. I was being hyperbolic in reference to the attitudes of our state elected officials. "White" has changed over the years. In the not-too-distant past it excluded the Irish, Italians, Jews, and certainly the slavic peoples of eastern Europe. Bosnia was part of the former Yugoslavia, which was one of the United Soviet Socialist Republics until it dissolved. So "communist hellhole" is about right from the perspective of our wise statesmen then and now.