urbanSTL

KansasCitian wrote: ↑

Dec 16, 2021

I'm thinking the 2020s will be kinder to St. Louis for black population numbers than the 2010s were. 

There's a lot of work that St. Louis City and County can do to make themselves more welcoming to our black residents. There is no reason St. Louis can't be an epicenter of black living in the Midwest. 

We could start with art and symbols around town. I'd like to see something done near Eads Bridge to honor the 1917 race riots in East St. Louis, Illinois. 

I totally agree. We have an HBCU basically in our Downtown. With Cori Bush and Mayor Jones, the new commitment to equitable growth, and the recent surge of young black people into the urban core, now is the perfect time for DT StL to brand itself as the midwestern center for black excellence. Additionally, I feel that our position as origin of the Black Lives Matter movement and the new era of civil rights is an asset.

The census indicates that black Americans are done with the Great Lakes cities and are leaving for the south. Stl can and should position itself to capture as much of this trend as possible.

JaneJacobsGhost wrote: ↑

Jan 04, 2022

KansasCitian wrote: ↑

Dec 16, 2021

I'm thinking the 2020s will be kinder to St. Louis for black population numbers than the 2010s were. 

There's a lot of work that St. Louis City and County can do to make themselves more welcoming to our black residents. There is no reason St. Louis can't be an epicenter of black living in the Midwest. 

We could start with art and symbols around town. I'd like to see something done near Eads Bridge to honor the 1917 race riots in East St. Louis, Illinois. 

I totally agree. We have an HBCU basically in our Downtown. With Cori Bush and Mayor Jones, the new commitment to equitable growth, and the recent surge of young black people into the urban core, now is the perfect time for DT StL to brand itself as the midwestern center for black excellence. Additionally, I feel that our position as origin of the Black Lives Matter movement and the new era of civil rights is an asset.

The census indicates that black Americans are done with the Great Lakes cities and are leaving for the south. Stl can and should position itself to capture as much of this trend as possible.

The Black Lives Matter movement began in July 2013 after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.  It did not originate in St. Louis.  Get your facts straight.  

Fine. It entered the popular American conscience with Michael Brown in StL.

I truly see no reason why St. Louis can't be an epicenter for black living. I actually have this daydream where we become a smaller Atlanta of the Midwest.

But we need to do better as a city to achieve that. I think having more art in the Central Corridor celebrating our city's black history and culture would be a simple start and a no-brainer. There isn't near enough of it.

There are a number of significant black historical figures from St. Louis that you wouldn't realize were from here, except maybe Chuck in the Loop area, or Dred Scott at the Old Courthouse.

Maya Angelou was born in St. Louis - shouldn't there be some mural honoring her?

I still think a significant sculpture should be erected on or near Eads Bridge, perhaps on both the Missouri and Illinois sides, to depict the 1917 East St. Louis race riots and the role the bridge played in the escape of thousands of black residents.

I don't know who could do it, or how it would work, but I would love to see something similar to the Centennial Land Run Monument in Oklahoma City, which honors a very different historical moment, yes, but which honors it in an impressive scope with riders on horseback crossing the Bricktown Canal.

I'd love to see Eads made to be more pedestrian-friendly, with less broken glass everywhere and wider walkways. Unfortunately, there isn't much to walk to on the East St. Louis side of the bridge, except parking lots and a casino, but I wish there was, because I'd love to see a set of sculptures spanning the length of the bridge, displaying the horror of that moment, that same horror that has played out here and in Tulsa and in so many other communities across our nation, and have it to point to and say, yes, St. Louis remembers; and yes, St. Louis will not forget; and yes, St. Louis is working on righting the wrongs of our past.

Diversity index by census tracts in St. Louis City from 2000-2020


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^I'd be darned curious to see all of that by wealth. Not just for St. Louis, but rather for the whole country. I have a sneaking suspicion that some of the most racially diverse places are also some of the least diverse by social class and wealth, and I'd like to know if that's true or not.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/15/us/2 ... trump.html


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By SeattleNative

NextSTL - St. Louis neighborhood population density

https://nextstl.com/2022/01/st-louis-ne ... n-density/

^Interesting that absolutely none of them get to what the historic population once was. And of the "superstar cities" only New York and San Francisco have higher densities today than St. Louis did at its peak. Oh the mess we've inherited.

I think among major Northeastern and Midwestern cities (that didn't push their city limits outward), only New York has a population above its 1950/60 peak. Chicago's is about 800,000 lower and even superstar cities like Washington, DC and Boston are over 100,000 below their peaks. 

PeterXCV wrote: ↑

Jan 18, 2022

I think among major Northeastern and Midwestern cities (that didn't push their city limits outward), only New York has a population above its 1950/60 peak. Chicago's is about 800,000 lower and even superstar cities like Washington, DC and Boston are over 100,000 below their peaks. 

And within New York, Manhattan is still 600,000+ from its 20th century peak. The Bronx and Brooklyn only JUST passed theirs in 2020 and 2021 respectively. Staten Island, the most suburban borough, has seen unchecked growth.

Stltoday - ‘Wake-up call’: St. Louis faces dimming prospects absent new efforts to draw population

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/gov ... 81c84.html

Questions that came to my mind-
Why has spreading out the region failed to draw population?
Why has St. louis County fragmentation failed to draw population?
Why has subsidizing big box retail failed to draw population?
Why has the $500M Page Ave extension and $700M Musial Bridge failed to draw population?

quincunx wrote: ↑

Mar 06, 2022

Questions that came to my mind-
Why has spreading out the region failed to draw population?
Why has St. louis County fragmentation failed to draw population?
Why has subsidizing big box retail failed to draw population?
Why has the $500M Page Ave extension and $700M Musial Bridge failed to draw population?

There is no correlation between any of those and slow growth, none what so ever. And we know that because all of those and are times 10x of those is happening in high growth areas like Dallas, ATL, Charlotte etc.

Tell that to the people who promote those things as growth drivers or evidence of growth.

quincunx wrote: ↑

Mar 06, 2022

Tell that to the people who promote those things as growth drivers or evidence of growth.

We’d most likely be at negative growth as a region without them tho.

quincunx wrote:Tell that to the people who promote those things as growth drivers or evidence of growth.

Who’s saying these projects will drive growth for the ENTIRE region? Take the Page Extension for example, I don’t recall our leaders saying it would attract people and businesses from other metro areas. I will say though… Page Extension has certainly been a growth driver. Maybe not for the entire region, but for the areas along the highway. I’m shocked at how many apartments are being built along the 364 corridor in St. Peters. If they stacked all of them on top of each other, they could build a 1,000 foot skyscraper. It’s insane.

I’m glad we have the Musial Bridge, and places like Target and other “big box” stores. Are we only supposed to build projects that attract people from other metro areas? If we did that, hardly anything would get built. There’s nothing wrong with projects that improve the quality of life of people already here. Especially infrastructure.


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EW Gateway couldn't have been more clear 
"Focusing development incentives on expanding retail sales is a losing economic development strategy for the region."
Subsidizing retail is quite justifiable at a certain place at a certain time, but the primary reason it's been done in this region, the TIF wars to shift taxable sales across municipal boundaries has been a drag for the region. 

What's been the ROI on the Musial Bridge? Could that money have been better spent on something else? How many residents and jobs in North City have it helped retain? Might other things been more effective at retaining residents and jobs there?

There are plenty of places to build apartments next to existing infrastructure we've already paid for. Instead we spread out, called it growth, and burdened ourselves with more labilities to take care of at the opportunity cost of taking care of the infrastructure we already have and other things that more likely would have been a net positive.

Pat Sullivan, executive vice president of the Home Builders Association of St. Louis and Eastern Missouri, said the road and the 11-year-old bridge carrying it across the Missouri River have been keys to “opening up the western part of the region for growth.”

...

Tim Fischesser, the league’s executive director, said the project subsidized urban sprawl and the spreading out of the metro area’s population base which hasn’t grown much overall.

“It made the region less efficient,” Fischesser said. “It made it more difficult for MoDOT to sustain the infrastructure. If you’re roughly serving the same amount of people but greatly expanding the infrastructure, it’s wasteful without more people.”

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/stc ... 2669f.html

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Mar 06, 2022

quincunx wrote: ↑

Mar 06, 2022

Questions that came to my mind-
Why has spreading out the region failed to draw population?
Why has St. louis County fragmentation failed to draw population?
Why has subsidizing big box retail failed to draw population?
Why has the $500M Page Ave extension and $700M Musial Bridge failed to draw population?

There is no correlation between any of those and slow growth, none what so ever. And we know that because all of those and are times 10x of those is happening in high growth areas like Dallas, ATL, Charlotte etc.

Jobs!  STL's job growth hasn't been poor up to pandemic but just not enough to boost population at a decent pace. 

PeterXCV wrote: ↑

Dec 16, 2021

I think workforce development is overrated. I met people who did the green jobs training as part of the Stimulus legislation passed in 2009 who couldn't find jobs after completing the training. Needs to be apprentice-ship style to actually get people jobs. 

Agreed. If there's already a clear market need for x-trained workers and employers are unable to train prospective employees themselves, then publicly funded training-only programs might make sense. Otherwise, such programs are just a temporary public employment program for training agencies and/or public subsidy of private profit. If we're going to fund a jobs-training program, we should also fund the jobs. That way we (the public) would "own" whatever those programs/jobs produce. 

With that in mind, my wishlist for the City to attract more residents and improve the quality of life for those already here includes a long-term jobs program focused on energy efficiency and sufficiency for private residences and public facilities. This should be initially financed with our federal and/or Rams windfalls. This project should be pared with a slow rollout of a local currency tied to the value of the improved building/energy stock and redeemable for some portion of local taxes owed. The purpose of these twin programs is four-fold: Improve job opportunities for local residents; Improve the physical plant of the city by making it more resilient to growing climate challenges; Attract new residents and private investment; and develop a means of sustaining ourselves independent of state and federal governments.

Crazy I know, but we need to start thinking big to solve the very big problems that lie ahead.

The single most important obstacle to the City seeing population growth is the schools. Everything else is secondary at best.

NextSTL - Failure of Fragmentation: St. Louis County Municipal Population Loss

https://nextstl.com/2022/03/failure-of- ... tion-loss/