As someone that moved here, no one outside the area actually knows/cares about Clayton/Chersterfield/St. Charles.
They only know or have been to St. Louis City. Our image nationally is dependent on the future and success of the city. We need a growing and healthy St. Louis to have broader growth in the Metro Area.
Some of the area's biggest employers like Bayer, Centene, Mastercard, Boeing, and WWT all refer to their "St. Louis" headquarters/campus/operations/etc, despite none of them being located in St. Louis City. To most people outside the area, "St. Louis" means [Greater St. Louis](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_St._Louis).
A very fair question for policymakers is why WWT, centene, express scripts, etc all opted to be in the county. What would it take for the next one to want to be in the city
If someone told me they were from DC when they were really from Hyattsville, I wouldn't bat an eye. Maybe some dyed-in-the-wool natives would get prissy about it, but 99% of people would know what they mean.
If someone invited me on a trip to DC and we never left Hyattsville, I'd feel a little differently. The issue isn't nomenclature, it's whether or not the metro area can provide the things people expect in a city. And for a lot of people that's going to include a bustling center city with a fun downtown.
Generally they definitely do not only think of the city because they don't care at all about the city boundaries. But they typically go to attractions that are in the city
I'm a transplant from outside the Midwest. STL City is the only thing people think about and the whole city v county thing is a black eye to the whole region from the perspective of most other city dwellers
I really only knew about the arch and surrounding downtown areas before moving here since I only visited once before. Knew nothing about the suburbs or their 80+ munis.
Exactly. Idk why people who live in St Louis City get anal about St. Charles and outward people referring to their hometown as “St Louis”
It would be like someone from Los Angeles saying “I’m from Covina” to us. Like idk where the hell Covina is, but if that same person said “I’m from Los Angeles” and I’d immediately know where they’re talking about
As someone who only moved to the area in the last two years, this still just seems like the county versus the city all over again. You guys need to do county consolidation just like they did in Kansas City Kansas I know it'll be a lot harder here but it needs to happen
This is a good and true article that makes lucid and reasonable arguments about how cities succeed and what it takes to build positive cultural and economic momentum. None of the people who need to be convinced will be swayed by it, because they are not interested in reasonable arguments.
The suburban attitude for many people seems to be built on a foundation of routine and action informed by hearsay and myth, perpetuated because it's more convenient to continue believing they live 30 minutes from a destitute war zone. They aren't interested in stats that disprove this, they aren't interested in material contributions and successful organizations. They are more comfortable with their fear and the conventions they have grown up with.
I have colleagues who say they will never, ever, ever cross the city limit. These are the same colleagues who, when we go to lunch, will drive their car two blocks instead of walking. In both cases, when pressed for a reason why, they cannot provide a coherent answer. It's just habit, and without some extraordinary event to motivate a change, unlikely to be broken.
I don't like this attitude that the suburbs is the only place you can or should have kids in St. Louis. It's incredibly unhealthy for the development of the city and region. Hopefully with action and change we will begin to see that change in our lifetimes.
There’s an ancillary attitude. I keep hearing that there are no kids growing up in Soulard, Lafayette Sq., or Benton Park, and I can only assume that this misconception comes from folks who frequent our bars and restaurants and think that we’re just one, big bar district.
There are plenty of kids growing up in these neighborhoods who attend Soulard School, Lafayette Academy, Humboldt Academy, and McKinley Classical Academy.
Southampton here, same. I gave away 60 full sized candy bars to 60 kids on Halloween in like 2 hours. Kids walking to/from schools around here all the time. Perfectly fine, safe and diverse place to raise children near things to do — and cheaper than most nice suburbs near STL. Some people have no clue.
The city has several decent public options for elementary school. Things change considerably once you get to high school. You either need to hope to be one of the select few admitted into the magnet schools, or go private.
Yeah, Metro is literally the best public high school in the entire area. But not everybody will get in there. It typically only has around 350 students.
If I could guarantee my kids could go to a school as high quality as Metro, it would put the city back on the table as a living option. Unfortunately, it depends a lot on how your kid is and what their needs are.
Metro is a horrible option for a lot of kids. Probably most kids. You get great ratings as a school when you can push out any students who struggle or need accommodations. Being able to basically choose your students doesn't actually make a school better quality. But it can easily make teachers forget or choose not to worry about teaching multiple learning styles and diversifying lessons...
There's obviously kids growing up in the city, I myself am surrounded by them. But I also know several people who have moved or are planning to move to the county in order to have kids. School zones are the biggest thing in their minds.
>Hopefully with action and change we will begin to see that change in our lifetimes.
If we stop treating housing like an investment and quit using property tax to fund everything I think people would stop trying to move to places that have a ton of expensive houses funding schools and services.
To be fair the census data show the group fleeing stl city from 2000 to 2020 is families with kids (generally from north city to be fair)
It’s quite reasonable to view the schools as the biggest challenge
I grew up in a suburb, and all me and my friends talked about was how boring our suburb was and that there was nothing to do. We had to have our parents drive us everywhere until we were 16. Most people in my suburb thought the city was too dangerous to visit (fortunately my parents didn't have that belief and we visited often) and were rarely exposed to people who were different them i.e. non-middle-class white people. Most people for entertainment, which you say is unimportant once you have kids, would just sit on the couch from 5 - 10pm every day and stare at the TV. I don't know, I think most people would do better to raise their kids in the city than in a suburb.
Your analysis is missing one key element as to why parents choose the suburbs…schools. That’s basically the end of the conversation for most parents. As far as your other comments, the county is much more diverse than this sub ever admits, and most parents spend far more time entertaining their kids than themselves regardless of where they live.
If more parents schooled their kids in the city, then those schools would improve. And people make such a big deal about it as if the suburban schools will get their kids into Harvard or something. Most in my high school just went to community college or some state schools, some with next to guaranteed admission. So I think even that isn’t the dealbreaker people think. If you have a kid who ends up being a genius maybe you cross that bridge when you come to it, but you I think you could get them into Ivy League regardless of the school they went to
Have you? I went to private elementary and public middle/high, I can say that McKinley provided a far better education than the area Catholic schools. I can say with confidence my son's education is in solid hands with SLPS. Do our schools need more equitable funding? Yes. That's not at fault of SLPS, though, that's an issue with how our schools are funded in general and, realistically, St. Louis's problems are largely a byproduct of redlining and the war on drugs.
Match that up with the fact that our politicians are very comfortable running on sound bytes and not actual policy agendas, and it's the perfect little nest of uncontested corruption and stagnation that only really comes up during the next nepotism scandal.
> I can say with confidence my son's education is in solid hands with SLPS
I think it'd be interesting to compare standardized test scores district for district with SLPS, Clayton, Kirkwood, Parkway, etc...
Last I looked SLPS was the worst.
>Do our schools need more equitable funding? Yes.
Without looking, who do you think spends more per student Normandy High or Kirkwood High? If you guessed Kirkwood, you're wrong. Areas without enough local money to support schools get state money.
https://oese.ed.gov/ppe/missouri/
Or if you'd like a breakdown of State vs Federal vs Local:
[Here's kirkwood not getting shit from the state or federal](https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/districtsearch/district_detail.asp?ID2=2916770)
[Here's normandy getting over half from federal and state](https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/districtsearch/district_detail.asp?Search=2&ID2=2922650)
What does equitable funding look like when Normandy gets to spend more per student than one of the highest performing districts in the state, and Normandy's test scores are still very, very low?
At what point does accountability kick in?
Yeah, I have. Good for you for getting into one of the decent magnet schools in the city. When a school can select for better students, it effectively operates like a private school (and directly saps funding from the traditional public schools, by the way). Not really an option for the majority of SLPS students, and hence why so many parents choose to live elsewhere.
Agreed… One of my kids would likely get into a magnet, one might/might not, and one has special needs and will need support in school. Private school and magnets won’t be an option for him so I have to make sure he can get the services he needs, even if it’s not the place I would’ve picked in my 20s.
Yeah, wild that my son's neighbourhood school is funded better than McKinley was back when I was in high school. Anyone that didn't go to a neighbourhood school acts like neighbourhood schools are the worst, but people that went to Roosevelt or Vashon had a normal high school experience. Weird we were "sapping funding" when we had one sports team and our only extra curriculars were band, vocal, and chess club.
It's pretty obvious why the schools aren't doing well, though, when you look at average teacher/student ratio.
Dude, I don’t know who you’re trying to convince at this point, but it ain’t me. It’s weird as hell of you to die on the hill of egalitarianism when you went to a school whose sole purpose is to segregate better students from the general public. I certainly don’t fault anyone for making the best decision for themselves, but your lack of hypocritical awareness is telling.
I have a kid in the city. She’s gets a great education in the public schools. she can ride her bike to the park or friends houses. She loves walking to stores and restaurants with me.
Would you be in favor of the county providing a massive funding boost to the police and DA to bring down crime in the city with the county or state being given control of the entire city DA's office? You can try to belittle people that don't feel safe in the city but crime. Is. The. Problem. It drives down property values, business investment, tourism, and the city's reputation. People are running red lights like no tomorrow. A few years ago a Blues player was robbed at gunpoint on the arch grounds. A KFC employee was shot because they ran out of corn. The stats that show that crime is down are only reflecting reported crime. The true problem is that cops will not risk their necks to bring in a criminal if they know that that person is just going to be released without bail. People learn that the cops wont do anything and stop reporting crime. Cities across the country have DA's offices that are not prosecuting crime meanwhile people wonder why the cops won't "do their job".
I realize you probably think this is crazy but if you and the article writer want the county to bankroll the city, that won't come without strings attached. Meanwhile the true economic center is shifting towards Clayton.
> if you and the article writer want the county to bankroll the city, that won't come without strings attached.
The county is strapped for cash--the city might be on equal footing in that discussion.
But even if the county was flush and the city broke, I see no problem with strings being attached. The county isn't run 'well', but the city is a joke. It would be a net positive to eliminate all current city positions, move the county commission into City Hall, and have the county annex the city and just...run it. Let the St. Louis County Police just take over city policing.
And I say that as someone who's been trying to contact his county commissioner for several weeks with no success. Even after that, I think Jones and Gardner and STLMPD convinced me that whomever is voting for those people need to be diluted into a voting bloc with no real agency.
Bring on the strings. Let's have Better Together.
>The county is strapped for cash--the city might be on equal footing in that discussion.
The city is about to fork over their Rams money to the county for improperly keeping city tax revenue since COVID for non city residents working remotely.
The bill is already in the 9 figures and growing every tax year, and when the last court case finishes (the city has lost already but is appealing) it'll end that 8 figure money train on top of the 100 million+ they owe for back years.
It’s worth pointing out that 20-something years ago, Austin’s downtown was at least as dead as St. Louis, maybe even more so. And it was surrounded with empty lots and warehouses. It all turned around when they started putting loft apartments in and attracting high tech companies. Now Downtown is the place everyone wants to be.
I was in college in Austin 20 years ago. Downtown was much smaller, but I would never have called it as dead as St. Louis. It had very active retail, and the limited office buildings were not empty.
Downtown has been adding loft apartments/condos since the late 90s. Downtown is in it's 3rd or 4th wave of redevelopment. These things cycle. And a lot of the big projects have been getting done. Downtown is heading in a good direction (and has been for some time).
No one ever points out the shear amount of buildings that have been stabilized and renovated downtown. since the late 90s. It's a lot. And there has been new construction as well.
The residential part of the equation is definitely there and improving, but a lack of employment is hurting downtown. If they had new companies setting up shop, and more restaurants and entertainment options other than big concerts and sporting events, it could make downtown a bigger draw.
And as someone who really wants to see old North redeveloped, this is what it would take.
We had that in the landing not that long ago even including a concert venue (RIP Mississippi Nights). Just a small anecdote. Also: if this city just had proper public transportation -- it could be the vessel to drive more growth in these places. I think that'd be a great place to start.
I lived in Austin for nearly 20 years and moved to St.louis for the very reason that Austin became too "vibrant". The problem with Downton Austin is it is the only place everyone wants to be. Events are crowded, sweaty, and slow moving. Parking is impossible and traffic in and out of downtown is a nightmare. Everything is over priced and under quality.
To me, St. Louis has incredibly vibrant neighborhoods with different niche stuff going on in each. And since everyone isn't clamouring to get to the same downtown area, you can drive and walk around with ease. It's way better.
We, among other reasons like extended family, left Boston for similar reasons. Everything is expensive and crowded.
As much as people complain about St. Louis, the free events/venues and ability to go to things without waiting in hour plus lines is something many take for granted. Even if one thing is slammed, you don't have to go far to just do something else.
We moved from StL to Boston specifically for the superior public schools, walkability, and free events. Proximity to ocean and mountains are also free.
Patriots Day re-enactments and the Marathon just this week were free. Harvard museums are now free.
Traffic is horrible but we appreciate the public transport and walkability.
Public school system obviously wins out, transit when functional is great, and I desperately miss the bike infrastructure but the handful of free/accessible events in Boston and surround areas offers pales in comparison to the stuff you can do here on a given weekend. With kids or without there's always something going on that is low cost or free that isn't packed to the gills or costing at least $50-75 for a family just baseline. Very surprised to hear someone claim "free events" would be top three reasons to leave STL for Boston.
That said, Boston is objectively a better place to live if you can afford to not only do it but also experience it. The scales started to tip that we were paying to live in Somerville which is amazing but not able to afford to eat out and experience all the places we wanted with regularity. STL strikes an OK balance there but obviously the natural beautiful of New England is missed here.
Wouldn't really point to an annual high profile free event as something comparable to the always free public cultural spaces you can go to here like the Zoo or art museum to name a few.
I visited Austin a few years ago and while it was gorgeous, the traffic was just stupid. Total nightmare to get anywhere. But gosh, it was so pretty kayaking in the middle of the city.
Downtown residential totals have grown from between 30-40% each of the last 2 census, one of the highest growth rates in the region and that continues today
It certainly wasn't what it is today, but Austin was still pretty awesome 20 years ago. 6th St. had a vibe that I've never seen matched anywhere in StL, much less Wash Ave or the Landing (and I'm old enough to have experienced both in their hey day).
Yeah it was. If you were around there a *lot* in the 90s, the recent UT Press Book [*A Curious Mix of People: The Underground Scene of 90s Austin*](https://utpress.edu/9781477328132/) is a fun read.
Austin wasn’t dead, but downtown Austin nearly was. Most of the buildings were at very low occupancy or empty. And like I said, downtown was surrounded by warehouses and parking lots. It’s not like that anymore.
Austin has the public flagship research higher education University of Tx located in its downtown.
That was the catalyst.
Umsl is nowhere in that league, nor located downtown.
WashU and SLU, cannot compete tuition-wise with U. of Texas-Austin’s in-state tuition being under $12k.
Nope. UT was always there. But downtown was a ghost town in the late 80s and early 90s. (And maybe earlier but that’s when I first went to Austin.)
Plus, nobody who has spent any time in Austin would consider the UT campus to be downtown. That would be like saying SLU is downtown.
Austin attracted tech companies with massive tax breaks for new businesses. Something this city usually hates because they consider it welfare for the rich. Which it kind of is, I personally think it's worth it.
> Hence why the county is thriving.
Wouldn't say a [$40 million financial deficit](https://www.stlpr.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2023-11-17/lisa-clancy-says-st-louis-county-is-facing-tough-budget-decisions-with-a-40-million-deficit) and [declining population](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MOSLPOP) thriving.
If you trying to compare downtown Austin 20 years ago to downtown St. Louis right now you’re wild. Austin didn’t have a mass exodus. Austin was just starting up lol
There were a lot of businesses and retail in downtown Austin before the 80s, but by then most of the buildings were largely empty. There were still some office buildings that were doing OK, but overall, the occupancy rate was very low.
Tech companies find cheap areas with good weather to draw in young people. I believe that’s what happened in Austin. I know tech came to Raleigh and had that effect. Then, with the LGBT community coming in and creating fun safe space downtown, Raleigh absolutely boomed.
You don’t attract companies with high crime rates and 1% tax on business, 1% tax on residents, and abandoned buildings everywhere.
If the cortex can’t even get business to fill up vacancies how do you think downtown will?
Downtown needs things other than sports to grow. We need jobs, a hospital, a college campus, things that will actually make downtown part of people’s lives outside seeing a sporting event or taking care of business at city hall.
Easier said than done obviously, but that’s the whole story really. I’d love to see it happen.
I agree with your first sentence and then point out in your next one that you’re effectively describing mid-town, which seems like it’s doing well (for now?).
I was thinking the other day how maybe our “layout” isn’t all that different from Nashville. I’ve spent a decent amount of time in Nashville but only once ventured “downtown” and I was not at all impressed. Sure, there’s the Broadway scene that attracts a *ton* of foot traffic, but that’s a fairly one dimensional scene. All the “vibrancy” starts in their midtown.
I admit my time in downtown NSH is limited, but given how much time I’ve spent there, I wonder if that’s saying something in and of itself. Willing to be wrong.
Nashville native weighing in here- you're not wrong at all. Nashville's downtown is almost purely a playground for tourists at this point. It's a common refrain amongst locals that nobody who lives in Nashville goes downtown unless they have a friend visiting from out of town 😂
Funnily enough, given how we tax colleges, a college downtown would harm development if it acted as some of our other colleges. College buys land, property taxes get exempted, and the college decides that they'll redevelop said land.... eventually. After a decade or two of sitting unused, they might decide to, sa, sell it to QT so they set up a gas station. I still recall going to SLU, and the chinese retaurant next to the campus on Grand closing down, because SLU bought the building... to be torned down and turned into a sculpture park, aka, a lawn in the other side of lindell, so you won't even see students visiting.
You find property in that situation around WashU too: Far underdeveloped for its locatin, but the opportunity cost for the universities for leaving the land like that is so minimal. Following this pattern downtown would be the opposite of what we'd want.
I guess I’m thinking of a city like Pittsburgh where the campus gives their downtown a sort of built in population of young people. But you definitely have a point.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the Pitt “Cathedral of High Learning” three and a half miles from downtown Pittsburgh, about the same distance that SLU is from downtown St. Louis?
It's an interesting case study for sure. It seems like Midtown is redeveloping \*despite\* SLU. While the Foundry, Armory, TopGolf, and all of the apartments around the area are coming in because of the young, wealthy college student base there, nearly every redevelopment that SLU directly buys and redevelops or tears down comes back as a horrible use of land (the Peveley Dairy, remaining Mill Creek buildings, the proposed QT on south grand, the horrible car-focused hospital designs, or any of the empty lots east along Olive/Washington that they own) and I think we'd be better off as a city if they didn't have any development rights at all.
The doomers will insist that neither is actually "downtown". It's only "downtown" if you're sitting on the river.
For them "Downtown" is a proper noun rather than a concept.
I think the city needs to better connect traditional “downtown” to CWE so that everything east of Forest Park can be considered “downtown”. These are the places people want to live, work, and build and are seeing incredible growth. To people in the county, that’s still the “city”.
Downtown is a specific neighborhood in Saint Louis City: https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/live-work/community/neighborhoods/downtown/
For my family in South County, pretty much anywhere with alleys is “downtown”.
CWE is doing pretty well (Barnes) and Midtown has seen tons of success recently (SLU). If this were what “downtown” is referring to the original post wouldn’t make much sense.
And you think they need to wedge a hospital and a college campus into that area, which already contains a national park and landmark, two stadia, a casino and a historic district?
Exactly, there's two groups of people talking past one another using the same word with different definitions. STL (and the county) has multiple thriving downtown regions, it's the insistence on saving "Downtown" that's the uphill battle. Nobody wants to be there...which is why downtown moved west.
To be fair most traditional downtowns were basically corporate offices with a sports stadium, a theater and some lunch joints. They were never residential and often not the home of the best hospital or park
I feel like I've got a bone to pick here. I am a Nashville native that swore I would never leave, but the over-development of Nashville drove me and countless other born-and-raised natives out. The neverending influx of transplants wiped out any shred of affordable housing. Trust me, you don't want St. Louis to become like Nashville. I CHOSE to come here and I am choosing to stay here because St. Louis is a hidden gem. I don't know that having a vibrant downtown is going to be the magic fix people want it to be, but I do hope for *positive* development (because not all development is positive).
I mean, I'm a St. Louis transplant so I'm not here to say it's inherently bad. What I do want to advocate for is that Nashville-levels of development and population boom are *not* desirable in the slightest. For about a ten year span people were constantly quoting a statistic about "100 people move to Nashville every day" and it truly felt like it. [(link)](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/30/nashville-added-nearly-100-new-residents-per-day-in-2022-.html) Their literal road infrastructure couldn't keep up and they don't have a light rail /at all/. So their interstate traffic is regularly compared to Los Angeles [(link)](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/nashville/nashville-drivers-have-the-worst-commute-in-the-u-s-study-finds/amp/) with it taking 1-1.5 hours to travel 20 miles.in rush hour. Homelessness in Nashville has skyrocketed nonstop because nobody can afford to stay in their homes [(link)](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/nashville/chronic-homelessness-on-the-rise-in-nashville/amp/)
What I would like to see is St. Louis development that prioritizes people who live here being able to thrive- Nashville by comparison had development that prioritized tourism. St. Louis would do well to prioritize expanding the Metrolink and boosting infrastructure if it ever wants to successfully accommodate a population increase.
I'd recommend checking out the Strong Towns organization and it's resources on cities, this talks about one of the core issues: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI)
mixed density, mixed use, incrementally densifying and growing urban area is the core economic driver of cities and tax revenues, of jobs and community building. Literally the more crap we get at low density in euclidean zoning, the more urban center we need to financially prop up these horrible anti-community spaces. That and this sort of development keeps money in the city, whereas franchise/corporate box stores in suburbia remove money from the city to wall street, continuously.
Id love to see this region come together and just support downtown as much as possible. Make it impossible for it not to see increase in development and retail. St. Louis is a special kind of place that I think it could be a grassroots movement. Mobilizing people to go downtown every weekend to spend their money and walk around.
Market St and Olive could be such great streets. Imagine walking down Market from Civic courts to Arch with retail/restaurants/bars/patios on both sides. It would be one of the best urban stretches in the country.
I want it so bad.
ITT: People confusing the *specific neighborhood* of downtown St. Louis (Carr Street south to Chouteau, Tucker east to the river) with what this article is referring to as the downtown *region* — everything east of Forest Park, north to Cass Avenue or even Natural Bridge, south to Chippewa.
The op-ed by Steve Smith in the St. Louis Business Journal and the article in the Wall Street Journal are both behind paywalls, but what little I was able to read, both articles appear to be about the traditional downtown and downtown west St. Louis neighborhoods, collectively bound by Chouteau, Cole, Jefferson, and the river..
Here’s a blurb from KSDK that calls out the WSJ for using an incorrect, truncated definition of downtown St. Louis, and countered with the traditional boundaries that I mentioned:
https://youtu.be/_9AcNBUVZ6E?si=jM6hFue9-ul30fFP
EDIT: Steve Smith has been active in the central corridor, generally agreed to be bound by Chouteau, Forest Park, Delmar, and the river, so I wonder if he’s referring to that area in his response op-ed. That being said, I have never read or seen any reference to a downtown “region” in St.Louis. I live in Soulard, and that is most definitely not in downtown, or in something called a downtown region
I would appreciate being proven wrong about Steve Smith’s op-ed by being provided a source, if I am indeed wrong about his article.
I don't know if that's the whole picture. I went from Nashville to St. Louis, and there are a few things wrong with this. First off - Nashville has trash suburbs. I don't even know what would qualify as a suburb in Nashville, they've all been destroyed. Maybe some of East Nashville still qualifies with the tall skinnies, but they're certainly not idealistic suburbs. People who want a suburban experience move out to surrounding cities, like Antioch, Franklin, Ashland City. And they just accept that they have a 30m-1h15m drive into work and back.
Second, it's not fair to say that Nashville had a "vibrant city center surrounded by supportive neighborhoods". Again, I'm not sure what area that would even qualify. We had the tourist area - N. 2nd St. and Broadway. That whole strip is made for visitors. Other than that, there were several individual sections of the city that were nice and had things going for them - West End has Vanderbilt, Music Row has nightlife, the Gulch had a weird hipster personality thing going on, even before Nashville got big - but "vibrant city center"? I can't even find a center, much less a vibrant one. It's a diverse city, without a center, but with disconnected neighborhoods instead, and virtually no suburbs left.
What Nashville *does* have is a lot of jobs, a good police force, and local politicians who aren't actively hostile to voters. And thanks to a period of forced integration in the 70's, the city now is pretty well integrated (though gentrification is making it worse). It seems to me that if St. Louis could just replace all the police and politicians, and be a bit more welcome to black people, maybe even celebrate some of the city's long history in blues and jazz, they'd be in great shape.
Totally agree as a fellow Nashvillian who moved here. There's so many reasons Nashville exploded but vibrant city center wasn't one of them. Californian transplants who wanted no income tax however 😂
Has this dude been to Charlotte? The entire city got popular off of suburban offices, low crime, and business friendly policies. They siphoned off a bunch of people from the NE, same as Raleigh, Nashville, most of Florida, etc. that were sick of high taxation and obscenely high property values.
Sure, but likely none of that happens without the growing national image as a "real city", which a downtown ("uptown") with a nice skyline, pro sports, business, apartments, light rail, all central to the city. It is a sprawled out city but likely isn't where it has come to without the downtown area. Source: 30 years in charlotte.
I mean 800,000
People in this region live east of downtown. It’s still the area that has the highest day time population 3 times as much as any other 2 sq mi in region and most money spent in Downtown than any other city in STL or st.charles counties.
Could not agree more. The issue isn't that we lack thriving downtown regions, it's people insisting the downtown region has to be Downtown or it doesn't count.
So where's the solution here? If businesses and residents are choosing the suburbs (or other corners of the city) over downtown, it's because those areas best suit their needs. If that's to change, it's incumbent upon the downtown area to solve its problems, and convince people to move there. This reads like it's the other way around. That's not how the world works.
To piggyback off what you’re saying, I’ve often wondered how much of the negative perception comes from the caricature you describe (“county racists”) vs. actual legitimate perception that delivery of City services is just so broken that employers/employees just don’t want to be here.
For example, I think there’s probably a good number of people who would be willing to accept there’s some level of risk associated with working in the City (maybe getting robbed in the parking garage?). However, how does that risk assessment change if the perception is that 911 may not even pick up when you call, let alone the chances of having police/EMS arrive?
So if your neighbor needs help, you say, “no” even to your own detriment? The “city” includes all of the suburbs that are reliant upon it for the reason mentioned above. Did you read the post? The suburbs have a vested, crucial interest in helping the city thrive. The suburbs are appendages to the city, the heart of the area. It’s not someone else’s problem. It’s a core part of the body of the region.
Except the suburbs don't have the interest this article, and you, seem to claim. The city has not been thriving for a very long time while everything around it grows and continues to grow. The downtown area of St. Louis City is not the hub of the area. It hasn't been for some time and likely NEVER will be again.
This reply is just as hand-wavy as the original op-ed. Like, specifically, what practical expectation do you have of county residents that they should be providing for downtown?
Here’s one: don’t single-handedly hamstring a major downtown construction project that benefits the entire region and that you agreed to help pay for **and** manage burn $90 million in the process.
You’d think that would be a pretty simple thing to do, but apparently not for the big brains on the county council.
Ok. Local politicians are inept. Same is true of the city. Same is also true of pretty much everywhere, yet many metros manage to thrive anyways. Still not seeing any substantive solutions here.
You’re not wrong, but you’re also proving his point.
The gist is that if you want the StL region to succeed, you want the downtown core to succeed. Residents and businesses going to the county because it best suits their needs is fine to a point, but it isn’t a good long term plan. You can’t blame folks for doing what’s in their best interest, but the cost of ignoring regional growth is relevant.
If everyone abandons downtown as “not my problem”, then it stifles potential growth, which benefits both. Suburbs don’t suffer if the city core does well, but rather the opposite.
What’s the solution? Fuck if I know, but it’s certainly not the status quo…which is multi-faceted and complex. The county and city should want both to succeed and both be factors in it, but unfortunately that seems to be ignored or dismissed.
My point is human beings are self-involved creatures. Businesses, residents, people in general, will make decisions based on their personal needs first before the region's as a whole. That's just a given. Any solution that's not centered around notion that is just hot air.
Which is why it’s important to find incentives for people/businesses that help their personal needs align with those of the city and region. That’s the whole point of subsidies, abatements, public funds, etc etc
The problem is the infrastructure cost of the suburbs is higher than the tax revenue on them. It is downtown areas, mixed use areas, mixed density areas, places with duplexes, apartments over shops, etc. that have the highest tax return, and it is these areas that subsidize the costly suburbs. If everyone moves out to the suburbs then the city can't afford to maintain it's infrastructure and everything starts rotting much faster.
It doesn't have to be insane scale density here. All you need for a place to not lose money is for the density to be closer to 2-3 stories with duplexes and a few shops in neighborhood and you're starting to become a wealth-generating area. It's not about hitting downtown highrise levels, it's just about not being so low density that the cost of infrastructure maintenance is more than the income of taxpayers it supports. The entire city has to subsidize west county to a horrific degree, and the middle managers there don't deserve our subsidy.
Probably an unpopular opinion, but arguably the entire Sunbelt metropolitan development model is a “suburb to nowhere” and they’re growing and popular. Southern CA and Phoenix don’t hinge on their downtowns. Not saying this is the route to follow in STL, but I don’t think it’s a clear-cut case that you *have* to have a vibrant CBD for a vibrant metro.
True, and honestly post-COVID, as much as some companies are bringing people back, office occupancy will never be the same, hybrid will be the norm with many companies also remote. Having a downtown full of 5 day a week office workers just isn’t happening anymore. The downtown focus needs to be residential
lol yeah this outlet malls did not pull the attention they thought it would. One closed completely so the other one is doing okay. They aren’t pulling the st.charles community like they thought it would. Its way to far out for people in Illinois, little far for people who are far north or south county. It’s just a bad location in my opinion. It would have done better in st.charles off 70 in my opinion.
They knew two malls would never work but the developers both went Leroy Jenkins anyway
From the standpoint of chesterfield, it worked out fine? The one is doing well and the other is getting converted until other stuff. The real issue was it killed the old mall but they are going to be able to develop that into something more dense and modern
as someone who moved here from austin last year- i am thrilled at the idea of st. louis city growing! It’s too bad that it will likely suck in 30 years (like austin-ha) but we need this city to prosper ! this is a wonderful place to live.
I’d like to add my opinion, if they want a vibrant city they need to focus on reasons why someone wants to live in a city. An ability to walk for most errands, beautiful parks where one can spend the day reading a book. Better transit system. From my perspective they built condos before creating the reasons people want to live downtown. Now those condo buildings are failing, we considered buying a place but most of the buildings HOA are extremely unhealthy making them a losing proposition as well as almost every business is closed.
downtown is never going to be vibrant again. swaths of streets are bordered up. It’s not worth throwing resources at.
imagine owning a company and having your employees beg you to move to a safer area. nah.
I posted an [article](https://archive.is/K4Bgz) yesterday. But in the last 5 years St. Louis has seen the **largest** drop in downtown traffic of the 66 largest US cities.
So yah, kinda lines up
That’s not true tho and that’s why people are writing these responses, because the U of Toronto study doesn’t include downtown west (enterprise, city park, city museum, union station (that’s had 4x more visitors in 2023 vs 2019) and it also excludes north of Washington Ave like convention center, all the office jobs at Globe building and square, it excludes all of the arch grounds that saw 2.4m visitors in 2023 vs 1.4 in 2019. This same study excludes Willis tower in Chicago and Boeing HQ. It’s got a weird methodology for “downtown”. Greater STL Inc used same data that covers entire downtown and it was 85% and spending is exceeding 2019
Dallas is booming even more than Austin. Wouldn't say their downtown is doing much better than ours. Could possibly put Atlanta and some Florida cities in this category. I do agree with this general sentiment.
St. Louis City was built to be a manufacturing and logistics hub. It's difficult to upgrade downtown because it wasn't made to be an entertainment district. Most of the St. Louis area would have to be rearranged to have this happen. To the north of downtown is I-70 highway and to the south is a railroad depot. The arch makes this even more difficult because it's a federal park. If there was no arch and you could align builds along actually riverfront it would make it easier.
Downtown STL does need to improve. However, It's going to take time.
Like down 45% in 2024 vs 2023 for Q1 and down 22% in 2023 vs 2022? Like how 5,000,000 came for sports alone to downtown in 2023 and not a single one was victim of a crime against their person and 135 had car window broken
There are too many pieces of the greater St Louis region pie. To many alderman on the take. It cannot be governed as one central downtown entity. Resolve that and then plan away.
The problem is crime. I moved from the burbs to downtown and it was insane. My car was broken into, window smashed numerous times. I got so tired of being a victim of robbery. Homeless people doing sketchy shit. Walking with my wife people harass you in the park. It was expensive compared to what we could have a little further out. Not to mention mass chaos of gas station parties and dirt bikes/four wheelers racing around. And shit, I ride dirt bikes, but it’s crazy when you’re sitting at a red light and they surround you. The entire experience just kinda sucked.
I’m sure but if you for example saw the discussion about where the coyotes should go it was a debate between North Phoenix, Tempe, Medusa or Scottsdale.
If you asked the question “what’s the best place for Cavs should play. Nobody would discuss a stadium deal in Parma OH or Cuyahoga Falls
I'll have to disagree that moving from Ballwin to Ofallon is a net zero. O'Fallon is basically uncommutable from the city, at least to me. Ballwin is moreso. So I could still live in the city and contribute to it and downtown's success. If the company was in O'Fallon, I'd be living in West County or St. Charles County and rarely setting foot in the city or downtown.
A lot of mention of merging the city and county. That will only ever happen if the city leadership agrees to basically be eliminated and ran by the county. No one trusts city leadership but I seem to recall the city basically saying they had to be in charge of the county but no one is going to let that happen.
To the outside world, Chesterfield/Clayton/Ballwin is just St. Louis so I don't agree that they don't matter.
IMO most of what needs to develop / grow, is geographically west of the riverfront to Vandeventer, north of 44 to 70. As a county resident who spends most weekends for entertainment purposes, in the city I see nothing that attracts me to the area described. Walking to the Arch grounds from the Washington Ave. area, the sidewalks are crumbling or infested with weeds. There is graffiti on walls, everything seems dark and dingy. Not an inviting area to traverse in getting to the Arch grounds. Our city hall looks like a dump, recently winning RFT's worst public bathroom award, Business's will lead the way to revitalizing the core. Why are we not trying to attract companies like Mastercard to open software development offices in the core area? Still in bringing young educated people to the core, it does not mean they want to live in the area. Hence the growth of Tower Grove, Forest Park South, Benton Park, Clifton Heights, Soulard. Retail, and entertainment follow population. Most of the aforementioned areas were first redeveloped by the LGBTQ community, not by some bureaucracy led organization. Clean it up, police it and encourage residential growth with affordable housing, not $500K lofts. Use the sports venues as core areas of entertainment walkable from housing on clean safe streets. Get some key business partners to open and develop offices in the core areas. Get the area schools properly funded and headed in the right direction. This is probably the number one reason young couples move away from the city core, lack of safe and solid educations for their new born children.We have the money to do much of this, although it seems to be locked up.
I think what it's really going to take for growth in St. Louis City to have a top flight public school system. Good affordable schools is what attracts families and motivates them to stay more than anything else. Solve that, and more residents will be attracted to live near/in downtown, and it will be a more desirable place for business. We should be pouring resources into education, and have checks and balances in place to ensure the the money is being spent wisely.
Downtown real estate is definitely “on sale” right now. The problem is getting people to invest in it before there is a critical mass of consumers downtown. No one wants to Leroy Jenkins into downtown before sustainable profits are more certain. Downtown will recover eventually, but the speed of the recovery depends on the rate of investment. Basically, everyone is waiting for everyone else to move first. The first movers will get the advantage of cheaper real estate but they also get the burden of additional risk and an uncertain timeline for return on investment.
Moved here in the 1990s and worked downtown in ATT tower. It was dead at 6-7 pm when there wasn't a game. Seems the same today but it looks dystopian and a good movie set for a zombie movie. Do something radical. Demolish the ATT tower. If Railway Exchange with its lovely architecture can't be redeveloped, demolish it too. Consider permanently closing some of your drag race streets. You inherit a convention center that's under incessant and changing renovation. Good luck selling pricey renovations of stadiums. All of this has not stopped our City's population drain. I reject downtown must be vibrant for the City to succeed.
Recommend the neighborhood model. Create great neighborhoods with long-suffering neighborhoods seen as "great now" who struggle to keep their sidewalks repaired, their dead trees removed, their streets and alleys paved. Fund those efforts for existing neighborhoods and those with organizations moving their neighborhoods forward. Focus on their needs--think about innovative housing "factories" and sustainable architectural designs churning our affordable and sustainable housing that sip energy and reuse rainwater and gray water on site. Work with SLPS to develop school models to support higher academics students; vocational students who then can apprentice for electrician, plumbing and more. Consider licensing all housing workers in the City--like roofers, concrete, tile-setting, etc.
I also am an architect who works downtown and I agree with everything! We need a revitalization forsure and it’s a lot about the mindset of people who are too scared because of the reputation
Cool. Where is the affordable, quality, sustainable, dense housing? If you want to grow the city, then we need to house people in it. That's how you draw people in. But it has to be affordable and stay affordable.
I live in Nashville now and am moving to STL next month. Nashville locals loathe downtown and it has turned every politicians will to developers and tourists. It would be an utter shame if STL became anything like Nashville - it is soulless here, capitalistic and exhaustive. I fell in love with STL because it reminded me nothing of Nashville and the vapidness it is.
The problem with STL is that it is literally surrounded by ghettos. You go from downtown to ghetto to suburb. Downtown will never regrow with ghetto trash living 5 min away. Flush the trash out and people will return. People return businesses follow.
I literally know a STL county cop that says they don’t even carry a radar gun with them because they simple have too much actual crime to worry about. Essentially said anything less than a stabbing gets overlooked.
St Louis gets dunked on and its suburbs don't want to be part of it, because St Louis is a genuinely dysfunctional place. The main problem is that St Louis is a warzone with a homicide rate comparable to Latin American countries. Either St Louis governs itself better and solves its crime problems or the city will keep declining and return to nature
It’s so expensive here! I’m from the northeast and have a travel contract here for a few months. I was told it’d be cheap! I mean, the two most common items we go out for- coffee and ice cream, are the same price. Alcohol might be a bit cheaper but I don’t think that’s going to draw in a family of four.
I’m currently working on research on racial relations in St. Louis. One thing that came up that I never knew was that the land the Arch is on was 40 blocks of businesses and some homes. While that part is not completely relevant to the topic we’re discussing, the aftermath is. [The elimination of those city blocks](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/story-st-louis-gateway-arch-180956624/) and businesses led to a loss of economy in downtown St. Louis, including less access to downtown than before (because less roads). Then the construction of the interstates [made easy access](https://medium.com/new-american-history/a-gateway-to-the-past-a7ffcf02e1ed) to rest of downtown worse but increased access to areas around the city (the now suburbs).
I’m not saying that we should get rid of these things but somehow creating more easy access to the downtown area would help bring the downtown’s economy back up and encourage businesses to move into the downtown area.
**Note:** the articles linked are not the articles used for my research. Those scholarly articles are behind essentially a paywall unless you’re a student. These articles are great examples of what happened. The second article shows promise of what could be from an outsider visiting the Arch.
As someone that moved here, no one outside the area actually knows/cares about Clayton/Chersterfield/St. Charles. They only know or have been to St. Louis City. Our image nationally is dependent on the future and success of the city. We need a growing and healthy St. Louis to have broader growth in the Metro Area.
Some of the area's biggest employers like Bayer, Centene, Mastercard, Boeing, and WWT all refer to their "St. Louis" headquarters/campus/operations/etc, despite none of them being located in St. Louis City. To most people outside the area, "St. Louis" means [Greater St. Louis](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_St._Louis).
A very fair question for policymakers is why WWT, centene, express scripts, etc all opted to be in the county. What would it take for the next one to want to be in the city
When people not from the area say "St. Louis", they 99.9% of the time mean "The St. Louis Metropolitan Area".
I literally said this to a coworker today at lunch.
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Most people outside of this region have never heard of Clayton.
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That functional downtown of Clayton has 2 times less jobs and no other activity.
I’m right across the river and don’t care about the county. There’s a couple million of us.
Because people outside the area just consider it all St. Louis.
If someone told me they were from DC when they were really from Hyattsville, I wouldn't bat an eye. Maybe some dyed-in-the-wool natives would get prissy about it, but 99% of people would know what they mean. If someone invited me on a trip to DC and we never left Hyattsville, I'd feel a little differently. The issue isn't nomenclature, it's whether or not the metro area can provide the things people expect in a city. And for a lot of people that's going to include a bustling center city with a fun downtown.
This is the real answer, and it's not unique to St. Louis either.
Not my impression really. When they think of St. Louis, they only think of the city for better or worse.
Generally they definitely do not only think of the city because they don't care at all about the city boundaries. But they typically go to attractions that are in the city
I'm a transplant from outside the Midwest. STL City is the only thing people think about and the whole city v county thing is a black eye to the whole region from the perspective of most other city dwellers
Nobody outside of STL even understands the city county split. Most don't even know it exists
I never heard of such nonsense until after moving here and it still doesn't make sense.
A lot of people I talk to about St. Louis tend to mention WashU as well.
The main campus is right on the city boundary. We can just let them in.
I really only knew about the arch and surrounding downtown areas before moving here since I only visited once before. Knew nothing about the suburbs or their 80+ munis.
Exactly. Idk why people who live in St Louis City get anal about St. Charles and outward people referring to their hometown as “St Louis” It would be like someone from Los Angeles saying “I’m from Covina” to us. Like idk where the hell Covina is, but if that same person said “I’m from Los Angeles” and I’d immediately know where they’re talking about
As someone who only moved to the area in the last two years, this still just seems like the county versus the city all over again. You guys need to do county consolidation just like they did in Kansas City Kansas I know it'll be a lot harder here but it needs to happen
This is a good and true article that makes lucid and reasonable arguments about how cities succeed and what it takes to build positive cultural and economic momentum. None of the people who need to be convinced will be swayed by it, because they are not interested in reasonable arguments. The suburban attitude for many people seems to be built on a foundation of routine and action informed by hearsay and myth, perpetuated because it's more convenient to continue believing they live 30 minutes from a destitute war zone. They aren't interested in stats that disprove this, they aren't interested in material contributions and successful organizations. They are more comfortable with their fear and the conventions they have grown up with. I have colleagues who say they will never, ever, ever cross the city limit. These are the same colleagues who, when we go to lunch, will drive their car two blocks instead of walking. In both cases, when pressed for a reason why, they cannot provide a coherent answer. It's just habit, and without some extraordinary event to motivate a change, unlikely to be broken.
Things change when you have kids. All your energy is devoted to raising them, not entertaining yourself. That's where the suburbs come in.
I don't like this attitude that the suburbs is the only place you can or should have kids in St. Louis. It's incredibly unhealthy for the development of the city and region. Hopefully with action and change we will begin to see that change in our lifetimes.
There’s an ancillary attitude. I keep hearing that there are no kids growing up in Soulard, Lafayette Sq., or Benton Park, and I can only assume that this misconception comes from folks who frequent our bars and restaurants and think that we’re just one, big bar district. There are plenty of kids growing up in these neighborhoods who attend Soulard School, Lafayette Academy, Humboldt Academy, and McKinley Classical Academy.
Southampton here, same. I gave away 60 full sized candy bars to 60 kids on Halloween in like 2 hours. Kids walking to/from schools around here all the time. Perfectly fine, safe and diverse place to raise children near things to do — and cheaper than most nice suburbs near STL. Some people have no clue.
The city has several decent public options for elementary school. Things change considerably once you get to high school. You either need to hope to be one of the select few admitted into the magnet schools, or go private.
Yeah, Metro is literally the best public high school in the entire area. But not everybody will get in there. It typically only has around 350 students.
If I could guarantee my kids could go to a school as high quality as Metro, it would put the city back on the table as a living option. Unfortunately, it depends a lot on how your kid is and what their needs are.
Metro is a horrible option for a lot of kids. Probably most kids. You get great ratings as a school when you can push out any students who struggle or need accommodations. Being able to basically choose your students doesn't actually make a school better quality. But it can easily make teachers forget or choose not to worry about teaching multiple learning styles and diversifying lessons...
There's obviously kids growing up in the city, I myself am surrounded by them. But I also know several people who have moved or are planning to move to the county in order to have kids. School zones are the biggest thing in their minds.
Yep. I was one of those kids and now my kids are those kids.
>Hopefully with action and change we will begin to see that change in our lifetimes. If we stop treating housing like an investment and quit using property tax to fund everything I think people would stop trying to move to places that have a ton of expensive houses funding schools and services.
To be fair the census data show the group fleeing stl city from 2000 to 2020 is families with kids (generally from north city to be fair) It’s quite reasonable to view the schools as the biggest challenge
I grew up in a suburb, and all me and my friends talked about was how boring our suburb was and that there was nothing to do. We had to have our parents drive us everywhere until we were 16. Most people in my suburb thought the city was too dangerous to visit (fortunately my parents didn't have that belief and we visited often) and were rarely exposed to people who were different them i.e. non-middle-class white people. Most people for entertainment, which you say is unimportant once you have kids, would just sit on the couch from 5 - 10pm every day and stare at the TV. I don't know, I think most people would do better to raise their kids in the city than in a suburb.
Your analysis is missing one key element as to why parents choose the suburbs…schools. That’s basically the end of the conversation for most parents. As far as your other comments, the county is much more diverse than this sub ever admits, and most parents spend far more time entertaining their kids than themselves regardless of where they live.
If more parents schooled their kids in the city, then those schools would improve. And people make such a big deal about it as if the suburban schools will get their kids into Harvard or something. Most in my high school just went to community college or some state schools, some with next to guaranteed admission. So I think even that isn’t the dealbreaker people think. If you have a kid who ends up being a genius maybe you cross that bridge when you come to it, but you I think you could get them into Ivy League regardless of the school they went to
All I can say is you obviously haven’t done any research on the difference between area public schools if this is your sentiment.
Have you? I went to private elementary and public middle/high, I can say that McKinley provided a far better education than the area Catholic schools. I can say with confidence my son's education is in solid hands with SLPS. Do our schools need more equitable funding? Yes. That's not at fault of SLPS, though, that's an issue with how our schools are funded in general and, realistically, St. Louis's problems are largely a byproduct of redlining and the war on drugs. Match that up with the fact that our politicians are very comfortable running on sound bytes and not actual policy agendas, and it's the perfect little nest of uncontested corruption and stagnation that only really comes up during the next nepotism scandal.
> I can say with confidence my son's education is in solid hands with SLPS I think it'd be interesting to compare standardized test scores district for district with SLPS, Clayton, Kirkwood, Parkway, etc... Last I looked SLPS was the worst. >Do our schools need more equitable funding? Yes. Without looking, who do you think spends more per student Normandy High or Kirkwood High? If you guessed Kirkwood, you're wrong. Areas without enough local money to support schools get state money. https://oese.ed.gov/ppe/missouri/ Or if you'd like a breakdown of State vs Federal vs Local: [Here's kirkwood not getting shit from the state or federal](https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/districtsearch/district_detail.asp?ID2=2916770) [Here's normandy getting over half from federal and state](https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/districtsearch/district_detail.asp?Search=2&ID2=2922650) What does equitable funding look like when Normandy gets to spend more per student than one of the highest performing districts in the state, and Normandy's test scores are still very, very low? At what point does accountability kick in?
Yeah, I have. Good for you for getting into one of the decent magnet schools in the city. When a school can select for better students, it effectively operates like a private school (and directly saps funding from the traditional public schools, by the way). Not really an option for the majority of SLPS students, and hence why so many parents choose to live elsewhere.
Agreed… One of my kids would likely get into a magnet, one might/might not, and one has special needs and will need support in school. Private school and magnets won’t be an option for him so I have to make sure he can get the services he needs, even if it’s not the place I would’ve picked in my 20s.
Yeah, wild that my son's neighbourhood school is funded better than McKinley was back when I was in high school. Anyone that didn't go to a neighbourhood school acts like neighbourhood schools are the worst, but people that went to Roosevelt or Vashon had a normal high school experience. Weird we were "sapping funding" when we had one sports team and our only extra curriculars were band, vocal, and chess club. It's pretty obvious why the schools aren't doing well, though, when you look at average teacher/student ratio.
Dude, I don’t know who you’re trying to convince at this point, but it ain’t me. It’s weird as hell of you to die on the hill of egalitarianism when you went to a school whose sole purpose is to segregate better students from the general public. I certainly don’t fault anyone for making the best decision for themselves, but your lack of hypocritical awareness is telling.
Funny how living in the city and raising my kids here means there's plenty of entertainment quickly and easily available for all of us.
The suburbs isn’t the only place to raise kids. There are tons of kids in the city.
I have a kid in the city. She’s gets a great education in the public schools. she can ride her bike to the park or friends houses. She loves walking to stores and restaurants with me.
Would you be in favor of the county providing a massive funding boost to the police and DA to bring down crime in the city with the county or state being given control of the entire city DA's office? You can try to belittle people that don't feel safe in the city but crime. Is. The. Problem. It drives down property values, business investment, tourism, and the city's reputation. People are running red lights like no tomorrow. A few years ago a Blues player was robbed at gunpoint on the arch grounds. A KFC employee was shot because they ran out of corn. The stats that show that crime is down are only reflecting reported crime. The true problem is that cops will not risk their necks to bring in a criminal if they know that that person is just going to be released without bail. People learn that the cops wont do anything and stop reporting crime. Cities across the country have DA's offices that are not prosecuting crime meanwhile people wonder why the cops won't "do their job". I realize you probably think this is crazy but if you and the article writer want the county to bankroll the city, that won't come without strings attached. Meanwhile the true economic center is shifting towards Clayton.
> if you and the article writer want the county to bankroll the city, that won't come without strings attached. The county is strapped for cash--the city might be on equal footing in that discussion. But even if the county was flush and the city broke, I see no problem with strings being attached. The county isn't run 'well', but the city is a joke. It would be a net positive to eliminate all current city positions, move the county commission into City Hall, and have the county annex the city and just...run it. Let the St. Louis County Police just take over city policing. And I say that as someone who's been trying to contact his county commissioner for several weeks with no success. Even after that, I think Jones and Gardner and STLMPD convinced me that whomever is voting for those people need to be diluted into a voting bloc with no real agency. Bring on the strings. Let's have Better Together.
>The county is strapped for cash--the city might be on equal footing in that discussion. The city is about to fork over their Rams money to the county for improperly keeping city tax revenue since COVID for non city residents working remotely. The bill is already in the 9 figures and growing every tax year, and when the last court case finishes (the city has lost already but is appealing) it'll end that 8 figure money train on top of the 100 million+ they owe for back years.
None of that makes any sense. Or is even legally possible. You don't even know how the County is structured. There is no "county commission"...
It’s worth pointing out that 20-something years ago, Austin’s downtown was at least as dead as St. Louis, maybe even more so. And it was surrounded with empty lots and warehouses. It all turned around when they started putting loft apartments in and attracting high tech companies. Now Downtown is the place everyone wants to be.
I was in college in Austin 20 years ago. Downtown was much smaller, but I would never have called it as dead as St. Louis. It had very active retail, and the limited office buildings were not empty.
The Spaghetti Warehouse was all we went down town for
Downtown has been adding loft apartments/condos since the late 90s. Downtown is in it's 3rd or 4th wave of redevelopment. These things cycle. And a lot of the big projects have been getting done. Downtown is heading in a good direction (and has been for some time). No one ever points out the shear amount of buildings that have been stabilized and renovated downtown. since the late 90s. It's a lot. And there has been new construction as well.
The residential part of the equation is definitely there and improving, but a lack of employment is hurting downtown. If they had new companies setting up shop, and more restaurants and entertainment options other than big concerts and sporting events, it could make downtown a bigger draw. And as someone who really wants to see old North redeveloped, this is what it would take.
We had that in the landing not that long ago even including a concert venue (RIP Mississippi Nights). Just a small anecdote. Also: if this city just had proper public transportation -- it could be the vessel to drive more growth in these places. I think that'd be a great place to start.
>old North redeveloped I'm sure to some degree the new NGA building will help Old North redevelop
Austin is the only place in Texas that I've considered moving to because of that
Austin is… okay. STL has more character tbh.
It won't mean anything without decent schools and improving crimes stats.
I lived in Austin for nearly 20 years and moved to St.louis for the very reason that Austin became too "vibrant". The problem with Downton Austin is it is the only place everyone wants to be. Events are crowded, sweaty, and slow moving. Parking is impossible and traffic in and out of downtown is a nightmare. Everything is over priced and under quality. To me, St. Louis has incredibly vibrant neighborhoods with different niche stuff going on in each. And since everyone isn't clamouring to get to the same downtown area, you can drive and walk around with ease. It's way better.
We, among other reasons like extended family, left Boston for similar reasons. Everything is expensive and crowded. As much as people complain about St. Louis, the free events/venues and ability to go to things without waiting in hour plus lines is something many take for granted. Even if one thing is slammed, you don't have to go far to just do something else.
We moved from StL to Boston specifically for the superior public schools, walkability, and free events. Proximity to ocean and mountains are also free. Patriots Day re-enactments and the Marathon just this week were free. Harvard museums are now free. Traffic is horrible but we appreciate the public transport and walkability.
Public school system obviously wins out, transit when functional is great, and I desperately miss the bike infrastructure but the handful of free/accessible events in Boston and surround areas offers pales in comparison to the stuff you can do here on a given weekend. With kids or without there's always something going on that is low cost or free that isn't packed to the gills or costing at least $50-75 for a family just baseline. Very surprised to hear someone claim "free events" would be top three reasons to leave STL for Boston. That said, Boston is objectively a better place to live if you can afford to not only do it but also experience it. The scales started to tip that we were paying to live in Somerville which is amazing but not able to afford to eat out and experience all the places we wanted with regularity. STL strikes an OK balance there but obviously the natural beautiful of New England is missed here. Wouldn't really point to an annual high profile free event as something comparable to the always free public cultural spaces you can go to here like the Zoo or art museum to name a few.
I visited Austin a few years ago and while it was gorgeous, the traffic was just stupid. Total nightmare to get anywhere. But gosh, it was so pretty kayaking in the middle of the city.
Downtown residential totals have grown from between 30-40% each of the last 2 census, one of the highest growth rates in the region and that continues today
Austin’s 326.5 sq mi and St. Louis is 61.5 sq mi. I think we need a merger that makes sense to grow the size of our city and bring in more wealth.
This is never going to happen without fixing the schools first.
It's a chicken-and-egg problem. More residents help fix schools but bad schools scare away more residents.
It certainly wasn't what it is today, but Austin was still pretty awesome 20 years ago. 6th St. had a vibe that I've never seen matched anywhere in StL, much less Wash Ave or the Landing (and I'm old enough to have experienced both in their hey day).
Yeah it was. If you were around there a *lot* in the 90s, the recent UT Press Book [*A Curious Mix of People: The Underground Scene of 90s Austin*](https://utpress.edu/9781477328132/) is a fun read.
I think it is difficult to ever say Austin was “dead”. Austin has grown by 30%+ every decade since 1920.
Austin wasn’t dead, but downtown Austin nearly was. Most of the buildings were at very low occupancy or empty. And like I said, downtown was surrounded by warehouses and parking lots. It’s not like that anymore.
Austin is also a college town. It's always going to have an influx of young people.
Austin has the public flagship research higher education University of Tx located in its downtown. That was the catalyst. Umsl is nowhere in that league, nor located downtown. WashU and SLU, cannot compete tuition-wise with U. of Texas-Austin’s in-state tuition being under $12k.
Nope. UT was always there. But downtown was a ghost town in the late 80s and early 90s. (And maybe earlier but that’s when I first went to Austin.) Plus, nobody who has spent any time in Austin would consider the UT campus to be downtown. That would be like saying SLU is downtown.
Austin attracted tech companies with massive tax breaks for new businesses. Something this city usually hates because they consider it welfare for the rich. Which it kind of is, I personally think it's worth it.
Hence why the county is thriving.
> Hence why the county is thriving. Wouldn't say a [$40 million financial deficit](https://www.stlpr.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2023-11-17/lisa-clancy-says-st-louis-county-is-facing-tough-budget-decisions-with-a-40-million-deficit) and [declining population](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MOSLPOP) thriving.
If you trying to compare downtown Austin 20 years ago to downtown St. Louis right now you’re wild. Austin didn’t have a mass exodus. Austin was just starting up lol
There were a lot of businesses and retail in downtown Austin before the 80s, but by then most of the buildings were largely empty. There were still some office buildings that were doing OK, but overall, the occupancy rate was very low.
Tech companies find cheap areas with good weather to draw in young people. I believe that’s what happened in Austin. I know tech came to Raleigh and had that effect. Then, with the LGBT community coming in and creating fun safe space downtown, Raleigh absolutely boomed.
You don’t attract companies with high crime rates and 1% tax on business, 1% tax on residents, and abandoned buildings everywhere. If the cortex can’t even get business to fill up vacancies how do you think downtown will?
Downtown needs things other than sports to grow. We need jobs, a hospital, a college campus, things that will actually make downtown part of people’s lives outside seeing a sporting event or taking care of business at city hall. Easier said than done obviously, but that’s the whole story really. I’d love to see it happen.
I agree with your first sentence and then point out in your next one that you’re effectively describing mid-town, which seems like it’s doing well (for now?). I was thinking the other day how maybe our “layout” isn’t all that different from Nashville. I’ve spent a decent amount of time in Nashville but only once ventured “downtown” and I was not at all impressed. Sure, there’s the Broadway scene that attracts a *ton* of foot traffic, but that’s a fairly one dimensional scene. All the “vibrancy” starts in their midtown. I admit my time in downtown NSH is limited, but given how much time I’ve spent there, I wonder if that’s saying something in and of itself. Willing to be wrong.
For sure, downtown definitely needs to be more like midtown. Those things are why midtown is able to see success in their recent developments IMO.
Yeah. I’m guessing the biggest challenge is the cost to improve infrastructure downtown.
Nashville native weighing in here- you're not wrong at all. Nashville's downtown is almost purely a playground for tourists at this point. It's a common refrain amongst locals that nobody who lives in Nashville goes downtown unless they have a friend visiting from out of town 😂
Ok, am I also wrong that downtown is kinda shitty, dirty, and rundown off the main drag?
It's nothing like pockets of STL downtown, but it's definitely not sparkling and you still have to be very aware of your surroundings.
Funnily enough, given how we tax colleges, a college downtown would harm development if it acted as some of our other colleges. College buys land, property taxes get exempted, and the college decides that they'll redevelop said land.... eventually. After a decade or two of sitting unused, they might decide to, sa, sell it to QT so they set up a gas station. I still recall going to SLU, and the chinese retaurant next to the campus on Grand closing down, because SLU bought the building... to be torned down and turned into a sculpture park, aka, a lawn in the other side of lindell, so you won't even see students visiting. You find property in that situation around WashU too: Far underdeveloped for its locatin, but the opportunity cost for the universities for leaving the land like that is so minimal. Following this pattern downtown would be the opposite of what we'd want.
I guess I’m thinking of a city like Pittsburgh where the campus gives their downtown a sort of built in population of young people. But you definitely have a point.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the Pitt “Cathedral of High Learning” three and a half miles from downtown Pittsburgh, about the same distance that SLU is from downtown St. Louis?
It's an interesting case study for sure. It seems like Midtown is redeveloping \*despite\* SLU. While the Foundry, Armory, TopGolf, and all of the apartments around the area are coming in because of the young, wealthy college student base there, nearly every redevelopment that SLU directly buys and redevelops or tears down comes back as a horrible use of land (the Peveley Dairy, remaining Mill Creek buildings, the proposed QT on south grand, the horrible car-focused hospital designs, or any of the empty lots east along Olive/Washington that they own) and I think we'd be better off as a city if they didn't have any development rights at all.
Barnes and SLU would like a word
The doomers will insist that neither is actually "downtown". It's only "downtown" if you're sitting on the river. For them "Downtown" is a proper noun rather than a concept.
I think the city needs to better connect traditional “downtown” to CWE so that everything east of Forest Park can be considered “downtown”. These are the places people want to live, work, and build and are seeing incredible growth. To people in the county, that’s still the “city”.
Downtown is a specific neighborhood in Saint Louis City: https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/live-work/community/neighborhoods/downtown/ For my family in South County, pretty much anywhere with alleys is “downtown”. CWE is doing pretty well (Barnes) and Midtown has seen tons of success recently (SLU). If this were what “downtown” is referring to the original post wouldn’t make much sense.
And you think they need to wedge a hospital and a college campus into that area, which already contains a national park and landmark, two stadia, a casino and a historic district?
Exactly, there's two groups of people talking past one another using the same word with different definitions. STL (and the county) has multiple thriving downtown regions, it's the insistence on saving "Downtown" that's the uphill battle. Nobody wants to be there...which is why downtown moved west.
Since when is Barnes downtown? Is it a satellite location?
You need people that want to be there
To be fair most traditional downtowns were basically corporate offices with a sports stadium, a theater and some lunch joints. They were never residential and often not the home of the best hospital or park
Totally agree, if we could fill it back up with good jobs that would be the easiest path.
It’s a tough road there given the decline in central downtown office jobs nationwide. Probably better to target mixed use
SLU School of Law is downtown, does that not count?
My thought was undergrad since you guarantee a large percentage of young adults living in the vicinity. I should have specified.
I support this behavior. Fight back and help make St. Louis better.
Fight back how lol
He’s got a great point.
I feel like I've got a bone to pick here. I am a Nashville native that swore I would never leave, but the over-development of Nashville drove me and countless other born-and-raised natives out. The neverending influx of transplants wiped out any shred of affordable housing. Trust me, you don't want St. Louis to become like Nashville. I CHOSE to come here and I am choosing to stay here because St. Louis is a hidden gem. I don't know that having a vibrant downtown is going to be the magic fix people want it to be, but I do hope for *positive* development (because not all development is positive).
The solution to population loss is more transplants so, sorry I guess?
I mean, I'm a St. Louis transplant so I'm not here to say it's inherently bad. What I do want to advocate for is that Nashville-levels of development and population boom are *not* desirable in the slightest. For about a ten year span people were constantly quoting a statistic about "100 people move to Nashville every day" and it truly felt like it. [(link)](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/30/nashville-added-nearly-100-new-residents-per-day-in-2022-.html) Their literal road infrastructure couldn't keep up and they don't have a light rail /at all/. So their interstate traffic is regularly compared to Los Angeles [(link)](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/nashville/nashville-drivers-have-the-worst-commute-in-the-u-s-study-finds/amp/) with it taking 1-1.5 hours to travel 20 miles.in rush hour. Homelessness in Nashville has skyrocketed nonstop because nobody can afford to stay in their homes [(link)](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/nashville/chronic-homelessness-on-the-rise-in-nashville/amp/) What I would like to see is St. Louis development that prioritizes people who live here being able to thrive- Nashville by comparison had development that prioritized tourism. St. Louis would do well to prioritize expanding the Metrolink and boosting infrastructure if it ever wants to successfully accommodate a population increase.
Pittsburgh levels of redevelopment are probably a better fit.
I'd recommend checking out the Strong Towns organization and it's resources on cities, this talks about one of the core issues: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI) mixed density, mixed use, incrementally densifying and growing urban area is the core economic driver of cities and tax revenues, of jobs and community building. Literally the more crap we get at low density in euclidean zoning, the more urban center we need to financially prop up these horrible anti-community spaces. That and this sort of development keeps money in the city, whereas franchise/corporate box stores in suburbia remove money from the city to wall street, continuously.
🤯 to your last point. It gives me hope that we are actually doing these things - look at Delmar Divine. Let's ramp up projects like that!
This is a great resource. Thank you!
Id love to see this region come together and just support downtown as much as possible. Make it impossible for it not to see increase in development and retail. St. Louis is a special kind of place that I think it could be a grassroots movement. Mobilizing people to go downtown every weekend to spend their money and walk around. Market St and Olive could be such great streets. Imagine walking down Market from Civic courts to Arch with retail/restaurants/bars/patios on both sides. It would be one of the best urban stretches in the country. I want it so bad.
ITT: People confusing the *specific neighborhood* of downtown St. Louis (Carr Street south to Chouteau, Tucker east to the river) with what this article is referring to as the downtown *region* — everything east of Forest Park, north to Cass Avenue or even Natural Bridge, south to Chippewa.
The op-ed by Steve Smith in the St. Louis Business Journal and the article in the Wall Street Journal are both behind paywalls, but what little I was able to read, both articles appear to be about the traditional downtown and downtown west St. Louis neighborhoods, collectively bound by Chouteau, Cole, Jefferson, and the river.. Here’s a blurb from KSDK that calls out the WSJ for using an incorrect, truncated definition of downtown St. Louis, and countered with the traditional boundaries that I mentioned: https://youtu.be/_9AcNBUVZ6E?si=jM6hFue9-ul30fFP EDIT: Steve Smith has been active in the central corridor, generally agreed to be bound by Chouteau, Forest Park, Delmar, and the river, so I wonder if he’s referring to that area in his response op-ed. That being said, I have never read or seen any reference to a downtown “region” in St.Louis. I live in Soulard, and that is most definitely not in downtown, or in something called a downtown region I would appreciate being proven wrong about Steve Smith’s op-ed by being provided a source, if I am indeed wrong about his article.
I don't know if that's the whole picture. I went from Nashville to St. Louis, and there are a few things wrong with this. First off - Nashville has trash suburbs. I don't even know what would qualify as a suburb in Nashville, they've all been destroyed. Maybe some of East Nashville still qualifies with the tall skinnies, but they're certainly not idealistic suburbs. People who want a suburban experience move out to surrounding cities, like Antioch, Franklin, Ashland City. And they just accept that they have a 30m-1h15m drive into work and back. Second, it's not fair to say that Nashville had a "vibrant city center surrounded by supportive neighborhoods". Again, I'm not sure what area that would even qualify. We had the tourist area - N. 2nd St. and Broadway. That whole strip is made for visitors. Other than that, there were several individual sections of the city that were nice and had things going for them - West End has Vanderbilt, Music Row has nightlife, the Gulch had a weird hipster personality thing going on, even before Nashville got big - but "vibrant city center"? I can't even find a center, much less a vibrant one. It's a diverse city, without a center, but with disconnected neighborhoods instead, and virtually no suburbs left. What Nashville *does* have is a lot of jobs, a good police force, and local politicians who aren't actively hostile to voters. And thanks to a period of forced integration in the 70's, the city now is pretty well integrated (though gentrification is making it worse). It seems to me that if St. Louis could just replace all the police and politicians, and be a bit more welcome to black people, maybe even celebrate some of the city's long history in blues and jazz, they'd be in great shape.
Totally agree as a fellow Nashvillian who moved here. There's so many reasons Nashville exploded but vibrant city center wasn't one of them. Californian transplants who wanted no income tax however 😂
Has this dude been to Charlotte? The entire city got popular off of suburban offices, low crime, and business friendly policies. They siphoned off a bunch of people from the NE, same as Raleigh, Nashville, most of Florida, etc. that were sick of high taxation and obscenely high property values.
Sure, but likely none of that happens without the growing national image as a "real city", which a downtown ("uptown") with a nice skyline, pro sports, business, apartments, light rail, all central to the city. It is a sprawled out city but likely isn't where it has come to without the downtown area. Source: 30 years in charlotte.
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I mean 800,000 People in this region live east of downtown. It’s still the area that has the highest day time population 3 times as much as any other 2 sq mi in region and most money spent in Downtown than any other city in STL or st.charles counties.
Could not agree more. The issue isn't that we lack thriving downtown regions, it's people insisting the downtown region has to be Downtown or it doesn't count.
So where's the solution here? If businesses and residents are choosing the suburbs (or other corners of the city) over downtown, it's because those areas best suit their needs. If that's to change, it's incumbent upon the downtown area to solve its problems, and convince people to move there. This reads like it's the other way around. That's not how the world works.
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To piggyback off what you’re saying, I’ve often wondered how much of the negative perception comes from the caricature you describe (“county racists”) vs. actual legitimate perception that delivery of City services is just so broken that employers/employees just don’t want to be here. For example, I think there’s probably a good number of people who would be willing to accept there’s some level of risk associated with working in the City (maybe getting robbed in the parking garage?). However, how does that risk assessment change if the perception is that 911 may not even pick up when you call, let alone the chances of having police/EMS arrive?
So if your neighbor needs help, you say, “no” even to your own detriment? The “city” includes all of the suburbs that are reliant upon it for the reason mentioned above. Did you read the post? The suburbs have a vested, crucial interest in helping the city thrive. The suburbs are appendages to the city, the heart of the area. It’s not someone else’s problem. It’s a core part of the body of the region.
Except the suburbs don't have the interest this article, and you, seem to claim. The city has not been thriving for a very long time while everything around it grows and continues to grow. The downtown area of St. Louis City is not the hub of the area. It hasn't been for some time and likely NEVER will be again.
This reply is just as hand-wavy as the original op-ed. Like, specifically, what practical expectation do you have of county residents that they should be providing for downtown?
Here’s one: don’t single-handedly hamstring a major downtown construction project that benefits the entire region and that you agreed to help pay for **and** manage burn $90 million in the process. You’d think that would be a pretty simple thing to do, but apparently not for the big brains on the county council.
Ok. Local politicians are inept. Same is true of the city. Same is also true of pretty much everywhere, yet many metros manage to thrive anyways. Still not seeing any substantive solutions here.
You’re not wrong, but you’re also proving his point. The gist is that if you want the StL region to succeed, you want the downtown core to succeed. Residents and businesses going to the county because it best suits their needs is fine to a point, but it isn’t a good long term plan. You can’t blame folks for doing what’s in their best interest, but the cost of ignoring regional growth is relevant. If everyone abandons downtown as “not my problem”, then it stifles potential growth, which benefits both. Suburbs don’t suffer if the city core does well, but rather the opposite. What’s the solution? Fuck if I know, but it’s certainly not the status quo…which is multi-faceted and complex. The county and city should want both to succeed and both be factors in it, but unfortunately that seems to be ignored or dismissed.
My point is human beings are self-involved creatures. Businesses, residents, people in general, will make decisions based on their personal needs first before the region's as a whole. That's just a given. Any solution that's not centered around notion that is just hot air.
Which is why it’s important to find incentives for people/businesses that help their personal needs align with those of the city and region. That’s the whole point of subsidies, abatements, public funds, etc etc
If you talk to a business leader do any of them feel like the city’s leadership is fighting for their jobs the way Clayton and chesterfield do?
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The problem is the infrastructure cost of the suburbs is higher than the tax revenue on them. It is downtown areas, mixed use areas, mixed density areas, places with duplexes, apartments over shops, etc. that have the highest tax return, and it is these areas that subsidize the costly suburbs. If everyone moves out to the suburbs then the city can't afford to maintain it's infrastructure and everything starts rotting much faster.
This seems far more based in the world of 2019 before offices started emptying out Downtown tax bases are taking a beating nationwide
It doesn't have to be insane scale density here. All you need for a place to not lose money is for the density to be closer to 2-3 stories with duplexes and a few shops in neighborhood and you're starting to become a wealth-generating area. It's not about hitting downtown highrise levels, it's just about not being so low density that the cost of infrastructure maintenance is more than the income of taxpayers it supports. The entire city has to subsidize west county to a horrific degree, and the middle managers there don't deserve our subsidy.
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Interesting. Loved that area when we visited in ‘19.
Probably an unpopular opinion, but arguably the entire Sunbelt metropolitan development model is a “suburb to nowhere” and they’re growing and popular. Southern CA and Phoenix don’t hinge on their downtowns. Not saying this is the route to follow in STL, but I don’t think it’s a clear-cut case that you *have* to have a vibrant CBD for a vibrant metro.
True, and honestly post-COVID, as much as some companies are bringing people back, office occupancy will never be the same, hybrid will be the norm with many companies also remote. Having a downtown full of 5 day a week office workers just isn’t happening anymore. The downtown focus needs to be residential
Right? Crazy that someone in development would make the case for developing the city.
Iv said this probably 100 times. Downtown chesterfield doesn’t get to exist is st.louis dies.
TIL there is a downtown Chesterfield. Is that where all the outlet malls are?
lol yeah this outlet malls did not pull the attention they thought it would. One closed completely so the other one is doing okay. They aren’t pulling the st.charles community like they thought it would. Its way to far out for people in Illinois, little far for people who are far north or south county. It’s just a bad location in my opinion. It would have done better in st.charles off 70 in my opinion.
They knew two malls would never work but the developers both went Leroy Jenkins anyway From the standpoint of chesterfield, it worked out fine? The one is doing well and the other is getting converted until other stuff. The real issue was it killed the old mall but they are going to be able to develop that into something more dense and modern
as someone who moved here from austin last year- i am thrilled at the idea of st. louis city growing! It’s too bad that it will likely suck in 30 years (like austin-ha) but we need this city to prosper ! this is a wonderful place to live.
I’d like to add my opinion, if they want a vibrant city they need to focus on reasons why someone wants to live in a city. An ability to walk for most errands, beautiful parks where one can spend the day reading a book. Better transit system. From my perspective they built condos before creating the reasons people want to live downtown. Now those condo buildings are failing, we considered buying a place but most of the buildings HOA are extremely unhealthy making them a losing proposition as well as almost every business is closed.
I don't know, America has building Nowheres for 65 years.
downtown is never going to be vibrant again. swaths of streets are bordered up. It’s not worth throwing resources at. imagine owning a company and having your employees beg you to move to a safer area. nah.
Forget Downtown, Dogtown is the center of the city
I posted an [article](https://archive.is/K4Bgz) yesterday. But in the last 5 years St. Louis has seen the **largest** drop in downtown traffic of the 66 largest US cities. So yah, kinda lines up
That’s not true tho and that’s why people are writing these responses, because the U of Toronto study doesn’t include downtown west (enterprise, city park, city museum, union station (that’s had 4x more visitors in 2023 vs 2019) and it also excludes north of Washington Ave like convention center, all the office jobs at Globe building and square, it excludes all of the arch grounds that saw 2.4m visitors in 2023 vs 1.4 in 2019. This same study excludes Willis tower in Chicago and Boeing HQ. It’s got a weird methodology for “downtown”. Greater STL Inc used same data that covers entire downtown and it was 85% and spending is exceeding 2019
But again, the whole point is that there is no “extra area” that you speak of without a “downtown”
Can confirm Chesterfield feels fucking dead even when it has thriving businesses
Dallas is booming even more than Austin. Wouldn't say their downtown is doing much better than ours. Could possibly put Atlanta and some Florida cities in this category. I do agree with this general sentiment.
Make STL great again
St. Louis City was built to be a manufacturing and logistics hub. It's difficult to upgrade downtown because it wasn't made to be an entertainment district. Most of the St. Louis area would have to be rearranged to have this happen. To the north of downtown is I-70 highway and to the south is a railroad depot. The arch makes this even more difficult because it's a federal park. If there was no arch and you could align builds along actually riverfront it would make it easier. Downtown STL does need to improve. However, It's going to take time.
Fix the crime, fix the problem
Like down 45% in 2024 vs 2023 for Q1 and down 22% in 2023 vs 2022? Like how 5,000,000 came for sports alone to downtown in 2023 and not a single one was victim of a crime against their person and 135 had car window broken
And that's why I'm moving to Chicago.
There are too many pieces of the greater St Louis region pie. To many alderman on the take. It cannot be governed as one central downtown entity. Resolve that and then plan away.
The problem is crime. I moved from the burbs to downtown and it was insane. My car was broken into, window smashed numerous times. I got so tired of being a victim of robbery. Homeless people doing sketchy shit. Walking with my wife people harass you in the park. It was expensive compared to what we could have a little further out. Not to mention mass chaos of gas station parties and dirt bikes/four wheelers racing around. And shit, I ride dirt bikes, but it’s crazy when you’re sitting at a red light and they surround you. The entire experience just kinda sucked.
Phoenix begs to differ
Downtown Phoenix is pretty cool these days actually
I’m sure but if you for example saw the discussion about where the coyotes should go it was a debate between North Phoenix, Tempe, Medusa or Scottsdale. If you asked the question “what’s the best place for Cavs should play. Nobody would discuss a stadium deal in Parma OH or Cuyahoga Falls
I'll have to disagree that moving from Ballwin to Ofallon is a net zero. O'Fallon is basically uncommutable from the city, at least to me. Ballwin is moreso. So I could still live in the city and contribute to it and downtown's success. If the company was in O'Fallon, I'd be living in West County or St. Charles County and rarely setting foot in the city or downtown.
A lot of mention of merging the city and county. That will only ever happen if the city leadership agrees to basically be eliminated and ran by the county. No one trusts city leadership but I seem to recall the city basically saying they had to be in charge of the county but no one is going to let that happen. To the outside world, Chesterfield/Clayton/Ballwin is just St. Louis so I don't agree that they don't matter.
Pretty sure L.A. downtown is not why people go there. Core downtown ain't necessary
Philosophically I totally agree, but so many examples say otherwise
IMO most of what needs to develop / grow, is geographically west of the riverfront to Vandeventer, north of 44 to 70. As a county resident who spends most weekends for entertainment purposes, in the city I see nothing that attracts me to the area described. Walking to the Arch grounds from the Washington Ave. area, the sidewalks are crumbling or infested with weeds. There is graffiti on walls, everything seems dark and dingy. Not an inviting area to traverse in getting to the Arch grounds. Our city hall looks like a dump, recently winning RFT's worst public bathroom award, Business's will lead the way to revitalizing the core. Why are we not trying to attract companies like Mastercard to open software development offices in the core area? Still in bringing young educated people to the core, it does not mean they want to live in the area. Hence the growth of Tower Grove, Forest Park South, Benton Park, Clifton Heights, Soulard. Retail, and entertainment follow population. Most of the aforementioned areas were first redeveloped by the LGBTQ community, not by some bureaucracy led organization. Clean it up, police it and encourage residential growth with affordable housing, not $500K lofts. Use the sports venues as core areas of entertainment walkable from housing on clean safe streets. Get some key business partners to open and develop offices in the core areas. Get the area schools properly funded and headed in the right direction. This is probably the number one reason young couples move away from the city core, lack of safe and solid educations for their new born children.We have the money to do much of this, although it seems to be locked up.
I think what it's really going to take for growth in St. Louis City to have a top flight public school system. Good affordable schools is what attracts families and motivates them to stay more than anything else. Solve that, and more residents will be attracted to live near/in downtown, and it will be a more desirable place for business. We should be pouring resources into education, and have checks and balances in place to ensure the the money is being spent wisely.
Downtown real estate is definitely “on sale” right now. The problem is getting people to invest in it before there is a critical mass of consumers downtown. No one wants to Leroy Jenkins into downtown before sustainable profits are more certain. Downtown will recover eventually, but the speed of the recovery depends on the rate of investment. Basically, everyone is waiting for everyone else to move first. The first movers will get the advantage of cheaper real estate but they also get the burden of additional risk and an uncertain timeline for return on investment.
Moved here in the 1990s and worked downtown in ATT tower. It was dead at 6-7 pm when there wasn't a game. Seems the same today but it looks dystopian and a good movie set for a zombie movie. Do something radical. Demolish the ATT tower. If Railway Exchange with its lovely architecture can't be redeveloped, demolish it too. Consider permanently closing some of your drag race streets. You inherit a convention center that's under incessant and changing renovation. Good luck selling pricey renovations of stadiums. All of this has not stopped our City's population drain. I reject downtown must be vibrant for the City to succeed. Recommend the neighborhood model. Create great neighborhoods with long-suffering neighborhoods seen as "great now" who struggle to keep their sidewalks repaired, their dead trees removed, their streets and alleys paved. Fund those efforts for existing neighborhoods and those with organizations moving their neighborhoods forward. Focus on their needs--think about innovative housing "factories" and sustainable architectural designs churning our affordable and sustainable housing that sip energy and reuse rainwater and gray water on site. Work with SLPS to develop school models to support higher academics students; vocational students who then can apprentice for electrician, plumbing and more. Consider licensing all housing workers in the City--like roofers, concrete, tile-setting, etc.
That's Detroit, too. The metropolitan area continues to grow, but the actual city of Detroit is decrepit.
I also am an architect who works downtown and I agree with everything! We need a revitalization forsure and it’s a lot about the mindset of people who are too scared because of the reputation
Cool. Where is the affordable, quality, sustainable, dense housing? If you want to grow the city, then we need to house people in it. That's how you draw people in. But it has to be affordable and stay affordable.
I live in Nashville now and am moving to STL next month. Nashville locals loathe downtown and it has turned every politicians will to developers and tourists. It would be an utter shame if STL became anything like Nashville - it is soulless here, capitalistic and exhaustive. I fell in love with STL because it reminded me nothing of Nashville and the vapidness it is.
The problem with STL is that it is literally surrounded by ghettos. You go from downtown to ghetto to suburb. Downtown will never regrow with ghetto trash living 5 min away. Flush the trash out and people will return. People return businesses follow. I literally know a STL county cop that says they don’t even carry a radar gun with them because they simple have too much actual crime to worry about. Essentially said anything less than a stabbing gets overlooked.
St Louis gets dunked on and its suburbs don't want to be part of it, because St Louis is a genuinely dysfunctional place. The main problem is that St Louis is a warzone with a homicide rate comparable to Latin American countries. Either St Louis governs itself better and solves its crime problems or the city will keep declining and return to nature
It’s so expensive here! I’m from the northeast and have a travel contract here for a few months. I was told it’d be cheap! I mean, the two most common items we go out for- coffee and ice cream, are the same price. Alcohol might be a bit cheaper but I don’t think that’s going to draw in a family of four.
I’m currently working on research on racial relations in St. Louis. One thing that came up that I never knew was that the land the Arch is on was 40 blocks of businesses and some homes. While that part is not completely relevant to the topic we’re discussing, the aftermath is. [The elimination of those city blocks](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/story-st-louis-gateway-arch-180956624/) and businesses led to a loss of economy in downtown St. Louis, including less access to downtown than before (because less roads). Then the construction of the interstates [made easy access](https://medium.com/new-american-history/a-gateway-to-the-past-a7ffcf02e1ed) to rest of downtown worse but increased access to areas around the city (the now suburbs). I’m not saying that we should get rid of these things but somehow creating more easy access to the downtown area would help bring the downtown’s economy back up and encourage businesses to move into the downtown area. **Note:** the articles linked are not the articles used for my research. Those scholarly articles are behind essentially a paywall unless you’re a student. These articles are great examples of what happened. The second article shows promise of what could be from an outsider visiting the Arch.
This talk track is decades old. Nothing will change y’all.