Positive Developments in St. Louis
Some out there may get the impression I’m against all development. Well that is just not the case. Still I can be pretty negative at times so here is a list of some of the things I see as positive development in the city – the things that get me excited about the future of Saint Louis:
Continued rehabilitation, adaption and reuse of existing buildings:
All over the city we are seeing everything from existing shotgun cottages to old schools to large warehouse buildings being reconfigured internally to meet today’s lifestyles. This work is being done by individuals and large developers alike. We have the state historic rehab tax credit to thank for aiding in much of this, especially on the larger projects. After decades of writing off so many great old structures it is great to see their qualities be appreciated. By renovating these structures, many once vacant, we are adding density and thus strengthening multiple neighborhoods. We are also showing that building types once thought to be obsolete can again be functional. Creativity is winning out over demolition in many areas.
The East Loop area
Even just five years ago, it would have been easy for many to justify more suburban new construction East of Skinker. People would have pointed to the gas station and Church’s Chicken on the corners and count the area a lost cause to the automobile. Joe Edwards saw a continued pedestrian-friendly environment and he has worked toward that goal. Metro narrowed the street from four lanes to just two — widening the sidewalks in the process.
So many of our streets were widened in the first half of the 20th century when our population was significantly greater — widening sidewalks and narrowing streets is certainly a positive.
Old North St Louis:
Today the neighborhood is vastly different than when I moved there in 1991. The 1970’s mistake, a pedestrian mall, is finally being removed and 14th street is being reopened again. Buildings, some barely still standing, are being renovated — again by individuals and through large development deals. If not for the hard work of many individuals on smaller projects (single buildings) would we see the larger efforts today. The work of one person renovating a single small structure should never be discounted — For more than 30 years now individuals have been bringing back the neighborhood.
Mass Transit:
The continued development of our mass transit choices is exciting to me. Sure Metro has screwed up before and they will do so again but we must keep our sights on the goal of being able to navigate our region both through the use of public transit and the private bicycle. As someone who is only recently disabled, our mass transit system will play an important role in my having mobility.
New urban infill development
Many get excited by proposed new high-rise towers. Me? Not so much. I prefer more modest structures in the 2-8 story range. The building on the NE corner of Sarah & Laclede, known as 6 North, is just such an example (see my review from three years ago). New infill construction along Park in the Lafayette Square neighborhood helps define an urban public street. The modern loft apartments on Forest Park Parkway at Euclid (with the Bread Co) is another good example of new urban infill.
Just having new construction isn’t enough for me — they have new construction out in O’Fallon but that doesn’t mean it creates the environment I want to be surrounded with.
Dogs in the city
I’ve always been a cat person but in the city it is the urban dog that rules. The owner walks the dog to an outdoor cafe where strangers now begin conversations about the dog’s breed and so on. Dog parks have formed that bring people together in new ways. It is hard to walk around many neighborhoods without seeing a person out walking their dog. Each and every one is an encouraging symbol.
Conclusion
So while others get excited about proposals for a particular high-rise, another casino or even a “district” like the 3-block Ballpark Village concept or the Bottleworks proposal, I’m more content with modest examples of urbanity. Slick marketing and hype turns me off. Simple urbanity, on the other hand, gets me stirred up. A good form-based zoning code is totally sexy. Laws that encourage an active street life (making it easier for street performers, street vendors and such) would be so cool.
I will continue to point out design flaws when big ticket projects that, for example, fail to include proper pedestrian pathways get built with or without public subsity. I will continue to point out how our elected leaders repeat mistakes of the past and how they focus on the short term (ground breakings, ribbon cuttings) while not always considering the long-term sustainability of the project. This doesn’t make me anti-development or a naysayer, it’s just me being vocal about my expectations and how they were not met. We need many more people standing up and articulating what it is they want and expect from their surroundings.
As they come along I will try harder to highlight what I see as positive contributions to our build environment because they are out there.
“Simple urbanity, on the other hand, gets me stirred up.”
Thanks! Keep at it!
Could you please mention the new chess club in the CWE? These are the types of places that make a city a city. I know its being built by some you might not like, but just give a little cred where cred is due.
Thanks
http://saintlouischessclub.org
Coming May, maybe.
I couldn’t agree more. Best post in a while! Keep up the recovery and the good work.
Steve, Are you on a morphine drip? I didn’t think you had it in you to write a postive article about St. Louis and its future. So glad to see it. Perhaps we will see more of it.
On the negative side, St. Louis is going to be facing some struggles over the next year or two as the markets readjust themselves. But if St. Louis has been around so long, it will survive this as well. Shake up is good for markets at times, the fall out not so but it is a fact of life.
Continue your success at rehab and don’t get too frustrated with yourself when you have one of those days. You will be back before you know it.
Okay, I know I am new. But I actually don’t get any negative “Vibes” from your writing. People like to put others in categories. “Are you a glass half full” or “A glass half empty” type of person?Positive versus Negative. As if the world is black and white versus various shades of gray. I tend to think the glass of water is an illusion and others needs to define you versus you defining yourself are vastly overused and relied upon for putting people into a predefined category that they can ignore or respect.
Life is too short to be so rigid. I believe that very few people even after satisfying their needs ever get to the poiint of self actualization. It is in this theory we realize, as some argue, that once needs are met, an individual is primed for self actualization. Others argue, and I tend to agree that there are two more phases an individual must progress through before self actualization can take place. These include “the cognitive needs†where a person will desire knowledge and an understanding of the world around them, and “the aesthetic needs†which include a need for “symmetry, order and beautyâ€.
Based on that definition, there is very little negative thought residing in the comments I have read. You seem to want to make people grow in their own understanding, which is an assistance to that goal of understanding oneself. These theoretical core physcological expressions applied to your reporting of observations to an audience exemplify that they were mostly brought from the attempt to reach this point found in the final stages of that process. Some communication witnessed here falls into the rareified place of self actualization, an almost spiritual finding of truth in the internal chaos, where control of its context will rest soley within the reader and where they are at in the process. You see? In short only you can be aware of its origins and the reader is responsible for finding it within themselves through this very same process.
Does that make any sense to anyone other than me? Either way it was a compliment directed at you from what I see of the writing, for all I know you are a real S.O.B.
Steve, I agree. It can be frustrating seeing what’s happening knowing what could have been. Plus, government, by definition, can be incredibly frustrating, especially in the glacial way it changes and reacts.
One challenge I see is people moving into the city from the suburbs not realizing how one must be more courteous in higher density environments. Your posts about dogs reminds me of this; while I am an avid fan of dogs, I have an avid dislike for many of their owners; many people act very rudely by the way they let their dogs run loose. For this great experiment to work–the revitalization of St. Louis city–people are going to have to learn to get along with each other, and realize that people with different lifestyles will begin to live in very close quarters. The lure of the suburbs has always been: do what you want, wherever you want, and everyone else be damned. People will have to learn to walk and bike places, and not expect there to be a gigantic parking lot everywhere they want to go (Rosati-Kain controversy, for example). Crime is stopped by people talking to their neighbors, a lost art where I grew up in the suburbs where people rarely spoke to each other, even after years of living a few houses down.
Where’s your noise on the red light cameras? That’s what the Post threw their influence behind over the weekend. They did have a decent article on the public schools this week, which read pro-voucher to me. Does any one know what’s going in at Lindell and West Pine? When I biked past it there was a large hole in the ground like some new construction was happening. Hopefully it’s not a suburban development like a McDonalds with a dvd kiosk. That building at Euclid and the pkwy isn’t in the red brick charachter much of the rest of the city is but at least is urban, as you pointed out.
They still play in the Loop. But in the Bread Company. Not like it used to be.
As for running us off, it was the drug and crime activity that killed the tables. Without tables chess doesn’t stand a chance. I am not sure that there was any illicit activities but the business owners didn’t like all the freeloaders, I think.
Anyway this club is going to be awesome. First class. And the CWE has always been my preferred locale for chilling out. Now it is going to be even better.
Your critic’s lack of a logical counterargument clearly indicates the fallacy of their argument and subsequent decisions. Keep pointing out the mistakes as few do.
Chris,
What are your plans to move to the city? We need you and more of your kind moving and being good neighbors. Too many people post about how to improve the city from afar. The best way to improve the city is to move in and be a good neighbor.
I agree, Steve. I applaud the small-scale interventions over the huge ones. They don’t require a lot of public investment, and they usually respond to market forces instead of a big “vision” like Ballpark Village, etc. That’s how most of the neighborhoods have come back: one house, one commercial building at a time. Slow and steady.
Excellent post, and I agree with 90% of the sentiment, especially the remarks about smaller infill development projects sparking neighborhood-scale revitalization and hope of an eventual form-based zoning code. The 10% disagreement I have (not really a disagreement but rather a difference on take regarding towers) concerns high-rise projects. I believe a few well-placed towers give inhabitants, travelers on the streets and tourists some reliable visual landmarks. Regarding scale of context and adjacent forms, I think towers are a difficult proposal for a number of reasons (disproportionate building scale, long cast shadows, etc), and in a generally low to mid-rise city like St. Louis they’ll be rare in number. When well conceived, designed and detailed like the many that stand as visual landmarks in Chicago for instance, I think towers contribute a lot to the urban scape.
I actually like mountains better (as landmarks) . . . .
…and the Woody Allen “Sleeper” house.
Agree wholeheartedly, I think mid-rise density infills, sidewalk storefronts, reuse and tree lined streets with houses next to each other define the progress and economic vitality of the city.
…and I believe that is what most urbanists covet and will fight for.
I really think you have missed your calling. Seeing this positive side of you (a few negative aspersions notwithstanding) is uplifting and encouraging! ‘Nay-saying’ really does not become anyone. I feel a little dirty everytime I’ve been tempted to comment on your blog, because I feel the temptation (and maybe succumb a little myself) to be negative to others’ negativity (like this post). Anywho, progress never flourishes in the face of criticism like it does while being nurtured by support (and constructive criticism). For some reason your blog has been the only one that has evoked a response out of me. I guess I should go back to the other blogs I read regularly and start commenting, as I just started reading yours 2 weeks ago. It really feel more communal when you start threads like this one… please consider doing this more often. Thank you for the positive (I’m trying not to sound like a 70’s flower child).
I actually appreciate your criticism of large scale tear down and rebuild projects. I think that you have touched on very important topics in the built environment in this blog. One thing that was said by John M. above…
“Others argue, and I tend to agree that there are two more phases an individual must progress through before self actualization can take place. These include “the cognitive needs†where a person will desire knowledge and an understanding of the world around them, and “the aesthetic needs†which include a need for “symmetry, order and beautyâ€.”
I agree that understanding your surroundings is important. Its also important to recognize that symmetry and order are not the same as beauty. I think that is the problem I have with large scale re-developments. I see the most beautiful projects (both architectural and urban) are the projects that can co-exist within the established urban fabric. Le Corbusier’s ideas (The City of Tommorrow and its Planning) about tearing down and starting over don’t make sense to our generation (it did for his, i.e. the re-construction of bombed European cities after WWII). I think more along the lines of Jane Jacobs (The Death and Life of the American City.)
I mention this because I see that integration of basic urban needs in smaller communities strengthens the city as a whole. Massive re-developments are often rolling the dice on external interaction with the city. Sometimes it is necessary to draw population back into a dying city, or to completely re-establish ‘abandoned’ areas… but to me the real question is how to prevent these massive overhauls from needing to take place.
I think that you are touching on the answers. I just found your blog and look forward to reading through more!