St Louis’ 200th Anniversary Just a Year Away
99 years ago St Louis was celebrating the one-hundredth anniversary of its incorporation. At the time St Louis was the 4th largest U.S. city. In 1900 the city had a population of 575,238 and by 1910 that had increased to 687,029 – nearly double our current population.
“St. Louis first became legally incorporated as a town on November 9, 1809″ (wiki). The book, “St. Louis Day By Day” by Frances Hurd Stadler lists the week-long 100th anniversary celebration on October 3, 1909.
I’d say we’ve got some 200th anniversary planning to do – for October or November of next year. Here is a possible slogan, “twice as old, half the population.”
Perhaps we should discuss what a “healthy St. Louis” really is. Is it returning to the same population St. Louis was in 1950? Quite frankly, that was a very crowded and cramped city back then; I once spoke to a woman who slept with 5 other siblings in one room in ONSL fifty years ago. Do we want to return to that level of crowded living conditions?
Or is a healthy St. Louis a city with a solid tax base, excellent schools and low crime? Obviously we are going to need SOME new residents, perhaps a couple hundred thousand, but will 500,000 new residents really make our city better? I don’t know the answer to that.
A population of 610,000 giving us a density of about 10ppsm and a built out public transit system would make us one of the most thriving cities in the country.
that’s about 250,000 more residents it would be a busy place but very comfortable and your right Chris my Grandfather used to live in a crowded slum around the corner from Union Station with roaches and rats. St. Louis was a very crowded and dirty place and I don’t think it would be very comfortable in this day in age, even with our advancements in technology….but St. Louis at 350,000 is just pitiful even though we are noticeably denser and more urban than a lot of other “major” cities around the country.
I have a more optimistic slogan:
Twice as old, twice as roomy.
I like, “Plenty of parking!”. Unless some valet has taken it by force. I hate those guys. It’s the city, there is lots of street for me to park on for free. Why would I pay them to park? Grrrr.
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So are you saying there isn’t some kind of something planned for next year?
My views, things me need to do to help the city;
1: Stop the public school bashing, people! It creates a mindset of failure that simply is not true, and is very harmful.
2: Reform city government. Cinncinatti is an excellent example. At the very least, cut the number of aldermen in half.
3: Reform our zoning laws. Inclusionary zoning. (I’m anti-gentrification)
4: Get rid of the Post-Dispatch 😉
5: Be family friendly, and “cultural” at the same time. It can be done, people!
6: Mass transit. North-South extension for MetroLink. Trolleys, or non-petro fueled buses on major streets.
7: Reform our tax code.
In general, my feeling is that there is a huge amount of waste, corruption, laziness, and just general “blockage” in the city government prevent any productive things from getting done.
p.s.
—Electing a truly civic, progressive, and honest mayor would be a great way to start a bicentennial celebration!—
Incorporation is sort of a lame thing to celebrate. The 1764 founding was the important year, and they did it up in 1964. All future efforts should go into the semiquincentennial in 2014.
Given its relatively small geographic area, (61 +/- sq. mi.) the City of St. Louis is pretty densely populated with its current census figure. Some of the sunbelt cities that have exploded to 300,000 people or more in the past twenty years consist of five times the area, resulting in a much different atmosphere and intensity of land use. If we gain more population, great, but I think stabilizing where we are now would not be bad. Going back to losing people would be.
“slp— some large portions of our city are desolate places that need new population.”
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If you mean “new population” in the form of workers or residents. I’d be fine looking at some of our desolate areas redeveloped as job centers and not traditional neighborhoods.