Since I've only been to OKC once, I can't compare its street grid to ours, but our pre-1940 parts seem to be pretty similar to pre-1940 parts in other cities. I'm guessing that 1, 4 and 10 go together – it's called stagnation or benign neglect. The cities that seem to be much less walkable, overall, are also the ones that have grown explosively since WW II – Phoenix, Tampa, Atlanta and Las Vegas, to name four, yet even those have compact, walkable urban cores. (Plus suburban St. Louis [region] is probably less walkable than some other areas – try walking Manchester anywhere west of Kingshighway!)

I have to agree on 2, 3, 7 and 8 – age and geography define any area, and we have a lot to explore and to be proud of. We also have a lot to maintain, and that's a challenge that will require growing our economy, since nature and the brick thieves have their own agendas. The real challenge, moving forward, for both the city and the region, will be balancing preservation and economic growth. We need both, yet too many seem intent on one at the exclusion of the other.

I can't really comment on 6, since I've had limited exposure here, but my experience elsewhere is that the LBGTQ community seems to be more open, in general, than the straight community, since many have faced similar challeges in growing up and defining themselves. My direct experience is that the straight community is certainly more closed here than in other, growing, communities – I don't know if it's a symptom or a cause, but it certainly creates a different dynamic and its own set of challenges.

Number 5, the diversity, is an interesting one – in some ways I have to disagree. We obviously aren't all lilly white mid-class, but we also have a higher-than-average percentage of African-Americans, reducing, significantly, the percentages of other significant racial groups, specifically Hispanics and Asians. Plus, the racism and segregation here seem to be much more palpable than in many other cities. Throw in crime and poverty and we have some diversity issues / extremes that aren't so great.

I hope you're right on Number 9. I'm seeing and feeling the same thing, but it's so tenuous that I'm not sure that it's real. I'm thinking that the key to making it all click will be fixuing the SLPS. Most of us don't stay single, and all of us are getting older, with the cycle of life here seeing far too many families moving on from the city when their kids approach school age. Since I doubt that the GLBTQ is big enough to repopulate St. Louis in its entirety (although it does create an interesting visual), we're going to have to figure out how to keep more families with kids from moving out.

Finally, shouldn't you provide attribution to your obviously copyrighted cartographic source? Much llike how you insist on doing so for photographic ones?