The City Is Better Today Than In 1990
I was just 23 when I moved to St. Louis in August 1990.  At that point the 1990 Census had been completed, but the numbers weren’t yet revealed.  Thus, the last population number for St. Louis at the time I moved here was 452,801 (1980).  I was moving from a city with fewer people to a bigger city, Oklahoma City had 404,014 residents in 1980.  Oklahoma City also has ten times the land area of St. Louis so the urban density was and  is far far less.  But I didn’t live here during the decade of 450k+ residents.
As I was moving from the Central West End to Old North St. Louis (then known as Murphy-Blair) in March 1991 the new population figure was released: 396,685, a loss of 56,116. Â That seemed like nothing compared to the loss of 169,435 between 1970-1980. We had just dipped below 400,000, the first time we’d fallen to levels not seen since the 19th century.
In 2001 the 2000 Census showed another loss, this time 48,496 fewer residents. Â Each time the Census figures came out I considered bailing, jumping off the sinking ship. Â This time is different, leaving is the last thing on my mind. Â More than ever I want to stay and fight so the 2020 Census shows a gain rather than a loss.
The growth of St. Louis slowed in the 1920s and the the city lost a little population in the 30s. The shift to newer housing was well under way when the post-WWII boom coupled caused housing shortages and gave St. Louis the false impression the 1940 drop was a fluke.
Harland Bartholomew’s destructive vision to remake the city. From the 1947 plan:
The City of St. Louis can anticipate a population of 900,000 persons by 1970, based on these assumptions:
1. That the population of the St. Louis Metropolitan District continues to maintain its present proportion to total urban population of the United States.
2. That an attractive environment for living will be developed throughout the city to counteract current decentralization trends.
3. That the city is, nevertheless, a maturing urban center that can never expect to attain the tremendous past growth of certain earlier periods.
The #2 item above meant urban renewal. Erasing the old walkable city and building back an auto-friendly city. Tens of thousands were forced from their homes for highway construction and housing projects like Pruitt-Igoe.
Today our loses are for different reasons: an ingrained anti-city bias and a dysfunctional public school system. I think we can fix these issues.
The 2020 Census may show another loss which is fine if the city continues to get better as it has these last 20 years.
– Steve Patterson
Goog post Steve. I'd be interested in hearing your top three ideas for improving the city's public school system. There are a lot of things that need to happen to preserve and improve the city of St. Louis. Improving the school district would help a lot. How do we do it?
Unfortunately, a major part of the problem is “garbage in, garbage out”. Compared to more-successful systems, SLPS sees a higher percentage of students that start un/under-prepared, don't have support on the home front, are/become disengaged and are truant and eventually drop out. The corollary is that parents of better students seek better options (parochial and suburban), perpetuating the disparity. Magnet and charter schools are a step in the right direction, as would be a return to neighborhood schools, but the real trick will be convincing middle-class parents (both white and black) that the city public schools are comparable to places like Rockwood, Clayton or Ladue. Unfortunately, it's the classic chicken-or-egg conundrum . . .
Unfortunately, Magnet and Charter schools tend to perpetuate the status quo.
Those parents who value education, have the social wherewithal to seek out better educational opportunities and can jump through bureaucratic hoops are those that place their children in alternative schools.
Those children most at risk are then left in (still) failing schools that now have fewer resources than before. I am not saying the alternatives are bad in and of themselves, but the SLPS system needs to be completely overhauled for the City to succeed.
I agree on the need to fix the public schools, but the “ingrained anti-city bias” needs a lot more detail and discussion – race? crime? earnings tax? street parking? aging buildings? aging infrastructure? jobs? transit? freeways? politics? permits? the gay/a shift away from traditional family values? the homeless?
Aside from the ego and federal funding consequences of reduced census numbers. I'm less concerned with quantity than I am with quality. I have no problem with neighborhoods that gentrify and lose total population, and I could support population losses associated with new/expaned industry/jobs. The one area where I would object is what happened in Maplewood, where population loss was a direct result of replacing housing with retail. We can't shop our way out of our decline, we need to grow jobs and make our city a more-desirable place to both live and work.
Steve, I agree that many parts of the city are better than in 1990, but you don't state why you think it is better… care to elaborate?
Downtown isn't vacant, commercial areas like South Grand & Cherokee are doing great, lots of buildings have been renovated and occupied, streets are being narrowed, etc.
Thanks! I agree on all accounts… although I think some parts of the city are worse, and I do worry about the Northside and how we can lift all boats in the city
I'm a very recent arrival to St. Louis, having moved here from Glasgow, Scotland just over 18 months ago. Nevertheless, I've been following the census discussions with great interest, since we (my wife and I) chose to live in the city (Lafayette Square), and have developed a lot of affection for the urban landscape and architecture of the city. As a recent arrival from a great European city which suffered a catastrophic economic and demographic decline after the war, and was almost wiped off the map in the 50s and 60s but which, in the 80s and 90s virtually reinvented itself to become one of Britain's most livable cities (and a magnet for visitors) I wonder if I could post a few thoughts, based on a (very superficial) comparison between the two places? Forgive me if they seem naive (put that down to being new to STL, MO, and, indeed, the US!):
1. Like St. Louis, the wealth and prosperity of Glasgow began with the river. Glasgow is busily re-discovering how important this asset is, with flats (apartments) bars, cafes (open-air! in Scotland!), shops, museums, walkways, new pedestrian and bike bridges, even a marina. I'm constantly amazed at the way that St. Louis seems to have turned its back on the Mississippi. Its almost the first thing visitors from Europe want to see (besides the Arch) and they're always disappointed simply at how difficult it is to access it, how neglected it feels, and how nobody seems to value it as part of the city, other than as something to drive over.
2. In the 50s and 60s Glasgow was nearly destroyed by the planners, who tore motorways (freeways) through the heart of the city, creating trenches around the city center, in deference to the automobile. Sound familiar? Now, Glasgow is learning to turn away from the car, towards bikes, buses, and a revamped metro. As gas prices continue to climb (Oh they will! They will!) shall we, in St. Louis, need to embark on a similar journey? Essentially, at what point does St. Louis begin to learn that cars should take second place to the livable city?
3. Along with motorway building, Glasgow in those dire post-war times, effectively 'doughnuted' itself, decanting whole populations (mainly the urban poor) into vast, faceless, peripheral housing estates, reminiscent of Eastern Europe at its Stalinist worst. This is almost the reverse of St. Louis, where the flight to suburbia and exurbia has been led by the middle classes. But then, in the 80s Glasgow began to rediscover its crumbling Edwardian and Victorian infrastructure. Cleaning and rehabbing the old tenements and abandoned warehouses transformed the city center, making it, once more livable and attractive. There are plenty of signs of similar energy in St. Louis. Everywhere I wander in the city, I keep thinking of the vast areas of space and light which are offered by decayed and unloved warehouses… What fun it would be to live overlooking the Mississippi! Flooding apart…
4. Public schooling remains a massive problem in Glasgow, and this still largely determines where many people chose to live, paying a premium to exercise that choice. But there's a trade off. Glasgow has some of the highest Council Taxes (property taxes) in the UK. Everyone grumbles about it, but they pay up, if grudgingly, in the recognition that a city and its infrastructure, particularly its schools, needs funding if it is to become an engine of wealth creation. I am constantly amazed at the US aversion to taxation, in the belief that the 'market' will create social solutions (it never has, and never will).
5. Glasgow's nastiest problems revolve not around race but the often unspoken blight of sectarianism. Some parts of the city became (and still are) 'catholic' and some 'protestant'. Violence and crime, affecting predominately poorer neighborhoods, was (and still is) the product of this divide. This antediluvian horror doesn't affect St. Louis, but then I'm struck by the ways in which the whole discourse of 'neighborhoods' here seems to conceal the continuing racial divides which haunt the city.
6. Crucial to Glasgow's reinvention (a continuing project) were two major initiatives in the 80s: the 1988 Garden Festival (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G…) and winning the title of European City of Culture in 1986. These two events generated enormous revenue, boosted the infrastructure, and focused national and international attention on the city, whose last major event had been the 1938 'Empire Exhibition'. I'm struck by how often St. Louis looks back to the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition as its glorious moment, without looking forward to the next event (and how ironic that the second most popular song, to many foreigners, which is associated with St. Louis, is effectively a hymn to public transport!).
7. A crucial factor in a City's livability is not raw population but population density. The population density of the city of St. Louis is (I gather) around 5,000 people per square mile. That of the city of Glasgow is roughly twice St. Louis (10,000 per square mile). Focusing on overall population changes tends to deflect attention from the rally important factor: density. How do we create denser (not larger) neighborhoods?
8. Crime. I'm constantly impressed, walking and biking around St. Louis how safe it actually feels, despite what everyone tells me, and despite the constant tirade from the media. Glasgow was (and is) the murder capital of the UK (knives rather than guns being the preferred weapon of choice). But (as in St. Louis) violent crime in Glasgow tends (regrettably) to be self-concentrated on a relatively small section of the population: juvenile and young males, living in the poorest parts of the city. Middle class people, living in the city center, rarely, if ever, experience crime, except via the media, which likes to portray the city as the wild west. Perhaps we need to insist that we (i.e. they) tell ourselves new stories about crime, since it is crime perception that is crucial in generating fear.
9. Politics. For nearly all of the 20th century, Glasgow was a Labour Party stronghold, profoundly corrupt, revolving around patronage. In the 90s this became much more fluid (though its still rare to see a Conservative elected in the city). Glasgow is now effectively governed by a three-party alliance (Labour, Liberal Democrat / Green, Scottish Nationalist with a fair number of independents). The crumbling of the Labour party machine (I speak as a lifelong Labour voter!) was actually good for the city… independent non-party-aligned local party politicians proved even better. I have no idea if this kind of alliance is possible here (I guess not!), but I'm struck (again) by a similarity: in the 1890s, the city of Glasgow kow-towed to the surrounding affluent suburbs, who managed to keep themselves divorced from the city as separate entities, in the hope that they wouldn't have to bare the costs of providing the city's then growing infrastructure. For a hundred years this rigging of electoral boundaries blighted the city. in the 1990s, though, even the suburbs bean to realize they couldn't remove themselves from the City's economic sphere and began, grudgingly, to start contributing towards regional costs, since (they knew) that nobody came to visit Glasgow to wander around (e.g.) the equivalent of Webster Groves, and that their suburban prosperity depended on a flourishing city. So… enlightened self interest won out.
10. Children. Where are they? Just as in the UK you rarely see kids wandering the city without adult supervision, exploring, taking risks, and (yes) sometimes being a nuisance. But its their right to 'own' the city as well. Public transport is crucial here, it allows children independence and to learn to interact with strangers (I know, I know… that will sound horrific!). Rather than seeing children as a potential problem or (worse) as a set of potential victims, are there ways in which the needs of children can be designed into the city? Scandinavian, French, and German cities seem to achieve this. In Britain we're bad at it. In the US (I suspect) we're probably worse. Many of my students here in St. Louis (I work in education) are actively fearful of the city. How do we address that perception amongst children themselves, their parents, their teachers?
My apologies for this over-long post, which will contain many errors and misconceptions, for which I also apologize. But here's my parting thought. In moving from Glasgow (a city I love) to St. Louis (a city I'm learning to love) I left behind a city with the highest mortality rates in the UK, the worst housing for lower income groups, the highest crime rates, and some the worst educational and social deprivation figures in all of Europe. But it was also a city which, on the banks of the Clyde, and with some foresight, wit, and imagination, was crawling back up, to become a truly livable city. I haven't any reason to think that my newly adopted city on the banks of the Mississippi can't head in the same direction.
Jonathan
Jonathon – I've been reading Urban Review for a long time, and I think you just won the prize (along wth a few deserving nods to Studs Lonigan) for the best comment ever posted. Cheers!
Rick: I'm sure that's not true! Actually, there are many more comparisons between the two cities that are worth commenting on, and from which we might learn. But, for now, try image-googling 'Glasgow squinty bridge' or 'Clyde Arc' and you'll see what I mean. Its quite uncanny! J
A belated welcome to St. Louis. My ancestors came from Scotland, I think I maybe picked up your brogue in a bar once (I don't come across a lot of Scots in South St. Louis). Anyway, much, much appreciated perspective…thank you.
Tower Grove East is home to at least one Scotsman, Mr. Allie Nesbitt, proprietor of both the Scottish Arms and the Shaved Duck in Tower Grove East. Before he opened Shaved Duck, I remember seeing him around the neighborhood. There aren't too many guys in the area wearing kilts!
Jonathan,
Thanks for your comment today!
Steve
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#8. Too true. Perception v actual experience. I've never been the victim of serious, felony-level crime. A couple or three very, very minor property crimes, but no assaults, etc. And I see in the crime stories the very same demographic victimizing one another, at least as regards murder: young males. To be sure, assaults and burglaries probably happen to a more diverse group, but as an adult male of northern and western European descent (Ireland/Alsace-Lorraine), I feel, so far, that I can negotiate this City with a relatively sound aura of safety. Thanks for the perspective of an import.
As to actual experience, my family members have been victims of an armed robbery, two home break-ins, and a car break-in within the last two years. The armed robbery at gunpoint was on Grand before 9pm on a Friday, the break-ins were in Clifton Heights and Dogtown, and the car break-in was just North of Downtown in a church parking lot. Crime does happen in this City and it can happens in places that you wouldn't always expect.
I am not trying to speak poorly of the City, but whenever I read comments about how crime is just perception and a product of the media, I think of my family's recent experiences. It is very real and a definite deterrent of growth.
Jonathon, Welcome to St. Louis and thank you for the detail in your comments!
I was in Glasgow about three years ago and had the time of my life. Can't wait to go back for more Guiness Pie and Cider on Ice.
Whoops, hit the happy hour too hard, my name is William, I accidentally autotyped in Wmh95970.
William: Thank you very much indeed for your very generous welcome. It was almost certainly not me you heard in the bar, though. I am English and don't have a Scottish accent! (Though I get very nostalgic for Scotland when I find myself in The Scottish Arms…) J
I agree that poor public schools are a major factor in keeping people with children from moving into the city. I'm childless, so it's not a big deal for me (and I live in the CWE), but out of curiosity I recently checked out the test scores of the neighborhood schools for my address, and they are shockingly bad (i.e., bottom decile scores on statewide tests). If I couldn't afford private schools (or couldn't manage to get my hypothetical kid into Metro A & C), it would be off to the suburbs for me–especially with Clayton (and some other inner-ring burbs) next door offering a very urban living environment (more dense than the city!), excellent neighborhood schools, much lower crime rates, and no earnings tax.
While anti-city bias may keep some from living in the city, much of this “bias” is actually rooted in valid concerns, such as: A high violent crime rate, many decaying structures and blight, and having to pay an extra 1% of your income in tax (if your employer is not based in the city).
Every city has crime issues that they need to deal with. I have lived in different cities on both the East and West Coasts, and have now been in St. Louis since 2006. I agree with the other poster that many parts of the city feel very safe. I'm not trying to be condescending, but I think many of the posters (especially on the stltoday site) need to experience living in other cities to truly appreciate this one. Furthermore, cities do not appeal to everyone, and that is fine, stay in the country or exurb and stop complaining about other people's choice of locale.
Unfortunately, perception IS reality. Those of us who live here get it, warts and all, yet continue to persevere. The problem is that too many businesses see greener pastures elsewhere and too many parents want nothing to do with the SLPS. Kinda the reverse of urbanist nirvanas, places like Portland, Boston and Boulder, where many things are going right, but their challenges (like affordability) are minimized or ignored. No place is perfect and every place has trade offs. We all make choices, and one thing that I've realized as I've gotten older is that our priorities change over time, as do the cities and the neighborhoods we choose to live in. The good thing is that most of us have the resources to respond to these changes – it's really only a problem if you end up stuck someplace you don't want to be. So while perception is reality, it's also highly personal, and if we don't care what people in O'Fallon think of the city, why are we agonizing over it?!