Guest Opinion: The Free State of St. Louis

ABOVE: Missouri State Line sign on I-270, source: Google Streetview

Guest opinion by Chris Andoe

In the event you’re not familiar with the allegory of the frog in boiling water I’ll share it with you. Drop a frog in a pot of boiling water and it’ll immediately jump out. Drop it in a pot of cool water, slowly heat until boiling, and it will just sit there and die.

The St. Louis region is the frog and the pot of boiling water is Missouri.

St. Louis has always had an uncomfortable relationship with outstate Missouri, leading to byzantine arrangements like the state controlling our police department. There’s a general understanding that nobody from St. Louis could go on to be governor, and we can’t even agree with our rural neighbors on how to pronounce the state name.

The temperature has been turned up a degree or two at a time for well over a hundred years and with recent events we find it at a rolling boil. Still, many don’t see a need to jump.

The perverse new congressional map guts representation in the St. Louis region, the economic engine of the state, shifting even more power to the rural areas.  Outrageously some of our region’s own “leaders” collaborated with the GOP to allow this to happen, including Rep. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis, who said she was not concerned about the Democratic Party’s objections to the eliminating of one of the region’s congressional seats, or that 75% of Missourians now find themselves in gerrymandered districts that are solidly Republican. No, as long as the new map preserved Congressman Clay’s seat she’d back it. “I’m black before I’m a Democrat” Nasheed infamously said.

Can you imagine the delight of Republican strategists upon hearing her divisive, inflammatory, racially charged statement? Not only did she give them what they wanted with the new map, she gave them an outstanding tool in their efforts to get the votes of white Independents and Democrats. As the television infomercials say, “But wait! There’s more!” The self-serving Nasheed also helped Republicans to gut Prop B, the Puppy Mill Cruelty Prevention Act which passed by large margins in her St. Louis district.

State leaders were more concerned about upsetting the puppy mill lobby than the people of St. Louis and Kansas City. Because of pitiful leadership St. Louis gets one less congressional seat, puppy mill dogs get less humane conditions, and Nasheed gets a coveted third floor office in Jefferson City.

Time and again the St. Louis region winds up infighting over the crumbs after the bloated Jefferson City eats its fill. St. Louis pays the bills in the state with only meager representation, and some of the region’s own representatives are merely the lapdogs of outstate Republicans.

If there were ever a time for radical thinking, this is it. In a world economy built on innovation, the Missouri state motto “Show Me” doesn’t cut it. It’s time for the St. Louis region to lead. I also think it’s time for the region to secede from Missouri.

There’s legal precedent for the separation of a portion of an existing state from the original state in order to form a new one. In 1820, Maine split off from Massachusetts and was admitted to the Union as the 23rd state. At this moment there’s an aggressive movement in Pima County, Arizona to form a new state. Hugh Holub, the founder of this movement, explains “If the original American Revolution was triggered by the colonial people feeling they didn’t have a say in the government from London….the movement to create Baja Arizona is another in a long history of people wanting not to have their lives run by people with very different values and agendas who live somewhere else.”

A similar movement has begun in South Florida.

Think of all we’re giving to a state that values backwoods puppy mill operators more than the citizens of their mightiest city. Everything from tax dollars to electoral votes. It doesn’t make sense.

I’m asking the people of this region to shake the “show me” mentality and participate in innovative discussions about the future. Research what’s going on in Pima County, brainstorm about what’s possible. Even if secession doesn’t happen maybe the discussions will serve to wake the sleeping giant that is St. Louis, leading to a revolt against the tyranny of Jefferson City.

- Chris Andoe

Chris Andoe is a writer and community organizer who has divided his time between St. Louis and San Francisco for the past decade. He earned the moniker “The Emperor of St. Louis” as the crown wearing Master of Ceremonies for the zany Metrolink Prom, where hundreds of transit supporters pack the train for the city’s biggest mobile party. Andoe writes for St. Louis’ Vital Voice.

St. Elizabeth Academy’s Historic Structures Should Be Preserved

Contributed by Christian Saller

St. Elizabeth Academy, (SEA) located at 3401 Arsenal Street in the Tower Grove East neighborhood since the late 19th century, seeks to demolish its most historic campus structures. This long-term goal is referenced in brochures produced to promote a “master plan” for the institution. These buildings are structurally sound and have been well maintained. The Tower Grove East Neighborhood Association, while expressing support for and interest in assisting SEA, voted unanimously to oppose this demolition. This action was subsequently communicated to the leadership of SEA and to 6th Ward Alderwoman Kacie Starr Triplett, herself a graduate of the school.

ABOVE: St. Elizabeth Academy's original structure from 1894. Photo by Steve Patterson

SEA contains historic structures that form the basis of a National Historic District established in the Tower Grove East neighborhood in 1983. The campus includes a 1914 gymnasium with the last known lamella roof in St. Louis. The original school building, facing west on Crittenden Street, was constructed in 1894, with adjacent wings dating from 1914 and 1922. The current plan to consolidate SEA in the 1957-vintage structure on Arsenal Street while abandoning and destroying the original historic structures will exert a negative impact on the established Historic District, the larger neighborhood of Tower Grove East, and the City of St. Louis.

The historic SEA campus fostered development of a distinctive two-block cul de sac, Crittenden Street, which runs from the west side of SEA to a gate at S. Grand Blvd. across from Tower Grove Park. The relationship of SEA to these residential structures is a key aspect of the historic district itself. The buildings on these two residential blocks are of unusually high-quality construction with a cohesiveness of scale, set-back, materials, and architectural detail. It is clear to even casual observers that builders and architects of Crittenden Street saw an opportunity to develop a charming residential district for residents of varying means, with picturesque structures that complement one another while varying in size and occupancy. The presence of SEA made this distinctive street possible, terminating as it does at S. Grand Blvd. near a main pedestrian entrance to Tower Grove Park. The significant relationship between the historic institution and the dwellings to its west was formally articulated in the National Register nomination for the district nearly 30 years ago. The character and atmosphere resulting from this architectural juxtaposition are perhaps unique in the City of St. Louis. From its inception, the Crittenden Historic District accommodated a variety of incomes, institutional, and residential uses that do not merely co-exist but complement one another in an intimate and gracious extended community. At the same time the district includes characteristics commonly seen in more exclusive private streets.

ABOVE: St. Elizabeth Academy 1914 gymnasium, photo by Rene Saller

Loss of the historic core of SEA would be a detriment far beyond the loss of the structures themselves. The carefully conceived character of the entire Historic District would be permanently undermined and diminished. In the varying fortunes of the Tower Grove East neighborhood over the years, Crittenden Street was relatively stable and intact, due in part to its unique configuration and the ambiance afforded by the presence of historic SEA. Today, Crittenden Street is a highly desirable place to live and its stability has contributed to the revitalization of adjacent blocks, including Pestalozzi and Arsenal Streets, which border it on the south and north, respectively. Destruction of the core buildings in this district will alter the aesthetic character that makes it historic in the first place and will erode the value of its related structures. Their original, historical reference and context will be gone.

Understandably, institutions such as SEA face challenges in maintaining and utilizing historic structures, as do homeowners with houses of similar age. As part of an established Historic District, the SEA campus is eligible for historic tax credits that could provide 20% to 25% of total project renovation costs. The 1957-vintage structure where the school seeks to consolidate is itself also now potentially eligible for historic tax credits, which was not the case when the district was established. The executive director of Landmarks Association, Jefferson Mansell, has offered pro bono services of his organization to write a historic register nomination for the 1957 building, making it formally part of the historic district and eligible for these credits. If the historic campus behind the 1957 building is destroyed, this structure would not be eligible for credits without the original institutional fabric.

ABOVE: St. Elizabeth Academy's 1957 structure

The leaders of SEA should reconsider their stated course of action and recognize the importance of retaining these historic buildings. Practical alternatives to demolition exist and should be exhaustively explored. The costs of demolishing these buildings, preparing the site, and perhaps eventually constructing a new building are likely greater than those of renovating and improving the existing structures to more aptly suit the school’s contemporary requirements. I hope for SEA to prosper and thrive at its current location for generations of students yet to come, ideally in the handsome historic structures that give the school its distinctive atmosphere and identity. The most prudent stewardship of the millions of dollars in donations currently sought by SEA’s capital campaign would be to fund renovation and reuse of the historic buildings.

ABOVE: St. Elizabeth Academy original entry, photo by Rene Saller

If historic buildings of this caliber are not a priority for protection by the city’s Preservation Board and our elected officials, it is hard to imagine what historic structures should be saved anywhere in the City of St. Louis. These architecturally significant buildings are located in a neighborhood that has stabilized and substantially improved in value over recent decades, in no small measure because of investment in and renovation of historic buildings throughout the district. The structures in question are among the most historic and architecturally significant in the entire neighborhood. Needlessly demolishing them in the name of “progress” would be an antiquated and counterproductive approach to addressing the challenges posed by older buildings. The leadership of SEA wishes to strengthen its student enrollment and position in the St. Louis region and says that it is committed to the city and to the Tower Grove East neighborhood. I hope that it gives action to this commendable sentiment by embracing the valuable resource of its historic campus and the surrounding urban community of which it is an inextricable part.

- Christian Saller

Prior Post: St. Elizabeth Academy Raising Funds To Raze Historic Structures by Steve Patterson, October 2010

Chriustian & Rene Saller live on Crittenden

Why Great Streets?

The life of any great city occurs on the street. Streets are the most public of domains, where we engage in an assortment of activities. Jane Jacobs, in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, said, Cities need “a most intricate and close-grained diversity of uses that give each other mutual support, both economically and socially.” On great commercial and mixed-use blocks, this happens. These streets, when woven through neighborhoods and districts, provide an armature for social interaction and economic growth. They also represent the character, history and culture of the community, making them, quite possibly, iconic.

Great streets are the bonds of great communities. They house civic institutions where we meet to discuss current affairs and make plans for our future and the future of our children. Great streets contain businesses where we obtain goods and services we need and want. Often these are the businesses of our friends and neighbors. Broadly speaking, the stores, shops and offices here are the base of the local economy or, in some instances, were until big-box stores killed their existence. Despite trying times, great streets always seem to rebound.

For those not fortunate enough to live on or near these streets, we still tend to like visiting them. Whether to rehash memories of “the old neighborhood” or to help imagine what our lives had been with a great main street in walking distance from our homes, they have great appeal. We also have an affinity for these places, because they are where we have by-chance interaction with friends, family, neighbors, co-workers and future friends or spouses. Regardless, it seems there is something remarkable about great streets and that is why the City of St. Louis is making efforts to strengthen them and make them more prevalent.

In order to study and develop great streets in St. Louis, we have to learn from already existing great streets. The best way to determine where they are and why they are great is to hear from those who use and visit them. For this reason Great Streets of STL asks you to come voice your thoughts at: GreatStreetsofSTL.com.

- Bryan Zundel

Transportation and the Urban Form

The host of this site, Steve Patterson, and I are both passionate about urban design issues. One area where we differ is how the interaction between transportation options and the urban form plays out in the real world. Steve, and others, believe that requiring “better”, more appropriate and/or more restrictive design standards, through efforts like moving to form-based zoning and reducing available parking, will somehow convince the uninformed public to become more enlightened and to change their ways.  I have a different perspective, that available transportation options inform the urban form, including our land use regulations and their application on a daily basis.

I’m not going to go back to the discovery of the wheel, but I am going to go back 150 years.  Prior to the Industrial Revolution / the American Civil War, transportation options were limited to human, animal, water or wind power – you could walk or row, ride a horse or a mule, use a sailboat or “go with the flow”.  The result was a world made up of farms, relatively small settlements, seaports, river ports and a few larger centers of banking, trade and government.  There was no zoning, as we know it, but we did have our westward expansion, with land being given away for free to anyone willing to “tame the wilderness”, through farming, ranching or mining.

Cities were just starting to build rudimentary water supply and sewer systems, and elevators and air conditioning were non-existent.  You got an urban environment marked by row houses, small, local retail establishments and tiny signs.  You didn’t have drive-throughs or dry cleaners, computers or gas stations; you did have hitching posts and coal for heat, telegraph and manure in the streets, Bob Cratchet and Tiny Tim.  You can find many preserved examples up and down the east coast, including Colonial Williamsburg.  And St. Louis started to grow as the Gateway to the West, primarily as a trading center and a transportation hub.  Examples around here include Soulard, Carondelet and Baden

The ability to capture the power of steam, through the boiler and the steam engine gave us railroads, cable cars and steam heat.  It also gave us the ability to run machinery with something other than water power, greatly expanding where factories could be located and how much they could produce.  More importantly, electricity was staring to be harnessed, with major improvements in generation, lighting and motors.  From the 1850′s through the 1890′s, city life changed rapidly.  Factories, along with their need for lots of workers, worked better in urban settings than in rural ones.  Cities like St. Louis became industrial centers as well as trading centers.

Quoting from a story in the 12/13/09 edition of the Daytona Beach News-Journal;

According to the Web site trolleystop.com, the first successful trolley system in the United States began operation in Richmond, Va. in 1887.  After the initial success in Richmond, almost all of the horse car lines in North America were converted to electric power.  The electric trolleys became so popular that the street railway industry experienced explosive growth almost overnight.  As the popularity of automobiles and buses boomed in the 1920s, however, most trolley companies began converting their lines to bus service.

That was certainly the case here.  We had multiple streetcar companies competing for riders and we saw explosive growth of streetcar suburbs, both inside and outside the city limits.

Streetcars and buses allowed workers to live further away from work.  You still needed to walk to the transit line, but it meant living within walking distance of your job was no longer an essential requirement.  People had more options, and many of those, that could afford to, moved out of the older, denser parts of town, leaving them to new waves of immigrants or to see them torn down and replaced by factories.  Retailers were still expected to offer home delivery, so stay-at-home moms (yes it’s a stereotype, but it was the reality) shopped for fresh food pretty much every day and kids walked or biked to neighborhood schools.  This was also the time when the first attempts at zoning started to occur, primarily to separate industrial uses from residential ones.

The next big “step forward” was Henry Ford’s efforts to produce an affordable automobile.  His success, in the 1920′s, was the next big step in the suburbanization of America and St. Louis.  Throughout south city one can find garages that are too small for many contemporary vehicles – they were built to shelter the vehicle that expanded Dad’s transportation options, Ford’s Model T.  The residential neighborhoods of that time were still walkable (with sidewalks) and they still had corner groceries, but they were growing less dense.

The next big impact on the urban environment was World War II, both directly and indirectly.  Factories moved from multi-story to single-story, sprawling structures.  The internal combustion engine became more reliable and synthetic rubber made tires much less of a pain in the a**.  Women entered the work force in large numbers and pent-up demand for consumer products continued to build.

Once the war ended, we experienced several decades of unprecedented prosperity, from the mid ’40′s through the ’70′s.  We built the interstate highway system and moms learned to drive.  FHA and VA loans favored single-family homes, primarily new, suburban ones, over denser, multi-family options.  We went from single-car families to 2-car families.  We embraced the suburban shopping center and the enclosed mall.

Just because it was a whole lot easier, people chose driving themselves over taking public transit.  They chose living in the new suburbs over living in established urban areas, especially those that had experienced decades of deferred maintenance (the Great Depression followed by wartime rationing).  Employers, schools and retailers all responded by offering more and more “free” parking, either by planning for it from the start, in new suburban developments, or by buying up and tearing down existing buildings in more-established urban areas.  This mobility also resulted in the Euclidean zoning that many of us are questioning today – it codified a preference for convenient parking over both density and walkability.

The end result is the world we live in today.  It reflects the hopes and aspirations of the majority of Americans, as reflected by the actions of our elected officials.  We trade sprawl and congested highways for the “freedom” to live where we want, work where we can find jobs and to shop at generic chains who have mastered the worldwide logistics supply chain.  We have seen St. Louis lose both population and jobs.  And we have two choices – we can continue to become more suburban, building more shopping centers, single-family homes and “free” parking.  Or we can redirect our efforts, differentiate ourselves from our suburban neighbors, encourage density and create viable transportation alternatives.

To attract people out of their cars and trucks won’t be easy.  There’s a real attraction to privacy, control and convenience.  But, as a big believer in the Law of Unintended Consequences, I find it interesting that more members of the Generation Y are willing to embrace mass transit.  It turns out that people who text, tweet and surf the mobile net would actually rather let someone else do the driving, IF they can figure out how to make it work.  Whether that involves reinventing Metro’s system and creating a market for higher densities or developing a taxi infrastructure that mimics that in New York, it appears that we may be on the cusp of a another significant change in how people want to live, work and commute.  Combine that with the growing success of, and the reliance many people have on, online shopping, and in many ways we’re returning to the “home delivery” model of yore.

Steve’s belief in the need for form-based zoning could very well be reflected in actual change, just not one driven by direct logic and/or nostalgia.  I doubt that we’ll see the imminent demise of the suburban shopping center or the type of store Schnuck’s or Direbergs typically builds.  But I can see a future where Transit Oriented Development will gain traction on both the residential side and on the employment/educational side – it’s actually slowly playing out here locally at the Barnes campus on Kingshighway.  The single-occupant vehicle could very well become an anachronism for the daily commute, saved only for shopping, recreation and regional out-of-town trips.  Whether it ends up being garaged for days at a time or rented only when needed will be a personal decision.  But these decisions will inform what “sells”, and in turn, what gets built, and ultimately, what our legislators will see a need to codify.

– Jim Zavist

Successful Northside Job Growth

The first phase of the Northside redevelopment project as proposed by Paul McKee is to focus on the “job centers” and mixed use areas. Numbers are being thrown around as to imply thousands of jobs will be created by this project. I wonder what measure will be used to declare the project a success with respect to jobs by those proposing the plan.

The project will require a lot of construction jobs, which is a fact. These are people that would not have been needed otherwise. The time frame of twenty years implies the jobs will be needed for an extended duration compared to most construction projects. Despite that scope and time frame, do construction jobs truly help grow the area? Even with such a long time frame the jobs are only temporary. It is unreasonable to assume that someone could graduate, make a career of the project, and retire when it is done. Based on retirement accounts requirements they would still have another twenty years of work.  Shouldn’t the expectation for jobs created be that the jobs are permanent? Yes,t his economy has shown that no job is truly permanent, But no matter the time frame  construction jobs are by nature temporary. The 40/64 concrete river project demonstrates that. When 40 is complete construction will continue in the region, but will all those workers stay in St Louis? I doubt it. Some of them will return when the new Mississippi bridge starts up in full. There will probably be projects after that, but I don’t want the fate of the region’s job growth to depend on never ending highway work.  Local restaurants can’t move around the region at will to follow the construction.  They need permanent customers to keep open.

Looking at the McKee track record for development makes me wary, too. He touts his Winghaven and NorthPark projects as examples of what he and his associates can accomplish. The two projects boast two of the regions larger employers in Express Scripts and MasterCard. Unfortunately both these employers were already in the region before they moved into their new offices.  More specifically, they were in the same city. Sorry, Maryland Heights, I hope you didn’t need those taxes. True, Express Scripts was threatening to leave the area and NorthPark help keep them here, along with some tax incentives. Also, MasterCard had outgrown its offices in Maryland Heights and needed new digs. But in the end, McKee merely helped keep jobs from leaving. Preventing negative growth is not the same thing as creating new growth. Who does McKee plan on luring into the north city for this new project? I doubt Edward Jones is going to give up all their brand new buildings along 270.  Do you think InBev is tired of the historic brewery yet?

Additionally, there is the dilemma of existing projects already in work to compete with. Winghaven still has space available for development. NorthPark is basically a field with nice streets. Express Scripts isn’t even in the development, instead choosing to be south of I-70 next to UMSL. The old Ford Plant has been wiped out of existence and Hazelwood is dieing to get some tax base back on that land. The current economy has opened up business space in areas like Earth City and Westport. The occupancy rate downtown offices are not that great. And these are just some examples of places in the region vying for new jobs. What if the Northside development center gets all the new jobs in the coming years and every where else in the metro area remains stagnant?

Finally, the current economic conditions do not bode well for new jobs. Every region of the country is going to fight to keep what they have. Other cities are constantly offering huge incentives to attract growth. Just look at what it took to keep Express Scripts. What exactly does Paul McKee have to offer to convince a company to move to St Louis when it is hard to keep the ones already here? St Louis will be wrangling with every other city in the country for each new job. Not to imply it is a contest St Louis cannot win, but it won’t be as easy as some people are implying. The Lou is not the only place that will be offering new buildings and tax incentives in the coming years. That still leaves the possibility of start-ups as the source of new jobs. Might the next Google or Facebook start up in north St Louis? A future global company setting up roots in the new development could be the pinnacle of the project. Unfortunately, as many failed businessmen will tell you, there are more failures than success with new companies.

How will you measure the success of the project with respect to jobs:

• For just having jobs associated with it?
• Having low end retail jobs new to the city?
• Pulling jobs into the city from around the metro area?
• Preventing jobs from leaving the metro area?
• Getting new jobs at the cost of other developments in the metro area?
• Being the founding location of a future Fortune 500 company?

Permanent new to the region jobs, while not sucking up all growth in the metro area, will be my measure of success.

– Kevin McGuire

Chicken or the Egg? Business or the home?

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?  People with too much time on their hands have laid out a detailed argument here. For this post I am more interested in a question similar in nature.  Which came first, the home or the business?

The reason I pose the query is because a recent news story on my favorite radio station once again mentioned “job centers” with regards to the NorthSide development.  From what I have heard and read, McKee and associates plan on concentrating on job centers to begin the massive project and work on residential in the future.   I do not understand why.  If their goal is truly to redevelop north city, I do not believe job centers are where to begin.  Residential is where they should start, because to answer my own question, I believe the home came first.

I base my view on what I have observed spending a lifetime in suburbia.  A look back at the history of the region sees that the homes almost always come before businesses.  North county grew in the post war years due to massive amounts of housing developments.  The businesses moved in after.  Just compare north Lindbergh between now and twenty years ago. The migration of the suburbanites to St Charles county preceded the explosion in retail.  To understand what I am talking about, try driving down Highway K, which was a two lane road fifteen years ago.  West County filled in with soccer moms and SUVs before Target and Best Buy decided they needed stores in a flood plain.

There is easy explanation for why businesses will always follow homes.  In the words of Mr. Gekko, “Greed is good.”  Businesses are for all intent and purposes greedy entities.  They are only open of the pursuit of money.  Otherwise they are called non-profits.  Stores want to be where the people are located so they can make as much money as possible.  Which is they Home Depot has a store on Highway K and not Cass ave.  Businesses do not need tax incentives to open in locations where there is significant money to be taken from consumers.  Entrepreneurs know that if they don’t open a store in prime locations, their competitors will.

A perfect example of my theory in work in an urban environment is downtown.  Union Station and St Louis Center are illustrations of business development of the past that failed to revitalize the area.  They lead to no growth in the city.  On the other hand, the Washington Loft district exemplifies how businesses move in once there is a critical residential mass.  Downtown even has a grocery store for the first time in decades.  (author’s note:  I know of the now defunct City Grocers.  Just rubbing some loft residents.)

This view of the world leads me to conclude that the starting point for the NorthSide needs to be massive residential development.  I am well aware that homes currently exist in the area.  Obviously these are not homes a majority of people want to live in.  If they were, they would have premium pricing, not rock bottom.  However, an immense fill-in of new family housing would be impossible for greedy businessmen to ignore.  Job/retail centers would be easy to develop without much government assistance when Trader Joe’s wants a store in the area.   Set those areas aside for future development when it is needed.

I assume that the residential development would be an urban style and walkable, but those details are moot.  What is important is the size.  Repeat the example set forth by the suburban subdivisions and build hundreds of homes at once in an urban setting.  View it as a giant planned community.  Few people want to be the first on the street staring at overgrown lots with a promise of more to come.  Seeing homes being built all around would ease some of those fears.  This would only help the existing residents as they see their home values rise.  (In my world it is done the right way, without taking peoples homes, but rather building around them.)  An example of this done on a small scale with success can be seen in the West End just north of Delmar on Enright and accompanying streets.  Now I don’t agree with some of the design choices that were made, but a group of new homes were built and sold for a premium price.  This demonstrates that there is some demand for new housing in the city.

I am aware that the planned job centers are intended to have mixed residential sprinkled in the plans.  However, from everything I have heard and read I get the feeling that the mixed use areas are not Paul’s prime concern at the outset.  Lets just ignore that city schools are currently a hindrance to any residential growth and concentrate on whether McKee should spend time building job centers or homes.

- Kevin McGuire

Irony or Evolution?

I grew up in Louisville, KY.  Like St. Louis, it’s a city that has its roots along a major river, with its economy based on manufacturing and trade.  And, like St. Louis, it’s a city of historic neighborhoods.

One of them is Butchertown, which, not surprisingly, got its name from the stockyards and packing plants that located there.  The neighborhood is the home of Stockyards Bank.  It’s also a neighborhood that’s seeing reinvestment and gentrification, and one that’s increasing in desirability.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, but a recent case illustrates the tension that exists anytime change happens.  As with many traditional industries, the meat packing industry has been shrinking in Louisville.  The stockyards shut down in 1999, and there’s only one packing plant left now, but it’s been there for decades.  Recently, that plant was cited for zoning violations, and some of its neighbors were pushing the city to shut it down:

“In this day and age … it’s not an appropriate use here,” said Jon Salomon, an attorney who lives in Butchertown and represents the Butchertown Neighborhood Association. (Source)

Not surprisingly, the company “won”.  The combination of relatively-minor zoning violations and the potential for losing 1,300 jobs likely directly influenced the outcome:

After a 10-hour hearing Monday, the board approved JBS Swift’s request to modify its zoning permit to allow the expansions, after it illegally started construction on an enclosure for a hog-unloading area last fall. (Source)

The reality is that the plant generates truck traffic and some interesting odors.  When the area was primarily industrial, and the only residential uses were the workers’ shotgun cottages, these issues were the smell of money.  Now that many of the residents, especially the new ones, are no longer associated with the industry, the odors and the traffic are being viewed more and more as real negatives, especially to the further “revitalization” of the neighborhood.  This gets down to one of the fundamental challenges of urban living – when does being a historical use become a negative one?  When do the interests of new residents, especially well-educated ones with new and better ideas, start to take priority?

So what does all this have to do with St. Louis?  Simple – given our industrial base, we have the potential for similar conflicts.  The questions in Louisville really aren’t unique.  Was the decision correct?  Be careful of what you ask for? Don’t move somewhere and expect to change things to fit your definition of urban living?  Is NIMBY a good thing or a bad thing?  How do we balance reinvestment with retaining a diverse economic base?  How much gentrification is too much?

- Jim Zavist

UPDATE: 9/26/09 @ 7:45PM – comment section opened.

Welcome to Houston

Hello from Texas!

A little over a year into property ownership in this town in which I have been resident for two years has been an education in “development without borders.”  As many are no doubt aware, Houston, the fourth largest city in the country (a title once held by St. Louis), has no zoning laws.  In addition, the building requirements are also quite minimal.  Oh and historic preservation laws?  Hardly.  It makes for largely unregulated market-based development, and it’s interesting to see the results.

My current home is “Inside the Loop,” as we say here, which means it is inside the innermost highway ring of the city in which downtown is at the center.  As urban as the location may be, it is a far cry from the layout I grew up with in Dogtown.  My neighborhood is a redeveloped community that started turning over in the late 90′s, after Houston removed its minimum lot size restriction that had resulted in the building of tiny bungalows on huge lots for decades prior.  It was a great plan for creating the urban density the city lacks, but it left the planning of that re-creation largely up to the developers who now buy the properties, tear them down, and squeeze massive townhouses into the space like mini cul-de-sacs.

Now that my neighborhood has almost completely turned over, it is easy to see where a little guidance from the local planning commission might have prevented a few of the annoyances we currently face over things like parking, sidewalks, and utilities.  Alas, the “damage” has been done, and the residents are left to make it work somehow.  This is good, in a way.  It promotes community activism and participation in what your neighborhood becomes.  When people decide they no longer can tolerate this style of community, they will move to an area that more closely fulfills their needs.  If enough people turn away from this area, developers can tear down the current stuff and start all over with a new “product.”  Market-based planning at its finest.  It’s not very “green” but there are no rules against it, so it will happen.

It’s too early to predict how all of this will play out, so for now, I give you my neighborhood – and a couple of others later on – as they currently stand, along with the issues that come with them.

A well-kept version of the bungalows that used to dominate this neighborhood:

This is what is left of two nearby bungalows by 4 in the afternoon, after receiving demo permits that morning:

A typical townhouse cul de sac development. The prevailing design of the three story townhouse consists of two front entrances: one for the household cars and a much smaller one for the people. In some designs, the “front entrance” is on the side of the house. It is not very inviting for guests. Street parking is awkward as well, as can be seen in the following picture.

Another typical set up across from the cul de sacs – driveways on one side, narrow parking on the other. When this area started to redevelop, the city did not seem to pay any attention to the narrow streets, the awkward utilities, or the drainage options. As a result, the developers are able to build all the way up to the narrow right of way, and the residents play chicken with each other down the streets. The loser ends up in the drainage ditch or backing into the closest available driveway. There is talk of making the neighborhood streets one way and moving to permit parking. This will be an interesting issue to watch.

It’s been an interesting adjustment to change my expectations of what I think neighborhoods should have and what is provided. I’ll try to tackle a few of the areas of my neighborhood I would have liked to see done differently, plus show off a few of the other trends in other neighborhoods and a little bit of real estate politics down here as I go along. Be patient though! I also have to get your natural gas delivered safely to keep my own lights on!

- Liz Rutherford

This might explain a few things . . .

By Jim Zavist, AIA

One of the first things I discovered after I moved here in 2004 is that St. Louis has a lot of 4-way stops.  Some appear to have replaced traffic signals, at intersections where the cost of maintaining them could no longer be justified (Jamieson & Fyler or Olive & Sutter, for example) – it makes sense given the city’s financial struggles over the past several decades.  But there are many other locations where they seem to have been installed because someone (not a traffic engineer) convinced someone else in the city (likely the alderman) that doing so would make the neighborhood “safer” – Arsenal and Chippewa between Grand and Broadway are both classic examples*.  A not-so-surprising discovery is that many people don’t actually stop at all our STOP signs, many just slow down, then keep going.

It turns out that one of the traffic engineers I worked with in Denver grew up in St. Louis and southern Illinois, and he enlightened me a bit on how things worked in an earlier time, after I sent him this picture:  “In those days, the 1950’s, they used a lot of yellow stop signs and red ones they called boulevard stops.  I think the idea was that the yellow ones were meant to be like a yield sign because you didn’t have to stop at them unless there was cross traffic.  I remember my grandpa hollering at my mom not to stop at stop signs because you didn’t have to.  It made her mad because he did not have a car nor a drivers license.”

My wife also informed me that one of her older, senior friends remembers when the standard practice at 4-way stops in St. Louis was two cars at time alternating, not just one, as is (supposed to be) current practice and law.  Combine these two aberrations from current standards and practices, along with only token enforcement by the St. Louis Police and many people learning to drive/bad habits from their parents, it becomes easier to understand why a STOP signs here are viewed by many as only a suggestion!  As both a relative newcomer and an occasional cyclist, I’d like to hear what natives have to say on this one – is it a quaint St. Louis tradition, a clash of generational values, or something else?

*Having become pretty active in neighborhood politics, I had suggested the addition of 4-way stops at certain Denver intersections.  Since the city actually lets their traffic engineers design and manage a functional system, I quickly learned that 4-way stops are not the “preferred alternative”, that they were reserved for use almost exclusively at schools, where there would be a large amount of pedestrian traffic.  The engineers found, as we see here, with 4-way stops, that a large number of drivers assume that the other driver will actually stop, so they can just slow down.  They found, and secondary streets with moderate traffic, that alternating 2-way stops (E-W, N-S, E-W, N-S, etc.) was much more effective in both obtaining compliance and in balancing smooth traffic flow and safety than 4-way stops.

Local Architect Jim Zavist was born in upstate New York, raised in Louisville KY, spent 30 years in Denver Colorado and relocated to St. Louis in 2005.

Home Ownership & Mortgages

This post is two posts in one.  The first part is a guest piece by regular reader Jim Zavist.  The second part is a press release about a related event at SLU this Friday.

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The Mortgage Crisis

A guest editorial by Jim Zavist, AIA

The current mortgage “crisis” has generated a lot of discussion and created a lot of potential “solutions”.  I’m also old enough to remember the previous “crisis”, the Savings and Loan Meltdown of the 1980′s, and I’m seeing one big difference between then and now.  The biggest change now is that there seems to be an assumption that homeowners who can’t pay their mortgages somehow “deserve” to be given a way to stay in “their” homes.  Back in the ’80′s, homes were foreclosed, people were evicted, and because the S&L’s couldn’t deal with the volume of foreclosed properties, the federal Resolution Trust Agency ended up with a lot of properties that were resold at whatever the market said they were worth.  So, while some people lost their homes, just as many people got some great deals and were able to start down their path to the American Dream.

Bottom line, if you’re still able to make either your original or your current mortgage payment, you won’t be living on the street.  Yes, you’ll probably be paying rent instead of a mortgage, but guess what, if you can’t sell your home and you can’t refinance your home, because its value has dropped, maybe substantially, you don’t have any equity!  Whatever money you put down and whatever you invested in improving the property is gone.  It’s the big downside to investing in anything – sometimes things go poorly and you lose some or all of your investment!  Sure, it affects your credit rating negatively if you have to give up your home to foreclosure or a short sale.  It may even seem that it’s not “fair”.  But it’s part of being an adult – it’s time to cut your losses and move on.

As has been noted multiple times in the media over the past few days, 92% of the mortgage holders today are still making their payments on time – only 8% are falling behind.  I’m one of those 92%.  I’ve been making mortgage payments for 25 years; unfortunately, not all on the same property (otherwise it could be close to being paid off).  But, before I bought my first place, I became educated.  I’ve always put at least 10% down and always had a fixed-rate mortgage (including one at 12%!), so I’ve never had to face rates that adjusted upwards, as many ARM’s are apparently prepared to do soon.  I also never bought into refinancing every time the rates dropped half a point or to finance extraneous luxuries (like a car or a cruise) by pulling out the last couple of years’ appreciation.  And I’m not alone – 9 out of 10 people are riding out the current drop/correction in home values, even though it may mean cutting back in other areas.  Real estate shouldn’t be viewed as a piggy bank.  It should be viewed as a long-term investment, one that will, hopefully, eventually be completely paid off.

With the clarity of 20/20 hindsight, we’re relatively fortunate that the St. Louis area didn’t see the huge increases in home values that other parts of the country experienced, since we’re not seeing a huge drop, either.  Sure, we have pockets where too many property owners succumbed to the lure of easy money, but, overall, we don’t seem to being hit nearly as hard as places like, say, Tampa, where property values are down nearly 40%.  Because of that, and even though I agree the government needs to do “something” to “fix” the economy, I’m not all that comfortable with several of the President’s proposals to “help people stay in their homes”.  The fundamental problem is that home values simply became higher than actual buyers were willing to pay.  They will continue to fall until buyers are willing to buy.  And while there are concerns being expressed about the availability of credit, in the world of home buying, if you have good credit and an appropriate down payment and you want to buy a home around here, you can do it!  Realistically, there is no “right” to home ownership.  It’s something that’s earned, and we’re all learning a hard lesson.

Jim Zavist

Local Architect Jim Zavist was born in upstate New York, raised in Louisville KY, spent 30 years in Denver Colorado and relocated to St. Louis in 2005.

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Property Ownership and Economic Stability Focus of Symposium
at Saint Louis University School of Law

WHO: Saint Louis University School of Law and Saint Louis University Public Law Review

WHAT: Property  Ownership and Economic Stability: A Necessary Relationship? This symposium brings together a group of leading scholars and practitioners to examine the relationship between property ownership and economic stability.

WHEN: 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Friday, Feb. 27, 2009

WHERE: Saint Louis University School of Law, William H. Kniep Courtroom, 3700 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63108

WHY: The recent instability in America’s housing markets has demonstrated the complex relationship between property ownership and economic stability for lower-income families. Until recently, many experts argued that low-income families could not hope to achieve the “American dream” without owning their own homes. Increasingly, events from the past year are calling the assumptions underlying these assertions into question.

Leading scholars from prestigious law schools across the country join real estate and urban planning experts — including Richard Baron of McCormack Baron Salazar — to discuss an array of pressing property ownership issues, including barriers to creating affordable housing, property rights in the international context and the changing definition of property ownership in the United States.

The symposium offers 6.0 CLE credits in Missouri.

For a detailed schedule of speakers and topics or to register, go to law.slu.edu/news/conferences/property.