Please vote in the poll, located in the right sidebar
2014 will be a busy year in the region with a number of positive things:
Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge opens to traffic
St. Louis celebrates 250th anniversary
Phase One of Ballpark Village opens
March Madness basketball tournaments
Fields Foods opens
Some things that are controversial in some circles:
Same-sex marriages begin in Illinois (mine’s June 8th!)
Medical marijuana in Illinois
Loop Trolley construction starts
The poll this week asks you to pick one thing you think is the best thing for the region. Because there may be other things happening I didn’t list you can add your own item in the poll (right sidebar).
Please vote in the poll, located in the right sidebar
The poll this week is pretty straightforward, attempting to see if readers are more optimistic or pessimistic about the future of St. Louis. The poll is at the top of the right sidebar, results will be presented on January 1, 2014.
The following is a guest post from Brandon Sampson, my research intern this semester – SP:
Sidewalk on Laclede in front of Brandon’s apartment building
Cities reflect their builders and inhabitants. In a way cities are like living organisms, constantly growing, dying, and changing. This past semester working with Steve, I have started to learn how to be a city dweller. This might seem like a rather silly statement. If you live in an urban area, you live in an urban area. But one of the many things Steve has taught me is that, living within a city area is similar to being in a relationship with someone.
It takes:
Commitment: We humans throughout our time on this planet have been shaped and helped shape the environments we have chosen to inhabit. For us to be in a healthy relationship with our chosen cities we have to take care of it. This means constructing environments that are conducive to human interaction and growth. City dwellers have to be committed to the urban space, so the city evolves in ways that help the community grow.
Listening: The cities have a language of their own. A dweller has to pay attention to the language of the urban environment. Everyone once and awhile, an urbanite needs to stop, ask, and think “What is the city telling me?” If people pay attention, they can know if something is helping their communities grow or shrink. Perhaps it can be as simple as a street diet to allow more pedestrian-friendly walkways, or as big as examining the ways a city segregates populations from each other.
Time: Cities can be as authentic as we want them to be. We can allow companies and government policies run how cities develop, or we urbanites can be active in the process and help guide policies in ways that are conducive to the surrounding community. Also it takes learning. Proper city development has become a lost art among Americans, as a century of bad city development has manipulated how we think a city should be. Steve throughout the semester has given me the chance to read books that reveal how we can learn from our mistakes and begin the steady and slow process of helping construct healthy environments.
A little bit of love: All living things need a little bit of lovin’. Cities are no different. This means the physical city and those that live inside them. Remembering the little things, such as a sidewalk that needs repaving or a ramp that needs to be replaced. These little and big things help connect people together. Allowing diverse communities to coexist and work and play with each other is essential to a livable urban space.
But above all, the single most important lesson I’ve learned from interning with Steve about urban environments is how to see everything in the city as interconnected. He has done this by giving me the resources to learn and explore the policies, history, and process a city has to undergo to function and expand. And what is the most important part of this is interconnectness is that it is possible for anyone to learn the things I learned.
— Brandon Sampson
Brandon, a suburban Tulsa native, is an undergrad at Saint Louis University. He’ll be studying in Budapest in Spring 2014.
Christmas 1972-ish with me (right) and my brother Randy (left)
When my boyfriend moved in with me in February he said he’ll wanted to put up Christmas decorations, including a tree. I’m atheist and he’s agnostic, but Christmas is one of his favorite holidays. It was a long way off so I agreed.
A Christmas tree in a non-Christian home? Sure, a recent study even showed that Christmas trees appear in some Jewish households too:
About a third of Jews (32%) say they had a Christmas tree in their home last year, including 27% of Jews by religion and 51% of Jews of no religion. Erecting a Christmas tree is especially common among Jews who are married to non-Jews; 71% of this group says they put up a tree last year.
Compared with younger Jews, those 65 and older are somewhat less likely to have had a Christmas tree last year. And relatively few Orthodox Jews, including just 1% of Ultra-Orthodox Jews, say there was a Christmas tree in their home last year. (Pew Research)
By ’73 or ’74 we stopped using the aluminum tree, we got a new green artificial tree from Montgomery Ward or Sears. We never had a cut tree. My maternal grandparents were very religious Mennonites, but they never had a tree of any kind. Probably deemed too flashy.
For budget reasons we got a very small white artificial tree for this year, adorned with four South Park ornaments I had. We also decorated our front door. For next year I’m not crazy about a cut tree — what he’s used to. Why should a tree have to die just to hold lights & ornaments for a few weeks?
Next year I’d like to do a live Christmas tree, I just need to figure out where it’ll get planted after we’re done with it. Can it get planted in a city park?
The poll question this week asks if your household will have a tree and, if so, what type? The poll is in the right sidebar, results will be published on Wednesday December 25th.
Eastbound on Olive just before Jefferson the bike lane becomes part of the right turn lane
Few aspects of the public right-of-way are as controversial as bike lanes. This may surprise you: bicyclists are deeply divided on them. One side argues bike lanes make riders feel for comfortable biking near traffic. The other side argues trained cyclists don’t need bike lanes. Both are correct.
For the poll this week I’ve listed diverse statements about bike lanes, I’d like you to pick which most closely matches your views. You may agree with more than one so pick the one that’s a better match or that you feel more strongly about. The poll is in the right sidebar.
Results and more on the subject on Wednesday December 18th.
AARP Livibility Index
The Livability Index scores neighborhoods and communities across the U.S. for the services and amenities that impact your life the most
Built St. Louis
historic architecture of St. Louis, Missouri – mourning the losses, celebrating the survivors.
Geo St. Louis
a guide to geospatial data about the City of St. Louis
