New Boutique Hotel in Midtown Has Bicycles for Guest Use

I was excited to see the two Electra Townie bikes on a recent visit to check out the new 49-room Hotel Ignacio in midtown St. Louis. Registered guests can check out the bikes at no additional charge.

I will take a look at the pedestrian connections around the hotel next week but I couldn’t hold my excitement about the guest bikes.

– Steve Patterson

St. Louis No Stranger To Deadly Weather

One hundred fifteen years ago today a deadly tornado hit St. Louis:

At 4:30 PM, May 27, 1896, “the temperature fell rapidly and huge banks of black and greenish clouds were seen approaching the city…All the time the wind kept rising and in the far distance vivid forks of lightning could be seen. Gradually the thunder storm came nearer the city and the western portion was soon in the midst of a terrible storm. The wind’s velocity was about thirty-seven miles an hour. This speedily increased to sixty , seventy and even eighty miles, by the time the storm was at its height. For thirteen minutes this frightful speed was maintained and the rain fell in ceaseless torrents, far into the sad and never-to-be-forgotten night.”

The tornado first hit the ground along a ridge in the southwest portion of the city, near the St. Louis State Hospital (“City Hospital”). It next went along Jefferson avenue, through Lafayette Park to Seventh and Rutger streets. Then it moved on towards Soulard and the levee before crossing the river on towards East St. Louis in Illinois. In its wake, the storm left atleast 138 dead in St. Louis, another 118 in East St. Louis. Approximately 85 persons were missing in St. Louis and over one hundred more missing on the east-side. Many of those listed as missing were certainly killed and their bodies either carried away by the wind or by the river, with little hope that the bodies will be recovered. Over a thousand residents were physically injured. The “Cyclone of 1896” has been described as the single most deadly event that hit the St. Louis area in recorded history. In little over fifteen minutes the storm fully completed its course of death and destruction. (Source – recommended)

Lately we’ve seen tornados cause damage in the region and earlier in the week the deadly tornado devastated Joplin Missouri. Generations have managed to rebuild following such destruction, present and future generations will as well. Of course, St. Louis reaches out to help Joplin.

– Steve Patterson

Wish Smokers Would Be Neater

We are almost at the end of five months of St. Louis’ smoke-free ordinance for most establishments.  The other morning I snapped the above pic on Washington Ave.  Really? Can’t smokers be a bit neater and properly dispose of their butts? Opponents of the smoke-free law will likely try to say this wouldn’t be a problem if they could smoke indoors but the health risks of that are worse than this unsightly mess.

– Steve Patterson

Readers: Expand the Zoo-Museum District

More than half the readers that voted in the poll last week said the five Zoo-Museum Institutions (Zoo, Art Museum, History Museum, Science Center, and Botanical Gardens) should not offer discounts as proposed by one member of the ZMD Board:

Q: Should Zoo-Museum Institutions Offer Discounts to City & County Residents?

1. No, more of the region should fund these institutions so we all pay a lower rate. 41 [32.03%]
2. No, leave it as is. 30 [23.44%]
3. Yes they should offer something, but not free parking 19 [14.84%]
4. Yes they should offer something, especially free parking 16 [12.5%]
5. Maybe, let each institution how to thank city & county residents 13 [10.16%]
6. Other answer… 5 [3.91%]
7. No, reducing the tax rate would be better 2 [1.56%]
8. Unsure/no opinion 2 [1.56%]

I think expanding the size of the district so more of the region shares in the costs is a good idea. Of course those of us already paying wouldn’t see a rate reduction, does that ever happen? Still I could see counties such as Jefferson and St. Charles paying something, just not the same as St. Louis City & County. But the more of the region paying in then there will be those who think some or all of the institutions should leave the city.  I suppose there are already institutions in the region that could be added?

Here are the other answers that were provided:

1. erect big signs thanking STL/CO citizen funding to make freeloaders feel guilty
2. Yes. City/County residents should get basic member discounts.
3. County residents should get a discount; they subsidize City residents.
4. Perhaps free parking for out-of-state cars to encourage local usage of other tra
5. expand the district

I thought #3 was interesting.  The city has about 25% of the combined population of the city & county and it only contributes 15% of the tax revenue, so one could twist that into the county subsidizing the city. Of course the city foots the bill for police & fire services to these institutions.

– Steve Patterson

More on Cities, Suburbs and Demographics

Yesterday I posted my reaction to a CBS News story on cities.  I said; “Middle class couples with school age children are still locating in new homes in edge cities but once the youngest starts college the parents seek out interesting and walkable areas. Those who can afford private schools aren’t waiting, they are living where they want while junior is still in school.” I reader asked for my source, which I didn’t have.  Today I have sources to look at the emerging trends:

In a historic first, many young, prosperous Americans are moving from the suburbs to the city. The flip side: The communities ringing big urban areas now have the largest poor population in the country, the [Brookings] report shows. The suburban poor rose 25% over the past decade, almost five times faster than in the cities. Suburbs are developing many of the same problems that are usually associated with cities – poverty, housing problems, crime. They are also accumulating a disproportionate number of elderly people. (WSJ: Bright Flight: Affluent Leaving Suburbs, Moving to Cities, May 2010)

In St. Louis we may think the city continued losing population, business as usual right?  But not so fast, lower income blacks are leaving cities and more affluent whites are moving into cities.

Suburbs still tilt white. But, for the first time, a majority of all racial and ethnic groups in large metro areas live outside the city. Suburban Asians and Hispanics already had topped 50 percent in 2000, and blacks joined them by 2008, rising from 43 percent in those eight years.

Suburbs are home to the vast majority of baby boomers age 55 to 64, a fast-growing group that will strain social services after the first wave of boomers turns 65 next year. (HuffPost: Suburbs Losing Young Whites To Cities, Brookings Institution Finds, May 2010)

Racial shifts are certainly happening:

The decline in major cities’ black populations is “one of the most important trends out of the 2010 Census, and I do think it’s a long-term trend,” says Mike Alexander, research division chief for the Atlanta Regional Commission, a planning agency.

From 2000 to 2010, the city of Atlanta’s black population fell by 29,746 people. During that period, the black population in the broader Atlanta metro area rose by 40%, an addition of 490,982. Those numbers tell Alexander that blacks are relocating in suburbs, not in other cities. “This black migration to the suburbs” mirrors what whites have been doing for decades, he says. (USA Today: Blacks’ exodus reshapes cities, May 2011)

Just like the white flight half a century ago, the blacks leaving cities are the stable middle class and up.  This has huge implications:

The problem with the changing demographics of urban areas is that many of the African-Americans fleeing places like Chicago and Detroit are wealthier and more educated than the ones staying behind. That means that Blacks with more money are taking that cash to less diverse suburbs, and buying homes in white communities. The Black communities left behind in the cities are then more shutoff from the world of money and political power, meaning whole Black neighborhoods have less of a chance of being revitalized. (BET: The Danger of Fleeing to the Suburbs, May 2011)

The Brookings’ State of Metropolitan America report from 2010 is a168 page PDF with a detailed analysis of the changes happening in America’s metro areas.  The report was finished last year so it wasn’t based on 2010 census figures released this year.

The report defined the various types of metropolitan areas listing St. Louis in the “skilled anchors” group:

Skilled Anchors are slow-growing, less diverse metro areas that boast higher-than-average levels of educational attainment. of the 19 nationwide, 17 lie in the northeast and Midwest, including large regions such as boston and philadelphia, and smaller regions such as Akron and Worcester. Many boast significant medical and educational institutions. (p9)

That is St. Louis! In the body of the report Brookings goes into more detail, comparing Skilled Anchor to Industrial areas:

Skilled Anchor and industrial core areas are more similar than distinct. They experienced rapid decentralization amidst only modest growth in the 2000s, and an above-average share of their commuting occurs by car (the highest rate in industrial cores). immigration to these metro areas—with a couple of notable exceptions—is quite low, though most retain significant African American populations as a consequence of their former manufacturing might. They have among the oldest age profiles of the metropolitan types, the result of low in-migration and a significant aging-in-place boomer and senior population. (p164)

So the black exodus isn’t as pronounced in St. Louis as in other regions.

Brookings did offer some suggestions for these regions:

Finally, new demographic realities must be met with new governance arrangements. More than ever, the lines between cities and suburbs—and the long, fruitless history of battles and mistrust between them—must be transcended. cities and suburbs increasingly share challenges like poverty, growing elderly populations, and influxes of new Americans. At the same time, the fiscal crisis has dramatically undermined the capacity of individual jurisdictions to address familiar existing needs, and has compromised their ability to react to new realities. States are facing their own intense fiscal stresses, which will get worse before they get better, and thus they can- not be counted on to support the local government status quo. (p165)

Once again this is a huge fit for the St. Louis region!  None of this is new, for several years now people such as author Christopher B. Leinberger have been writing about these shifts in population:

Perhaps most important, the shift to walkable urban environments will give more people what they seem to want. I doubt the swing toward urban living will ever proceed as far as the swing toward the suburbs did in the 20th century; many people will still prefer the bigger houses and car-based lifestyles of conventional suburbs. But there will almost certainly be more of a balance between walkable and drivable communities—allowing people in most areas a wider variety of choices. (Atlantic Magazine: The Next Slum? March 2008)

– Steve Patterson