A Tale of Two Existences

Between recent comments here on the blog and the URBANEXUS gathering downtown recently, it has been striking how vehemently people feel about the urban vs. suburban existence. The vitriol is mostly one-sided, the urbanists against the suburbanites. To most suburbanites, there is little passion for that fight because the city is basically irrelevant to them. Suburbanites tend to fall into three main groups: they have lived in the city at one point and subsequently chosen a suburban path; they enjoy visiting city amenities but don’t want to live there; or it never appealed to them. So what lies behind this divide?

If urbanists disdain the suburbs and speak arrogantly toward those who live there, where is the fuel? I would suggest it is, at heart, anger. The suburbs represent everything they hate: sameness, conformity, uniformity, and detachment or entrenchment from the world at large. But aren’t these all illusions? Aren’t they just as conformist to an urban identity and shared disdain for the suburbs? Aren’t both cities and suburbs created landscapes representative of their times? Aren’t as many people isolated and detached from the world in their urban condos and apartments as the folks who inhabit split-levels, ranch houses and huge suburban great rooms? Is one really better than another? Or are they neither better or worse, just different?

I am the most unlikely defender of the suburbs. I have hated them most of my adult life. I grew up in a small town, 100 miles from any large city, and I didn’t really experience city life until after college when I started my career in Peoria, then Chicago. I lived on the Chicago’s north side, in Lincoln Park before it became ultra chic. Then I moved to Seattle in the Queen Anne neighborhood. I spent my vacations in cities visiting friends in New York, LA, San Francisco and Boston. Nothing else appealed to me and I was horrified by friends and relatives as they abandoned the cities for the suburbs. Not me, not ever, I said.

So here I am, in Maryland Heights, and (gasp) I enjoy it. It’s a second-ring suburb so it’s grown-up, it’s mature, it has huge trees and sidewalks. Its houses were built in the peak era of the rise of middle class. Large enough to be comfortable, but small enough to be considered now as modest in comparison to much larger, new suburban homes and mega mansions. The lawns aren’t huge, the neighborhood is extremely walkable for exercise and recreation, and the energy footprint is modest like the houses.

I have a garden and enjoy yard work after years of container gardening on porches and balconies. I have a giant sweet-gum tree in my front yard and love raking leaves. I know my neighbors. My sister and her family live less than a mile away. My mother lives with me. It is easy to get around and run errands, pick up library books, and every night, for the first time in my life, I park my car in an enclosed garage. I no longer have to get up early to scrape the ice from my windows, shovel myself out of street parking, or get soaked in the pouring rain before I’ve ever left home.

Located smack in the middle of I-270, I-70 and Page Avenue, I can get to the airport in under 15 minutes (important when I commuted weekly to Seattle for my job) and there’s almost no place in the metropolitan area that I can’t get to in about 20 minutes or less. I have fresh, locally grown food available at Thies Farm and the many charms of Creve Coeur Park are less than a mile from my house.

My city is small enough that I can easily attend meetings and interact with city government. I know the people who run my city and I can work both with them and in opposition to them to build a better city with a sustainable future. I have easily met others and formed a residents’ group that will continue to educate and inform the political process.

Maryland Heights is also auto-centric, lacks a town center and informal gathering places, and, like every other place on earth, is sometimes boring. So I think it comes down to this: time of life and love. Our decisions about where to live are not abstract concepts. They are practical and they come with a constellation of considerations, many beyond our control, and many of them related to love.

We fall in love with someone who already owns a house in the suburbs or we move to have a vastly shorter commute to our suburban employer. We move to the suburbs of St. Louis because our toddler will soon be in school and we believe in the value of public-school education, but not in the St. Louis city schools. Our parents grow old and need help and comfort in their old age. They move in with us, into a single-story ranch house with an attached garage, and easy access to medical facilities and grocery stores. We can simply be ready for a change of pace: ready to garden in our own yard, to participate in civic activities, and take care of our extended families while we still have them.

Time is precious. I wouldn’t trade my 25 years as a fervent urbanist for anything. It was the absolute right thing for me. I have come to love my life in the suburbs in service to those I hold most dear. There will be other chapters in my life and I will, doubtless, live other places, including the heart of a great city.

I wish I had been more thoughtful, and less shrill, about my choices when I was younger. I wish I could have been more confident in my own choices without thinking everyone had to feel the same way. I wish I had known more about the value of family ties and the difference between sacrifice and a loving sacrifice. I wish I had been kinder to my friends who married and left for the suburbs.

One of the great gifts of age is a truer appreciation of diversity and how we all make choices for love. My neighborhood is as integrated as my neighborhood in the city, maybe more so, because of all the nationalities that live near me. But it isn’t race that makes us diverse, it’s all the stories of how they came to be here, the choices they made for love, and why this is only one chapter of a long and varied life.

-Deborah Moulton

Readers Favor Breaking Up the St. Louis Political Machine, But How?

In last week’s readers overwhelmingly favored breaking up the St. Louis political machine (89%).  Sixty people indicated we need to break up the political machine.   In one answer option I suggested switching our municipal elections to non-partisan – only 25 selected this answer.  The other 35 that agreed we should break up the machine didn’t think non-partisan elections would accomplish that goal.   In hindsight I should have provided a choice for someone that favors both breaking up the machine and non-partisan elections even though they they don’t think the latter will accomplish the former.

Here is a random list of possible reform measures:

• non-partisan elections
• reduction in the number of wards
• have some or all aldermen elected “at large” rather than from a specific ward
• reduction in the number of ‘county’ offices elected by voters
• term limits
• switch to City Manager-Council form of government
• Some variation on joining or consolidating with St. Louis County

I’m sure you can think of other options, if so list them in the comments below.  We probably need some combination of the above.

Changes to the existing charter will, no doubt, be characterized by the establishment as 1) a measure to reduce the influence on the Democratic party within the state and 2) will reduce the influence of African-Americans in the city & state.  On the first one, jurisdictions can have non-partisan elections for dog catcher and still be partisan when it comes to higher offices.  I think having St. Louis’ offices be non-partisan would help how we are viewed by the rest of the state.  On the second issue, fewer elected offices would mean fewer blacks in office.  It would also mean fewer whites.  We’ve elected blacks to nearly every city-wide office in the city. Given the demographic composition of the city I don’t see that changing.  Our current political structure doesn’t work — it should not be kept just to keep people in office.

As we’ve seen over the years the opposing political factions within the black community are fierce.  Many are decades old family feuds.

We’ve got to move our political power structure to actual serve the city & region, not just the politicians in office.  I know, crazy idea — government that actually works for the people.  Until we have a fundamental shift in leadership the region’s core will continue to not live up to its great potential.

– Steve Patterson

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

15th Annual What is a City? Conference

Later this month the Center for the Humanities at the University of Missouri is holding an interesting a 2-day conference:

The Center for the Humanities invites you to the 15th annual What Is a City? conference. Join speakers from around the country and St. Louis in examining city infrastructure concerns through the lenses of the humanities, arts, and social sciences. We will discuss such cities as New York, Portland, Ore., New Orleans, Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and St. Louis. Conference presenters include architects, urban planners, environmentalists, journalists, transportation experts, and legislators. Engaging in discussion that crosses many disciplines, the presenters and audience will explore ways we can understand and improve urban infrastructure and community life.

The 15th annual conference on 10/29-30 is free and open to the public.  To view the schedule and to pre-register click here.  A canned food donation is requested.  The campus is served by MetroLink, a parking permit is $6.

– Steve Patterson

City to Pedestrians: Don’t Cross Locust at 9th

The new Culinaria grocery store on 9th between Olive and Locust has helped to dramatically increase the number of pedestrians in the area near the store.  A friend of mine pointed out something that I and many others hadn’t noticed at 9th & Locust (map).

When crossing Locust on the West side of 9th Street signs indicate that pedestrians should not continue straight ahead — they should use the crosswalk on the East side of 9th.  The pedestrian above is crossing Locust while the light is green.  The “use crosswalk” sign is seen on the right.  No pedestrian signal exists, but many intersections downtown are missing such signals.

Note that the crosswalk stripes on the pavement have been covered over.  So while the other side of the street is close enough to toss a quarter across the street the city doesn’t want you to cross here.  Instead they want you to cross 9th twice as well as Locust.  But why?

During the construction of the Roberts Tower has 8th Street closed between St. Charles St & Locust.  Before then 9th Street was a one-way street Northbound.  But with Southbound 8th closed part of 9th was changed to 2-way traffic.  Before Culinaria opened 9th was 2-way up to Olive with traffic directed left on Olive (one-way Eastbound).  But the two-way traffic was pushed back one block from Olive back to Locust.  That meant Southbound traffic on 9th had to turn right at Locust, as the above signs indicate.  The city took the lazy way out — giving drivers a right arrow and telling pedestrians that is not a valid crosswalk.

But person after person crosses at this non-crosswalk.

Most, but not all, wait for a green light:

The person above, crossing Locust walking Northbound, is going against the light.  When the light turned green the couple with the stroller crossed as well.  In fact, all that I observed crossed at this non-crosswalk.  It is natural to cross at this point.

The city, I guess, put up the signs and covered the crosswalk stripes to reduce their liability in the event a right turning car from 9th onto Locust injures or kills a pedestrian.  A cover your ass action.  Except that a person with visual impairments is not going to see the signs.  Their white cane or guide dog will read this as a conventional intersection.  The solution in this case, to meet the ADA is to place a physical barrier that would be detected by cane.  A guide dog would know not to cross to the other side.

But the real solution is to give pedestrians the right of way.  Remove the right arrow from the traffic signal and use right arrows on the pavement so that motorists know they must turn right to avoid oncoming traffic.  Signs cautioning drivers to yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk would be good although my observation was that motorists were doing this anyway.

For the record using the East side of 9th coming from or going to Washington Ave is not an option.

Just a short block from Locust you can see that the above corner lacks a curb cut. The city needs to be more concerned about the flow of pedestrians.

– Steve Patterson