Remembering Jane

It has now been three years since the world lost the most well-known urbanist, Jane Jacobs.  On the 1-year anniversary of her passing in 2007 I wrote:

Jacobs was not a professional planner, most likely a good thing in my view.  She authored the classic 1961 book, Death & Life of Great American Cities, as well as a number of other books on urban economics and planning.  Again, not a planner by training but by instinct and observation.  For much of her life she worked against the urban experiments being tested by the professional planners and traffic engineers.

Jacobs was born in Scranton PA but lived in NYC for several decades before moving to Toronto. Two months after her passing I was walking the streets of her Toronto neighborhood.  Though not perfect, I can see why she was drawn there.  Beautiful dense urban city with active sidewalks.

I’ve been working on my Masters in Urban Planning & Real Estate Development (UPRED) from Saint Louis University since the Fall of 2006 (I’ll graduate in December ’09).  In my studies I’ve read a lot of books and academic articles.  Some of the reading has been by Jacobs and some has been about Jacobs.  At least her theories.  Much has been critical too.

Keep in mind it has been nearly 50 years since Death & Life was first published.  Much of what she advocated doesn’t apply because cities ignored her warnings and razed large swaths of land for Urban Renewal.

Today’s cities are vastly different than the cities she studied in the 1950s for her book.  Of course her observations not longer apply — we’ve long destroyed the very qualities she spoke so highly of.

The next year St. Louis lost our own urban advocate, Marti Frumhoff.  Before Frumhoff died in 2007 she gave me copies of four additional books by Jacobs.  I’ve yet to read these.  To honor Jacobs I’m going to pick one to read this weekend.  Her Death & Life book should be required reading for elected officials and, well, everyone else.  May 4th marks her 93rd Birthday.

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Blogger Turned Elected Official Debuts New PubDef

Tuesday Antonio French was sworn in as the newest alderman from the city’s 21st ward.  French’s wife, Dr. Jasenka Benac French, was with him taking pictures.  Benac holds a PhD. in electrical engineering from Washington University.

Antonio French is the man behind the popular blog PubDef.net.   French would regularly report on goings on at city hall. But now French is an elected official. As expected the site was to change.  For the past few days readers saw the following message:

But yesterday Ald. French unveiled the new PubDef — going from dot net to dot org in the process.

So check out PubDef.org.  Also check out French’s well organized but still developing ward site at 2stWard.org.  Of course Antonio French is on Twitter.  You can follow him @PubDef or me @UrbanReviewSTL.

Board of Aldermen Seniority

Every two years the seniority list at the Board of Aldermen changes.  On rare occasions new members are elected but also those who are first sworn on the same date get their pecking order decided at a Democratic Caucus meeting.   The Alderman with the most years has the least seniority — Republican Fred Heitert.  Heitert was first sworn into office on April 17 1979 — 30 years ago.

With 3 new Aldermen and the start of a new session I thought I’d share the new seniority list with you:

As you’ll see there are 8 different groupings of Aldermen who share a first sworn date ranging from Phyllis Young & Alfred Wessels on April 16, 1985 to Antonio French, Joe Vaccaro & Shane Cohn sworn in this past Tuesday.

Some moved up, some moved down a spot.  Except Heitert.

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Mayor Slay Calls for Local Police Control, City Rejoing County

Yesterday was inauguration day at city hall.  Half the Board of Aldermen were sworn into office as was the Comptroller (4th term) and Mayor (3rd term):

Here is the published text of Slay’s inaugural speech:

In preparation for these formal remarks, I read through some of the many words I’ve used as mayor. There have been a lot of them.

There is one phrase, a phrase that has occurred in speech after speech, which I have come to consider my hallmark. A thousand times – at neighborhood associations, ribbon-cuttings, ground-breakings, announcements, and bill signings — I have said: “ . . . and this could not have happened without the hard work of the people gathered in this room.” And a thousand times, that has been true.

It is especially true today. What has been accomplished over the past eight years has been done — together — by the people in this great room.

President Reed; Comptroller Green; members of my own family and of yours; honored guests; judges; aldermen; legislators; county-office officials; cabinet officers; department heads; all the hard-working men and women who work for the City of St. Louis in patrol cars, on the other end of phone lines, on hose lines, on garbage trucks, on ladders, at desks, and on the business ends of brooms and shovels – thank you for all you do for the people of the City of St. Louis.

An inauguration is as good a time as any to put some things behind us. And I mean to do just that. Given the challenges ahead of us, we cannot afford to keep fighting the old St. Louis fights. So, if you have ever, for any reason, thought my door was closed to you, try it again today. We have a lot of things to do in four years – and getting it all done is going to take every arm, every eye, every pen, and every heart that I can enlist.

The same is true for our region – and I mean both sides of the Mississippi River. We can no longer afford to compete against each other. We must combine our resources and talents to figure out solutions to regional issues as complex as race relations, poverty, transportation, and creating jobs in new industries – and to regional tasks as simple as writing smoke-free laws, sharing public services, and building bike paths.

The world is changing at a dizzying pace, accelerated by a brutal economy. The City and our region will be very different four years from now. They can be better – but not by accident. We have to make it happen. We must understand our strengths – and use them. We must notice our weaknesses – and correct them.

The national economy — and its aftershocks in Missouri and St. Louis – means that many more middle class residents will find themselves vulnerable – to layoffs, to furloughs, to foreclosures – and that already-vulnerable citizens will find themselves at ever-greater risk. Yet, necessity and opportunity have collided. This is fair notice to everyone: I plan to work with the elected officials and business community in the region to ensure that every federal dollar that crosses the Missouri border is spent where and when – and how — it was intended by President Obama and Congress.

I intend to make it the first business of my administration to refocus the attention and energy of government on doing the things that we do best: maintaining parks; providing recreation opportunities; fixing streets, sidewalks and alleys; expanding greenways and bike paths, and marking bike lanes; and using technology to improve communication with residents and enhance the delivery of services. I believe that there will probably be fewer city employees four years from now, but I know for certain that the ones who remain will be more productive, more committed, and better trained. And as City government looks for its correct size, it is imperative that we address – perhaps with state and federal help — the daunting task of fixing the employee pension systems.

There are things that City government has done well. We have won national and sometimes international attention for our prisoner re-entry program, our Problem Property Task Force, the rehabilitation of historic buildings, the renaissance of our Downtown, our efforts to end chronic homelessness, and our initiative to protect children from lead paint.

We will continue to challenge ourselves to do better.

To reinforce our efforts to deliver high-quality services to our neighborhoods I hope to enlist the services of local university graduates in a year or more of service in municipal government. If a mobilized group of young people can revolutionize communication, reshape traditional notions of consumption, and elect a president – they can certainly energize the IT Department, the Planning Agency, and the Citizens Service Bureau.

City government will have my mandate to reduce the amount of energy we consume, and the amount of pollution we produce.

We will do whatever is necessary — no matter whose toes we step on– to expand quality educational opportunities in the City so all children, regardless of income or neighborhood, can get the education they need to compete in a global economy.

We will, using sensible public incentives to attract private investment, continue to rebuild the historic neighborhoods that most need it. The local media will be covering north St. Louis the way they now cover downtown.

We will work together as a City to help the private sector to rebuild our economy and create good jobs in sustainable industries. That means we will have to innovate. It means we will have to retrain our workers. It means we will have to combine the governance of the region’s airports. It also may mean we will do more business with China than with St. Charles or Chicago. It means we will have to take advantage of our strengths, including our great universities, hospitals, and large number of beautiful, historic buildings.

Many of our government institutions and practices were put in place in a very different age, long before anyone considered Mexico and India as threats to our jobs. We will have to become more effective and efficient—and government must be collaborative. The City must reform its charter. The City, the inner suburbs, and outer suburbs must combine services. And, I strongly believe, that we must begin to lay the groundwork for the City of St. Louis to enter St. Louis County.

There are several representatives here today from Governor Jay Nixon’s office and several members of the Missouri General Assembly. Ladies and gentlemen from Jefferson City, it is time to let go of the past. The Civil War ended 144 years ago. In the age of YouTube, I-phones, and Twitter, it is time that St. Louis joined every other city in America and got its own police department. Governor Nixon, I promise we will not use it against the Confederate Army.

There are several representatives of MoDOT here. With a fairer share of the state transportation dollars that are now chiefly allocated to roads, bridges, and highways, the St. Louis region could fund affordable, clean, reliable, useful, and safe public transportation that let workers reach their jobs without burning gallons of gasoline. And we could finally break the “one-to-a-car, surround-it-with-surface-parking” construction habits that waste valuable land and blight landscapes. If MoDOT will not play fair now, it cannot expect us to support its plans in the future – and we will also work with others in the region to find ways to help ourselves.

There are representatives of MSD here today. We will work with them to modernize our sewer systems—not only to get the Environmental Protection Agency off our backs, but also because it will make our city more sustainable.

And in everything we do, we will, wherever possible, use St. Louis companies and St. Louis workers.

All of these changes — to help those struggling in this economy, to reorganize city and regional government, to find better educations for our children, to reinvest in our neighborhoods, to improve our quality of life, to create jobs in new industries, to engage young college graduates, to build contemporary infrastructure — will require that we talk to each other more often, more directly, and in different ways.

The way we share information has changed. Newspapers and radio stations are struggling for audiences. Television has been fragmented into hundreds of channels and time-shifted by DVR and the Internet. As a result, it is almost impossible to develop a consensus on any answer, except “no.”

So, we will have to learn new ways of communicating, of organizing.

Community meetings will take place in neighborhood list serves and web sites. Community meetings will be on-line forums, as well as in person meetings. Every part of municipal life — signing up for summer recreation, Operation Brightside blitzs, street closings/repairs, paying a tax bill, dealing with a bad neighbor, recycling, getting involved in a mentoring program, finding job counseling – must be available on-line. There is no reason why getting a building permit should require a trip to City Hall – or be much more difficult than buying a book on Amazon.

The past eight years have been an awakening—we have shown what we can accomplish if we dream great dreams and if we work together to make them reality. The next four years will see just how far we can really go.

It is time to get to work on the future. It is time to set aside our differences and come together around a common agenda.

I am excited to be your mayor. I am proud of our City. I am optimistic about our future. I am ready to get back to work.

Thank you, and God bless St. Louis.

Still here?  That is a lot to take in.  Let’s go in order looking at selected text:

We can no longer afford to compete against each other. We must combine our resources and talents to figure out solutions to regional issues as complex as race relations, poverty, transportation, and creating jobs in new industries – and to regional tasks as simple as writing smoke-free laws, sharing public services, and building bike paths.

True, we can’t continue competing with each other.  Moving employers around the region doesn’t help the region.  I like that he specifically mentions smoke-free laws.

Many of our government institutions and practices were put in place in a very different age, long before anyone considered Mexico and India as threats to our jobs. We will have to become more effective and efficient—and government must be collaborative. The City must reform its charter. The City, the inner suburbs, and outer suburbs must combine services. And, I strongly believe, that we must begin to lay the groundwork for the City of St. Louis to enter St. Louis County.

Collaborative government?  Yes.  Reform the city charter?  Yes.  Combine services?  Yes.  Reverse the 1876 split from the county?  Not until the 90+ municipalities in St. Louis County get consolidated by at least half.  Both charter reform & rejoining the county would involve eliminating a number of elected offices.  If they remained they’d no longer be elected positions.  Sheriff, Recorder of Deeds, Circuit Clerk, Circuit Attorney, Collector of Revenue, License Collector, Treasurer, Public Administrator and Comptroller are either duplicates of existing offices in St. Louis County or are offices which could be appointed by the Mayor and approved by the Board of Aldermen.

My poll last week was on this very topic.  Only 30% of you took the term “merge” the city & county meant just rejoining the county.  Sixty percent took it to mean a consolidated government form.  Mayor Slay, however, said “rejoin” not “merge.”

There are several representatives here today from Governor Jay Nixon’s office and several members of the Missouri General Assembly. Ladies and gentlemen from Jefferson City, it is time to let go of the past. The Civil War ended 144 years ago. In the age of YouTube, I-phones, and Twitter, it is time that St. Louis joined every other city in America and got its own police department. Governor Nixon, I promise we will not use it against the Confederate Army.

You’ve got to watch those confederates.  We can always tow their cars and sell their event tickets.  Seriously, we should have control of our own police force — for better or worse.

Community meetings will take place in neighborhood list serves and web sites. Community meetings will be on-line forums, as well as in person meetings. Every part of municipal life — signing up for summer recreation, Operation Brightside blitzs, street closings/repairs, paying a tax bill, dealing with a bad neighbor, recycling, getting involved in a mentoring program, finding job counseling – must be available on-line. There is no reason why getting a building permit should require a trip to City Hall – or be much more difficult than buying a book on Amazon.

Obviously I’m a huge fan of the digital lifestyle but I don’t ever see the internet displacing the value of face-to-face meetings.  I do see huge value in having every single municipal form online as an editable PDF document.  We are such a long way from that now.  Most forms are not even in a non-editable PDF format.  I got one form recently as a Word document.  Our city website is stuck in the 1990s so I agree we need a digital overhaul.  Of course with so many elected officials the Mayor doesn’t have oversight in many aspects of city government.

Can Slay make these changes?  It is a tall order.  But we must dig in.  I say a first step is to eliminate partisan elections for city offices — that would simplify elections every two years.  I talked with one Alderman today about reducing the total number.  This Alderman was complaining about the lack of support staff to succeed.  Well, eliminate 14 Aldermen and suddenly you’ve got nearly half a million dollars a year available for better aldermanic pay and/or increased support staff.

This last item was tried in November 2004 as one of four charter reform measures.  Conveniently a classmate made a presentation on the 2004 charter measures last night.  He was one of the original citizen stakeholders that proposed the changes.  A more seasoned political staff took over and poorly pushed four measures on the same ballot.

Proposition D called for a gradual reduction of the Board of Aldermen to 15 with the presiding officer being selected from within the Board rather than via a city0wide vote as we currently do with the President of the Board of Aldermen.  Not sure 15 is the right number but conceptually I agree.

Being the mayor that led the city to successfully change its charter would be an outstanding legacy.  But can he do it?

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Washington Ave Maintenance 9 Months Later

Last July 9th I did a post called, “Washington Ave Suffering From Deferred Maintenance” which focused on nearly 10 missing street trees on what had been a very expensive streetscape.  I included  numerous pictures like this one:

Four days later I reported that the “Forestry Dept Begins Long-Overdue Street Tree Maintenance on Washington Ave. They must have been testing the process to grind out the stumps because they only did one that weekend.

But eventually they all got removed and replanted.

The newly planted trees are budding out too.

But they won’t all do well.  The above tree is not planted correctly:

If this tree lives it will begin to grow into the grate on the right.  Most of the other trees seem to be planted reasonably centered in the area provided.  I happened to spot this one yesterday.  Is it too late to move it?

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