I Bought Gas on the Day it Peaked in St. Louis

Every six months or so I do a post on gas prices.  As gas prices climbed the last few years I loved being able to fill up my scooter (since sold) for under $5.  After returning home from the hospital at the end of April 2008 I began to plan my return to car ownership and driving.  By mid-July 2008 that had happened.  In fact I bought my first tank of gas for a car in over a year on July 14, 2008 — the very day gas prices peaked in the St. Louis area.

That day I paid $3.979 per gallon.  It took 10.017 gallons to fill the tank on my Corolla. My last fill-up was on 12/30/08 with 10.548 gallons at $1.339/gallon.   $14 vs. $39.  Today’s pricing, the result of a global drop in demand, does not encourage me to drive more than in July.  I think many drivers are in my shoes — personally relieved by the reduced prices but still thrifty. That is a very good thing.

The appeal of the big V-8 SUV has been broken.  Families still require more seating capacity than singles.  Some construction workers still require a truck to apply their trade.  The pressure is on automakers to focus on fuel mileage.

More and more I’m seeing people thinking about living more toward the center of the region.  This does not mean they all want to be my neighbors in the downtown loft district.  It just means the long standing draw new development on the far edge of the region has lost it appeal to the masses.

As President-elect Obama (I still love hearing that) works to rebuild our economy we will see gas prices return to the July 2008 peak and beyond.  Just like a fundamental shift was taking place 50 years ago — one out of the core, we are in the early stages of the shift back inward.  I strongly believe our course as a region and country will be very different in the coming 50 years vs. the prior 50 years.

Hopefully in a few years I’ll be plugging in an electric scooter rather than buying gas for a car.  Hybrid autos will someday out number internal combusion only vehicles out on the roads.  Youngsters will walk or bike to school.  By removing legal obstacles, such as Euclidean zoning, we can help this process along.

Gateway Mall and the Urban Garden

Earlier this week I had jury duty so I found myself on the 7th floor of the Civil Courts Building with my phone camera and a great view both East & West.

To the East we see the Arch, Old Courthouse, Kiener Plaza, Gateway One, the new “Urban Garden” and the Twain sculpture.

blahThe block with Twain will continue to be a odd duck, having streetscape elements different than its adjacent blocks in all directions.  Relative to the two blocks to the East it is looking very plain.

Looking West the situation is similar, plain underutilized blocks.

Large, once vibrant, sections of downtown have been dormant for decades now.  True, a few times per year there is an event that draws big crowds but on a daily basis these areas are so devoid of activity.  We need less special function space and far more day-to-day active urban space.

The Quick Tour of St Louis

The challenge is this: give a first time visitor to St Louis a tour.  Add in the fact you are both from Oklahoma City.  You are both working on Masters in Urban Planning – he at MIT, me at SLU.  You’ve got two hours starting after dinner at 7pm so it is dark.  Where would you take someone?

After dinner at the Tap Room I offered to give the new guest a tour of St. Louis We start with a drive down Washington Ave.  I drive us around the Arch.  We then head across the Eads Bridge and into East St. Louis.

Back in Missouri we head to Old North St Louis after passing the former Cochran Gardens housing project.  I wanted dessert at Crown Candy but they were closed.  We got out of the car anyway and talked about the soon to be former 14th Street Mall.  From there we did a loop around the vacant Pruitt-Igoe site.

We come down 14th and take Olive/Lindell West to Kingshighway.  A block North to Maryland Plaza and we are heading back East to Euclid.  North on Euclid across Delmar to Fountain Park.  After a loop around Fountain Park we are Westbound on Delmar to view The Loop.  We take Forest Park Parkway back to Skinker to check out a couple of homes where planner Harland Bartholomew lived.  Heading back East we head through Forest Park to see the Grand Basin.  We after Compton we head East on Locust.  We end at my place where I climb a flight of stairs to show him the view of the city from our roof.

Where do you take out of town guests?  Do you go out of your way to avoid not so great areas?

St. Louis Has Far Too Many Aldermen

Besides our average Alderman having been in office for 12 years, we have too many.  There has been talk about cutting the current number of 28 in half for years.  Such a proposal was rejected by St. Louis voters in November 2004.  It is time to revisit the issue.

To evaluate where St. Louis stood I turned to my friend Rob Ryan.  Ryan is a recent SLU alumni, an employee at RegionWise and a consult along with Mark Baum at Baum & Ryan.

Here is what we know based on what he gathered.  St. Louis is #1 or #2 in having representatives representing the fewest number of residents or percent of the population, respectively.

Ryan’s notes on each of the above cities:

St. Louis: The Board of Aldermen is made up of 28 members (one elected from each of the city’s wards) plus a board president who is elected city-wide

Cleveland: The number of council members has decreased over the years. In 1885 there were 50 council members, by the 1960s there were 33, in 1981 Cleveland voters approved reducing council to 21 members, and today there is debate about further reductions (some suggest as few as seven members

Pittsburgh: City council members are chosen by plurality elections in each of nine districts

Milwaukee:  The mayor oversees a Common Council of elected members, each representing one of 15 districts in the city

Baltimore: The Baltimore City Council is now made up of 14 single member districts and one elected at-large council president

Denver: elected from 11 districts with two at-large council-members

Chicago: one elected from each ward

Kansas City: one member for each district, plus one at large member per district

Memphis: six elected at large from throughout the city and seven elected from geographic districts

New Orleans: The city council consists of five council members who are elected by district and two at-large council members

Cincinnati: members are elected at large

Detroit: city government is run by a mayor and nine-member city council and clerk elected on an at-large nonpartisan ballot

All info on government structure was taken from wikipedia, 2000 pops from factfinder.census.gov

A couple of my unsolicited observations; Out of my non-scientific sample, St. Louis has the lowest population per representative Cleveland is 2nd, but they have been reducing the number of districts for the past several decades St. Louis drops to #2 when you rank by percent of total population per representative, behind Chicago. This really confirms the argument that St. Louis is a lot like Chicago in its collection of semi-independent machine-style fiefdoms. Neither city have any meaningful number of at-large representative positions and both have a bunch of aldermen representing less than 5% of the city’s population

Clearly our current number of representatives is not in line with many other cites.  We had 28 wards when our city had half a million more people than we had as of the 2000 census.  What is the magic number?  Looking at the above I’d say cutting out half isn’t enough.  Our current system is broken and does need fixing.  I don’t expect the current Aldermen to eliminate their own jobs.  We must do it for them.

The question is how do we get it done?  I’m not overly concerned about collecting signatures.  The big question is do we have some reps from districts and some at large?  How do we want to restructure our city charter for the 21st Century?

Potential Candidates in Even Number Wards Need To Plan for 2011

This year we elect half the Board of Aldermen, from odd numbered wards (1,3,5…). In 2011 we elect the other half (2,4,6…).  If you live in an even numbered ward and think you can do a better job than the incumbent then start making plans now.

Here are some steps you need to take now so that two years from now you are in a good position:

• Make contact with leaders of all the neighborhoods within your ward.  Be known to them.  Participate in online neighborhood groups.
• Start a ward or neighborhood blog to discuss issues and network.  Improve the level of dialog.
• Follow the legislation of the incumbent closely.  Review past legislation.  Monitor their campaign finance reports.
• Volunteer with a campaign in an odd numbered ward between today and March 3, 2009.  This will give you valuable experience if you yourself decide to run in 2011/2013/2015.
• Decide what political party most closely aligns with your views.  Determine if you should run from that party or as an independent. If from a party join that party’s ward committee.
• Be cautious about who trust with your intentions.

Even if you don’t end up running you will have been a more active and engaged citizen for two years.  Along the way you will make new friends that could become a campain treasurer, a donor, volunteer, etc…

Don’t sit out this political season just because your ward isn’t electing an alderman.