St. Louis’ Website Is Behind the Times (and the Mayor’s Site)

Having recently upgraded my Mac PowerBook from Mac OS X 10.3 “Panther” to 10.4 “Tiger” I now have the ability to subscribe to RSS feeds (aka Real Simple Syndication for non geeks). This is simply a way of having the computer tell you when a particular site has been updated with new information. Most sites, including this blog, have RSS feeds available to notify you when it has been updated. It truly saves time when you look to many web resources.

So I find it interesting that St. Louis’ website is stuck in a late 90s time warp technologically speaking. Press releases are posted for viewing if you think to navigate and find them. Some parts are set up to register you to so you can receive email notifications circa 2002. Yeah I know, we don’t have any money. But would it really take that much?

The Mayor’s campaign site at mayorslay.com is actually far more useful and informative than the own city website. They have RSS feeds for “from the Mayor’s Desk”, “Latest News” and “Podcasts.” Given that if I had been elected to the Board of Aldermen in March I certainly would have kept a campaign website so I’m not going to suggest that Slay shouldn’t use the internet to communicate. I’m glad he is.

I’d just like to see the city website take advantage of some of the newer technology and clean up the city website a bit. It is dated and way more complicated than necessary. And please, drop the “CIN” acronym already. Why must everything in this town be an acronym?

– Steve

Why Not Just Eliminate The Entertainment Tax?

Remember last week when it was announced the Laurie’s were selling the Blues hockey team along with the lease on the Savvis center? The issue of the burden of the entertainment tax came up as an issue in their decision. Today’s Business Journal reports:

Upon request from St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, the St. Louis Board of Aldermen will consider legislation that would exempt professional boxing from the city of St. Louis’ entertainment tax. Giving the sport an exemption from the city’s entertainment tax could bring more fights that could generate more revenue for the city, Slay said in a release.

So the theory goes the tax is keeping us from having more events and ultimately we’d be better off not having the entertainment tax so we could collect other taxes such as hotel tax as well as sales tax on food and other purchases. OK, if this is the case why not just repeal the tax altogether? Why just for professional boxing and why just for 3 years?

– Steve

CNNMoney: St. Louis Has Higher Cost of Living Than Seattle & Portland

A recent study by Mercer Human Resources Consulting placed St. Louis as the 102nd costliest city out of 144 cities worldwide. Seattle came in as 103rd and Portland Oregon as 112th. CNNMoney reports:

I’m not quite sure what to make of this. On one hand I’d say I think they are nuts but on the other I might conclude that as a region if you count transportation maybe we are more costly than Seattle or Portland. Oddly missing from the list was the Dallas-Ft. Worth region.

I think St. Louis is in good company with some important cities, a good association. Didn’t see Memphis, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Tulsa or other cites on the list. Our industrial city buddy Detroit was just before us at 101. To see the complete list click here.

What do you think? Is it good to be on such a list and thought of as more expensive than Seattle? Or do we want to keep a reputation for being affordable?

– Steve

Whom Do We Wish To Attract To St. Louis?

I had great conversation today with some interesting people, all part of making St. Louis the cool place that it is. The question arose about the people that are clueless to the urban life that is emerging in our neighborhood. These are namely people around us in the city that don’t get urbanity (note: many have offices at City Hall); people in our own suburbs and finally those from other cities.

I think the least likely group to get it are the suburbanites. I said I didn’t care if the suburbanites ever got it. Others disagreed. So here are my thoughts.

You will always have the East and West coast snobs that will ignore everything in the middle of the country with the possible exception of Chicago. We could have the most urban life here in St. Louis and they’ve never give us the time of day. But, I think we have a lot to offer urbanites of all ages that are more open minded. The big question is how to we get the word out to urbanites in other cities looking for a great combination of architecture and urbanity that we can offer?

I think many people in the city still think the dream is in suburbia. This is why they are so supportive about tearing down our urban neighborhoods and building strip centers and front facing garage houses. When so much of that is already available I don’t know why we need to create it here. I’m not sure if they can be reached. I can only hope that those that can’t be reached will at least be priced out of the city so they can have garage and strip mall.

But I don’t want everyone priced out of the city. I want all urbanites to be able to stay, regardless of income. Sure we need a good tax base but that will come with an increased population. I want to make sure we don’t become too focused on upper income people. The low income person that rides a bike or takes mass transit to work is making a positive contribution to our street life.

This brings me to the suburbanites that frankly don’t get the concept of street life. The idea of an active street is totally foreign to them. You see a few making their way to the city not for a ballgame other “big” events but just to check out urban life. You can see the fear in their eyes. Young and old, black and white, gay and straight all sharing the same sidewalk. Urbanity is about diversity. Suburbia is about segregating uses and incomes — the complete opposite of urbanity. Suburbanites fear life. Their environment is totally lacking of life and that gives them a sense of security. Dinner at P.F. Chang’s isn’t living.

Again, a few venture out of their safe world of equally priced atrium ranches. For some the light clicks on and they get that an alternative exists. I think people that are in their 40s or 50s that always lived in suburbia are lost. That is all they’ve known and they are now too old to change. Others in that age group that grew up in more urban environments might be able to break away from the pack. Adults in their 60s or older didn’t grow up in suburbia because it didn’t exist. We are seeing a good many of them leaving suburbia and returning to city life. Suburbanites in their 30s and younger are ripe for city life. Most are open to new and different experiences.

St. Louis needs to attract people from all ages and incomes from other cities. If that is you please come visit St. Louis and consider staying. If you live in our sprawling suburbs get in the minivan and come into the city. Bring your bike along and walking shoes and really experience the city. I think you’ll like it if you turn off those little voices in your head about the city. And to people already in the city just wake up and enjoy the energy we’ve got. Don’t fight the changes and increased urbanity.

– Steve

Aldermanic President Says Lawsuit Against Citizens is “Petty and Vindictive”

Aldermanic President James Shrewsbury, an attorney, in an interview with KWMU radio had this to say about the lawsuit against two St. Louis property owners:

For the full story click here. I’m glad to see Jim Shrewsbury take this stand. It would have been nice if someone from city hall would have spoken up before the Century was razed. And where is the alderwoman on the razing of the Century and the suit filed against two residents of her ward?

To help protect the right to challenge big projects in court consider attending Downtown Defense Fund fundraiser:

– Steve