St. Louis Needs Greater Density To Be Competitive
Everywhere I go I hear the phrase, “We need to reduce density.” Reducing density is thought to solve problems. However, most of our urban ills come as a result of lack of density.
Throughout the entire world it is density of population that sustains a city. Without a minimum number of people in a given area things such as mass transit and the corner store cannot be economically feasible. St. Louis is not exempt from logic that applies the world over.
Some of the arguments I’ve heard for the reduce density theory are:
1) People don’t like to live on top of each other. By tearing down every other house it will open things up more. People will be more willing to live in the city then.
2) Fewer owners is better. Converting a four-family to two townhouses will give you only two owners compared to four if converted to condos.
3) Converting a four-family building into two townhouses will reduce density and make areas more attractive to home owners.
4) Problem areas have too many people. We need to thin out the area to solve issues of crime.
The real issue in St. Louis is a lack of density, not too much. In some of the so-called bad areas where density is often cited as a problem the real culprit is overcrowding. Density is a greater number of living units in a given area while overcrowding is too many people in a given unit. It doesn’t matter if the unit is a 500 sq. ft. efficiency or a 2,000 sq. ft. townhouse.
Some of the world’s celebrated cities have substantially greater density than St. Louis — Paris, London, Tokyo, and Amsterdam just to name a few. In North America cities like New York, Toronto, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver all have higher densities than St. Louis. It takes density to support local retail stores (mom & pop, big box and everything in between). It also takes density to support mass transit and to shift from a gutted auto-dominated city to a pedestrian & bicycle friendly city.
We must embrace density.
– Steve
The end of cheap oil will bring the epiphany for density that you long for. Hang on to that former storefront building of yours. You may be opening the ‘Olsen’s General Store’ in your neighborhood when no one can afford to drive to the Mega-Lo Mart anymore.
I think there is a benefit that you may not be seeing from lower the density in certain areas.
One of the most powerful things that a lower-class family can do to pull themselves up to a better standard of living is to buy a home. The lack of home equity is one of the most significant problems facing the inner city African-American community.
Let’s face it the majority of the city of St. Louis is an inner-city African-American community.
The more units there are in a building, the more likely they will be used as rental units rather than made into condos or townhomes. City families are not served by a overabundance of rental units and a lack of homes that can be purchased.
You may know that rental units are not the best way to utilize a four-family flat, from both a social and business perspective. However, the owner or developer may not.
I don’t care how large a density you build up. You cannot have a city full of renters. Renters don’t take as much pride in their homes and will not work to keep the neighborhood vibrant the way an owner would. A large community of renters also creates a massive middle and lower class segment of the population that will never be able to build wealth in an affective way. It simply won’t work in the long run unless the city has a lure that makes thousands of people want to immigrate and live there at any cost (i.e. New York, San Fran, Paris).
Now if you can convince a high proportion of the developers to created homes for purchase and not units for rent…I’d be all for it.
[REPLY – Yes, very good points. I’m continually amazed at how “affordable” projects are always rental and for sale projects are higher end. The best way to get someone out of poverty is home ownership. Density & home ownership can be acheived.
The same lower income families that are renting are the ones that will benefit most from higher denisty. It will put shopping & jobs closer to them as well as make transportation to jobs easier.
In raising density we need to do it at all price levels. – Steve]
Density is important to a healthy city. When people say density is bad, I don’t think they are being realistic or completely honest. I will bet they see nothing wrong with a densely populated area like Hanley between Clayton Road and downtown Clayton. No one is suggesting that every other house in Clayton be torn down or Clayton high rises and flats be leveled or thinned out. But, since South and North St. Louis have so many flats, I wonder if converting some of them to townhouses might be a good idea. Isn’t it a way to make the existing building attractive to middle-class people that want city living, with a little patio & flowerbed? After all, in some cities, a lot of those flats would have been built as row houses in the first place. For some reason, in many sections, flats were more popular in St. Louis than rowhouses.
Above all else, the pocketbook rules. And fortunately, the subsidies that built our postwar sprawling world are running out.
Amendment 3 (taking fuel taxes away from general revenue for MODOT) just gave Missouri a five-year reprieve to the inevitable end in capacity-adding roadway projects. But with surmounting preservation costs of existing roads, a region not growing in taxable employment or population, and the inevitable nation-wide trend of growth in vehicle mileage far exceeding highway funds, the writing remains on the wall, even after Amendment 3.
And the developers are wising up too, not to just the idea of the urban core as the most untapped market, but even to the knowledge that added lanes and the next outer-outer-outer belt aren’t going to happen. And when the gridlock finally hits the fan, the urban housing market will turn around as well.
Let’s just hope we don’t let the Taylor-Morley’s (i.e. Jennings) or McBride & Sons (i.e. Botanical Hts) of the region lay claim to all of our City’s available land for major subdivisions. If so, then, even the “place to be” will likewise become “anywhere, USA.”
All this talk of density, I cannot resist adding these memorable quotes from ‘Back to the Future.’ 😉
George McFly: Lorraine, my density has brought me to you.
Lorraine Baines: What?
George McFly: Oh, what I meant to say was…
Lorraine Baines: Wait a minute, don’t I know you from somewhere?
George McFly: Yes. Yes. I’m George, George McFly. I’m your density. I mean… your destiny.