Urban Economic Development: A Mid-Term Review
As many of you know, I returned to college this semester — working toward a Masters in Urban Planning and Real Estate Development at Saint Louis University. Wednesday I have my first mid-term exam in over 15 years. Needless to say I was concerned about studying and such. But in the last two years I have found I learn well as I research and write posts for Urban Review. Seeing as how that was a winning strategy, I decided to write up my study notes as a blog post. The notes follow the order of in-class topics and of the mid-term outline issued by our instructor, Allen Tomey.
The initial part of the class focused on some introduction to urban economics and then progressed to the first seven chapters of Approaches to Economic Development: Readings from Economic Development Quarterly, edited by John P. Blair and Laura A. Reese (hereafter referred to as Blair & Reese). I’m guessing many of you don’t subscribe to Economic Development Quarterly and I can’t say that I blame you. Some authors did a nice job getting to their point and others belabored statistics and such to the point you didn’t get their point until you’ve read the chapter 3 times and then took good notes in class.
This review is in no way a substitute for actually taking the class. I hope review this may prompt some of you to consider joining the program at SLU, if only for a class or two. I’ve been working on this for days and the test is this afternoon. Note: some chapters and areas get more attention because those were stressed more heavily than others.
UPDATE 10/18/06 @2:15pm. I’ve pulled the bulk of this post because I am not sure if presenting such notes presents any sort of ethical problem. Students are encouraged to form study groups and share information prior to the test. I’m not sure if the university policy has considered technology and the sharing of detailed notes via the web and the implications for future students. I will confer with my professor, department chair and the SLU handbook to verify. If I can, I will repost this information as soon as possible.
http://www.riverfronttimes.com/Issues/2006-10-18/news/feature.html
^ holy crap! ^
p.s. mike shannon and people like him are holding this city back. what a bigot!
I was excited for about 15 seconds, then reality sunk in. Would that something so otherworldly (and hyper-worldy-worldly, really) could touch down in our city!
Hop in the wayback machine and set the dials to March 31, 2004. That day, the RFT broke the story of another “secret plan” – Tony La RussaÂ’s Manhattan Project. This was a top-secret squad of “Shadow Cardinals” located near Junction City, Kansas. To quote from the article, “A Riverfront Times investigation has revealed …”
Sound familiar?
At the beginning of the 2004 season, the Cards were picked by most to finish – at best – 3rd in the NL Central. After several years in the late 90s/early 2000s of disappointment, something needed to be done. In essence, this “secret squad” of aging players were training to step in and take over the team if the regular team wasnÂ’t performing well by the All-Star break.
So how did that plan work out?
Actually, almost perfect. The Cards had the best record in baseball that year, tallying their most wins since the 1940s with a record of 105-57. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the year of the Boston Red Sox who roasted the Birds four-zip in the World Series.
Given that track record, it seems only natural that the RFT would unveil another “secret plan”. The only question is: What’s the real secret? Is the Cincinnati crowd playing high-stakes poker with their current developer, Cordish? Is rich Emily a mere pawn like Illinois was in 2003? Or have the out of towners come to the realization that the city won’t cough up more money from the public trough?
Personally, I like EmilyÂ’s plan, especially the part where sheÂ’s picking up the tab. IÂ’d make just one modification, however. IÂ’d have the City exercise its love of eminent domain, take the existing eyesore of a pit away from the Cincinnati crowd and hand it over to Emily.
That way, we might be able to quit playing high-stakes poker and get something done for a change.
If this is built, it would be incredible for St. Louis, There is plenty of people who would buy Shannon out so he could move his business to whatever Victorian replica site he wanted. Get rid of the guy.
I agree now is the time for eminent domain, hand over the project to Emily. It is unbelievable, it would jump start the city in ways that cannot be imagined now. The pressure to build a more sophiscated, truly urban city would likely arise from this project. Bizarre aldermanic behavior that is the norm now would be looked at more closely as counterproductive to the creation of a true urban environment.
Where is the Post Dispatch in all of this? I know they don’t cover or understand urban affairs to any extent, but you would think they would have knowledge of what is a major scoop. Or maybe they didn’t think it was a project worth reporting on, who knows? I only hope Emily can pull it off, she has my vote.
As a minority owner of the Cardinals, it would make sense that the PD wouldn’t divulge this information. This could be a move by Emily in order to apply pressure to the out of towners to get her plan moving.
I guess I got lucky and was able to read the original post in its entirety . . . I couldn’t find much, if anything, to disagree with.
One thing that probably needs (and will get) is further discussion is how transportation has impacted how both architecture and development have evolved, especially in the last fifty years. The autocentric world we live in today is a direct result of post-WW II prosperity and the ready availability of personal transportation. St. Louis is a classic example of a major shift away from a core downtown to a much-less-dense suburban model. One big reason that both transit and transit-oriented-density don’t (and likely won’t) work well here is the pairing of decreasing density and a diffusion of employment centers. When most people worked “downtown”, transit was a lot easier to provide – there was real density. Today, there are multiple employment “centers”, few approaching “dense”, including West Port, the 40 corridor between 270 and Chesterfield, the industrial areas around the Chrysler plant, the older industrial areas on the north side, Clayton, a growing employment area along 40 in St. Charles County, the Monsanto campus, UMSL, BJC, A-B, Wentzville, Scott AFB, etc., etc., etc. Until we, as a region, get past the suburban office park as the preferred place to work, we’re going to be cursed with highways and single-occupant vehicles (of all sorts, from scooters to Hummers) as the only only real option for the majority of our commuters. People can be reasonable when it comes to transit, but without both frequent service (we rarely work a fixed schedule every day – we need options) and direct service / tight connections that create a (relatively) quick connection between home and work, we’re going to (be forced to) rely on our own cars and trucks.
I support transit, but I’m not willing to trade a 20-25 minute commute each way by car for an hour + commute by bus. There’s a bus stop a block from my house and another stop a block from my office, so the parts are there – it’s just the reality that the two aren’t connected by a straight line. And yes, I like where I work and what I do, so I’m not willing to change jobs to be able to use transit. Bottom line, I’m where many, many other people are in this region – we work where we do and we live where we do, and the end result is what we see today. A good start to changing this paradigm would be making sure that any new rail-transit investments focus more providing a quicker commuting alternative and less on trying to replace a bus line and being no quicker in getting people from point A to point B. The Cross-County line does what it was designed to do (help Clayton and Wash. U.) but does little to connect other parts of the region. To be really useful, we need a system that offers direct service to a lot more areas . . .
It’s a hoax.
OK, this comment thread is WAY too post-modern for me!
Obviously, Steve posted some class notes, but was advised that might not be such a good idea before taking a test for said class. It might be seen as a form of cheating, perhaps, or at least some other violation of academic integrity.
Then, somebody “commented” (I would say “trolled”) with a link to an article from the “Unreal” section of the Riverfront Times. Unfortunately, the un-reality of this article is not obvious from the way the content is presented online.
So, we get a thread of comments that, well, may have actually taken the RFT story seriously! Or maybe some of them were just PRETENDING to take it seriously.
In any event, pretty surreal.
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