A Visit to The Ville
This past Saturday I paid a visit to the Ville neighborhood. The reason was the AIA’s Ville Marketplace. They are not selling produce every weekend but are seeding the idea for when they have sufficient funds raised they can start a new market building.
On Saturday they were out on the site selling produce from Produce Row – the same stuff sold in local grocery stores. A couple of local growers were also on hand.
After I visited the market I went back into the neighborhood to check the status of Ville Phillips Estates – the new home project that I first reported on last year.
Very little has changed except a couple of formerly through streets are now barricaded.
The open sewer hole is now covered – with plywood.
There are fewer buildings in the neighborhood since my last visit.
The same corner is now like so many others — totally vacant.
A term known as Shrinking Cities can refer to the process of accepting population loss and managing the shrinking of the cities. This can include the removal of infrastructure – buildings, streets, etc. But what we have in St Louis is not planned shrinkage — it is simply the removal of vacant structures to the point where remaining occupied structures become vacant themselves. We’ve been in this mode for decades now. It does not appear to be a successful strategy for turning around neighborhoods.
Another strategy is to invest in infrastructure, such as sidewalks. We see this going on as well. But the new sidewalks along a long stretch of MLK missed a golden opportunity. Existing trees were left but no new street trees are being added. I saw some blocks without a single tree. This of course can be fixed later but the time to dig the holes was when you had all the sidewalks ripped out. From an accessibility standpoint I didn’t see enough places to cross MLK.
This is a great neighborhood with a long history and some wonderful residents but I see the investments it is getting — building demolition and treeless sidewalks as being counterproductive.
Agree. The challenge for new street trees, however, is that it takes watering to get them established. If it’s a vacant lot, the odds are pretty slim that’ll ever happen (unless the city and/or a neighborhood commits to the follow-up). If it’s in front of an occupied residence, it takes some effort (time) and resources (a hose) from either the owner or the occupant (if it’s a rental). And, surprisingly, some people, especially those struggling with poverty, don’t want to be responsible for raking the leaves every fall and keeping their gutters cleaned out, despite the huge tradeoff shade would give them every summer.
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Don’t get me wrong, I get it – street trees are what define many finer urban areas. But the hard financial reality is that they do require work, and occasionally money, and for some (too many?) people, having nothing to maintain beats being responsible for something . . .
Wow, Jim. I’ve heard about people not wanting a street tree because a bird might sit on a branch above your parked car, and you know what that leads to…(that was an excuse I heard on the South Side.)
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But I’ve never heard any of my northside neighbors say they didn’t want a street tree for any reason! With the amount of rain we get in St. Louis, it’s not that hard to grow a tree.
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It doesn’t really matter whether it comes to picking up trash, repaving alleys, tearing down derelict buildings, or planting new street trees, we should be improving neighborhoods throughout our city, regardless of income.
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There’s more money in North City than most people know, and besides, northside neighbors want the same things southside neighbors want.
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The neighbors at Ville Estates paid good money for those houses. I’d bet they want nice street trees, clean blocks around them, and more neighbors to come in and invest as they have.
I like trees. I’ve planted trees at every home I’ve owned. But I’ve also heard the “non-tree-hugging” arguments (outlined above) that do get raised, sometimes for very valid reasons. They need to be answered, especially for the elderly, those with mobility challenges and those on fixed incomes. If you can’t afford a ladder or you can no longer climb one, cleaning the gutters becomes an issue. If the ladder gets stolen and you have to choose between a prescription or a new ladder, odds are the prescription gets filled. And as a taxpayer, I get very frustrated seeing dead saplings on the public right-of-way, since I know I’m probably seeing my taxes being wasted.
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In a perfect world, everyone who has a challenge would have a neighbor looking out for them and picking up the slack. But, guess what, we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in a world where properties are neglected or abandoned, especially in too many parts of our city. And, unfortunately, some of the properties in “disrepair” are owner-occupied by people of very limited means who simply can no longer maintain them. It boils down to some tough choices – a tree or a roof, the overgrown weeds or a water heater. And because we have inspectors out there making regular inspections, money needs to be spent on cosmetic issues that could otherwise go toward landscaping.
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IF, as a community, we’re willing to make a real commitment to maintaining our tree canopy, we can make it happen – it’s just going to take money, as in more taxes. The city can take over full responsibility for the tree lawn, planting, watering, pruning, vaccuuming up the leaves every fall, and removing and replacing trees when they die. Until then, we’re apparently going to have to rely on a demand-driven, or not, mish-mash of trees where someone cares enough to “make it happen” and places where the trees, like the buildings, have gone away . . . and yes, it’s truly unfortunate!
The only the thing the city does not do in the above list is water. They plant, prune, vacuum leaves and replace dead trees as a public service through the foresty division.
Newly planted trees will fare better if well cared for. The mortality rate would be rather high on trees left to nature. It is a good point that aftercare needs to be included in any planting, the first year is critical. The tree does not care if it is volunteers who do the weeding, watering etc or city funded workers.
The Ville is simply a mirror of what is wrong with this society. Squandering resources (that corner building should have been saved), a lack of true commitment to rebuilding the community. (Leaving the Ville neighborhood in this state borders on criminality) it is a reflection of the same elite snobbery that is the basis for the Wall Street crisis.
I was at the opening ceremony a few years back, with its white tent, prominent St. Louis individuals with their chairs, speeches and everyone congratulating themselves. They get their money, their kudos and walk away.
It is the same old tired leadership. A new political party is needed that will focus on urban issues as a path to prosperity.
Which is a major point, what has happened here is the opposite of a blueprint to prosperity. The government funding would have been better off channeled to a neighborhood where there was a major commitment for follow up.
So, is it possible to see the total public money spent on this project? Or is that question off limits?
Thanks for your reporting Steve, as always the urban gadfly.
You can get a cool book called “Cities Growing Smaller” for just the shipping/handling fee of $5.50 from Kent University Press. http://www.cudc.kent.edu/shrink
Note to St. Louis Forestry department: I have two 2 year old street trees that are about ready to lose their leaves. Please come by on Nov. 12th with rakes and blowers as I suspect they should all be gone by that time and will be covering the ground for your removal.
Thanks-
I forgot to mention- you got some “Blah”‘s in there. Not eactly how I thought you would respond to the event.
I’m working on an architecture thesis project addressing urban infrastructure as a cultural and ecological system (seems to make sense to advocate both as part of the proposed new push in infrastructure by the incoming administration in DC). I chose StLouis as it is a city that is on the cusp of change, seemingly taking a genuine approach to repopulating the urban fabric.
I am primarily focusing on the Ville and Grand-Oakhill, both being on the edge of the same watershed (the old Mill Creek watershed) and having rich histories; but with differing current conditions. My strategic proposal is for the entire city, but I will be offering design possibilities for the two areas. I am currently planning on working with the streetscape and looking at vacant lots as potential public space – both temporary and permanent.
I would appreciate any thoughts or comments. I am particularly interested in what public spaces/activities are valued – the places we live in should help us understand who we are in relationship to our neighbors and environment.
I’d like to know where this proposed market is – as it seems like a great design potential as part of the urban fabric. potential urban gardens feeding a market, providing jobs/educational opportunities…
-t
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