Poll: Which Term Best Describes The St Louis Region Attitude Toward Urban Planning
The St. Louis region as multiple counties and hundreds of cities in two states. I want to know how you’d describe the region’s attitude toward urban planning. Progressive? Staid?
I don’t want to narrow the question or give specifics, I want to know how you feel. I’ll share my thoughts on Wednesday August 1, 2012 when I post the poll results. I used the graphic from the City’s 2005 Strategic Land Use Plan but think regionally.
Please vote in the poll in the right sidebar and share your thoughts below.
— Steve Patterson
How about check boxes instead of just one choice? I think I’d pick “fragmented” “backwards” and “dated”. And perhaps “unbelievable to a newcomer”.
There should be multiple choices. I picked fragmented because some communities do their best and some good planning happens, others not so much. Some are completely beholden to developers and terrified of their own shadows. The City itself sometimes succeeds despite its best efforts to the contrary (I think the City staff are good planners, but the antiquated aldermanic system totally stymies anything even approaching progressive). We are lucky that the Agenda 21 crowd has not made itself known here.
Yes too many choices, all of which have different meanings, of course most are negative, which isn’t surprising. The two aspects of planning worth looking at, one is public transparency and the other is what actually happens. Neither is working, and of course the overwhelming proof is the current state of the St. Louis. The only parts of the city that work well are the parts that haven’t been torn down. And even those areas suffer from fragmented, backwards and desperate planning.
San Francisco and the City of London are two cities with a far more transparent system of public involvement that includes planning principles articulated for each neighborhood.
Of course transit is involved somewhere, although looking at city documents it is easy to see a disconnect between city planning and transit that is poisonous to the City, its people and future growth.
It is hard to say whether it is a cover up to direct resources to transportation insiders, or complete ignorance about the principles of city building.
The whole system of planning is so bankrupt that the complete process needs to be looked at and revamped. I really don’t think it is a matter of just tweaking things.
I would say “lacking”. All I know is that the STL does not attract enough young people to make urban planning worthwhile. There is little or no desire for a young professional to live in a city where there is generally poor job prospects, low income, low or no wages, racial divisions, unaccredited public schools, violent crime (robbery, rape, murder, and assault), over 10,000 vacant properties yet overpriced homes on the market, and lots of government waste. Who wants to really live here? Get real. People of the baby boomer generation run this 4-circle town. When this older generation dies out, STL will be a ghost town with hundreds of thousands of vacant properties. IMHO, you will lose equity if you buy and hold property in this city. There will be a generational fallout without population replacement. STL is currently experiencing population decline. In a sad prediction, the future of STL is that of failure due to legacies of racial hatred and segregation that advantaged the white dominant population. A city likes this is destined to fail and rightfully so. No need for future urban planning.
Young people need a sense of place and belonging where their future
prospects look good. I advise all young people to pack up and move out
of STL. You need to move to find better job opportunities and to find a
community that is warm and welcoming to you. You will find personal and professional success in cities outside of STL. If you stay here, you will stagnate.
Of course, the STL folks are very fine people and there is the social welfare safety net available to you if you stay. Perhaps that is the new American Dream . . . unemployment benefits, medicaid, WIC, section 8 housing, food stamps or food pantry . . . you get the picture.
It’s a two-way street. The lack of planning doesn’t create the type of city to retain/attract young people.
So one has to give. I think the urban planners have to give in because you can’t expect young people to take a risk like that with little guarantee in their future.
The number of municipalities in this region is just mind boggling! Has ANYBODY in ANY of the 92 municipalities (or is 96 now ?) ever been out this state? I have lived all over the United States and out of the country and when I moved here, and finally grasped this head-shaking concept…well…with so many cooks in so many friggin kitchens and very little tools to create a decent meal….it comes as no surprise that this city serves up only a measly bowl porridge, instead of coming together like so many other successful cities I have lived in, and serve its citizens a gourmet meal.
Pooling resources, cutting out all those salaries from the 92-96 municipalities, and all the red tape and make St. Louis City a REAL city with REAL city limits with ONE police force, one mayor, one fire station, one city clerk, one city counsel….instead of 92 mayors, 92 city clerks,….you get the idea. That will be the only time any true urban development will occur.
Until then, even discussing this issue like licking a stamp and putting it on a blank envelope and dropping it in the corner mailbox.
You feel like you’ve done something, but it your actions get you no where.
And I moved here by choice because I really do love this city, by the way.