Many Readers Correctly Guessed St. George, Lemay, Affton, & Spanish Lake Are Unincorporated Areas Within St. Louis County
Up to seventy readers last week correctly guessed the fours areas in St. Louis County that are unincorporated, not a separate village, town, or city: St. George, Lemay, Affton, and Spanish Lake. With 90 incorporated it’s hard to keep track of all the areas of the county.
Here are the four that are not incorporated:
- St. George: In November 2011 residents voted to disincorporate so they could return to being part of unincorporated, lack of money to repair roads was the stated reason. St. Louis County had 91 separate municipal governments prior to St. George’s disincorporation. See St. George may close up shop at year’s end
- Lemay: An area in unincorporated south county, see the Wikipedia entry.
- Affton: Another unincorporated area in south county, see the Wikipedia entry.
- Spanish Lake: I’m surprised more people didn’t get this right, it is famously unincorporated.
Three of the four were never incorporated.
Here are the results from last week’s voting, the correct four were the top vote getters:
Q: TRIVIA: Which FOUR (4) of the following are part of unincorporated St. Louis County, NOT a separate village/town/city:
- St. George 81 [16.4%]
- Lemay 78 [15.79%]
- Affton 72 [14.57%]
- Spanish Lake 70 [1417%]
- Tie 25 [5.06%]
- Crystal Lake Park
- Green Park
- Country Life Acres 23 [4.66%]
- Greendale 18 [3.64%]
- Tie 17 [3.44%]
- Oakland
- Wilbur Park
- Tie 15 [3.04%]
- Bella Villa
- Winchester
- Kinloch 14 [2.83%]
- Uplands Park 10 [2.02%]
- Pasadena Park 9 [1.82%]
- Pasadena Hills 5 [1.01%]
Here is more about each of the areas some thought were unincorporated, in the same order as the poll results. All links are to Wikipedia entries:
- Crystal Lake Park: Tiny class 4 city in west county with an area of 0.11 square miles, and 470 residents as of the 2010 census. Adjacent to Frontenac, off Bopp Rd.
- Green Park: Small city in south county with area of 1.35 square miles, and 2,622 residents as of the 2010 census. Tesson Ferry Branch of the St. Louis County Library is within Green Park.
- Country Life Acres: a village in west county with an area of 0.11 square miles, and 74 residents as of the 2010 census. Adjacent to the city of Town & Country.
- Greendale: a city in north county with an area of 0.21 square miles, and 651 residents as of the 2010 census. Adjacent to Normandy.
- Oakland: a city in west county with an area of 0.61 square miles, and 1,381 residents as of the 2010 census.
- Wilbur Park: a village in south county with an area of .06 square miles, and 471 residents as of the 2010 census. Off Gravois Rd just outside St. Louis.
- Bella Villa: a city in south county with an area of 0.13 square miles, and 729 residents as of the 2010 census. I-55 & Bayless.
- Winchester: a city in west county with an area of 0.25 square miles, and 1,547 residents as of the 2010 census. Near Manchester & Woods Mill (141)
- Kinloch: a city in north county with an area of 0.73 square miles, and 299 residents as of the 2010 census. Northeast of I-170 & I-70.
- Uplands Park: a village in north county with an area of 0.07 square miles, and 445 residents as of the 2010 census. South of Natural Bridge west of Kienlen Ave.
- Pasadena Park: a village in north county with an area of 0.1 square miles, and 470 residents as of the 2010 census. East of the UMSL campus.
- Pasadena Hills: a city in north county with an area of 0.22 square miles, and 930 residents as of the 2010 census. Southwest from I-70 @ Lucas & Hunt.
The total area of these 12 is 3.95 square miles, less than 1% of the county. The total population in 2010 was 10,089, roughly 1% of the 2010 population of the county.
This is just twelve of the ninety municipalities in St. Louis County. Many contract with a neighboring municipality or St. Louis County to provide some services. Clear fragmentation when 1% of your land & population are divided into 12 separate governments.
— Steve Patterson
We have defined the problem; now, how do we change things? Intellectually, most people understand the arguments about efficiency. Emotionally, a lot of people like their connections to a specific place. In the city, wards and parishes act like surrogates for the county’s small “cities”. And the other half of the equation is the financial side of the equation – nearly every governmental entity has financial liabilities – bonded indebtedness, pensions and infrastructure, both new and old – along with the political inertia that comes with fiefdoms. Few mayors, aldermen, fire chiefs, police chiefs, school superintendents or board members are going to say that their jobs really aren’t needed or that their services would be better delivered by a larger, consolidated organization. We taxpayers might, but few “leaders” would.
We’re starting to see some movement with certain services, where some small cities are contracting, successfully, with the county police department, for police services. Many county cities also (wisely) rely on the county building department to enforce the building code. MSD, Missouri American Water, Laclede Gas and Ameren already handle most of the utility needs. The big hurdles (and the big bucks) seem to be with schools and fire protection. For some reason (unions? local pride?), the idea of creating a countywide fire service seems to be harder to implement than a countywide police service, even though, with mutual aid and joint training exercises, fire protection, in the county, is already heavily intertwined.
Wards are nothing like county towns. A false equivalency, dont lump the city in with the county on this one. No merger, i like having one government. Keep these county problems in the county. Good job ferguson, you may have saved the city.
Actually, Affton was incorporated briefly, from c. 1931 to 1935. The most ridiculous muni in South StL County, I think, is Mackenzie. Boundaries are: http://www.maptechnica.com/us-city-boundary-map/city/Mackenzie/state/MO/cityid/2945110
It’s 0.02 square miles, 134 residents, 69 housing units, on 3 streets, two of which (Holly Hills and Rhodes) extend into the City of Saint Louis. It’s not even the entirety of the 1930s Mackenzie Place subdivision, which is partly in the City of Saint Louis. The subdivision just north, Villa Nova, is part unincorporated and part City of Saint Louis. And the subdivision just south, Mackenzie Hills, is much larger but also unincorporated. Mackenzie has no village hall, just a small park. I don’t think they have any employees; they contracted with a paving contractor earlier this summer to pave all three streets. They contract with the City of Shrewsbury for police protection. They are located in Affton Fire Protection District for fire and EMS. So what services do they offer that a subdivision cannot. Mackenzie Hills also has a park; we pay $55.00 a year in subdivision assessments to pay for the park and a few streetlights (mostly there are no streetlights in unincorporated county subdivisions).
Thanks for the correction!
Great comment. I could never grasp why Mackenzie still exists every time I drove by it.
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As a Shrewsbury homeowner whose house is within Webster Groves school District I always thought that Shrewsbury should be annexed into Webster Groves or at least have Shrewsbury, Mackenzie and Affton combined into one incorporated muni. I understand there would be some items to sort out between the fire district, police and park departments to do either or but none of these area’s can sustain themselves and their services at current pace. The block my house is on is slowly becoming a neighborhood of retired and fixed income individuals. My family had to move out of state for work reason. So now my home that was previously occupied by a family of four with two good incomes is now home to my mother in law who lives on her limited fixed income.
The new Walmart should fix things for Shrewsbury . . . . 😉