Weekly Poll: How do we reduce the number of municipalities in St. Louis County?

In February I ran a poll asking about the number of municipalities in St. Louis County – a massive 91. With nearly 94% of the votes readers overwhelmingly agreed St. Louis County has too many municipalities.  OK, so now what?  With the exception of 6% of readers and the St. Louis County Municipal League, we all agree there are too many but the next question is how do we reduce the number? And to what? 88? 45? 20?

The question of how to reduce the number is the topic of the poll this week, see the upper right of the site to cast your vote.  The results will be published Wednesday April 13th.

– Steve Patterson

Readers: Gentrification In St. Louis Is A Good Thing

In the poll last week readers indicated gentrification was a good for St. Louis:

1. a good thing, we need more middle & upper income residents to fill vacant structures 115 72.78%
2. Other answer… 20 12.66%
3. neither good or bad, not really a problem 14 8.86%
4. a bad thing, making it harder for the working poor to stay in newly trendy areas 8 5.06%
5. unsure/no opinion 1 0.63%

But there were many “other” answers submitted:

1. Sometimes it is good, sometimes if it bad but always an issue in redevelpment.
2. non existent
3. Both good and bad, for the aforementioned reasons.
4. a good thing that needs to be matched by investment in lower income housing
5. Both aspects: good b/c we need redevelopment
6. an insanely complex issue that calls for property tax/assessment reform.
7. We would be lucky to have this problem.
8. nonexistent!
9. Some gentrification is needed to revive parts of the city
10. Much more complex than a poll……………………………………………
11. generally bad, but some mixed-income options are becoming available…
12. every city needs a good mix of people of all income levels
13. as long as the new residents are filling previously vacant structures it is ok.
14. I would say its a problem that has both good and bad aspects
15. I don’t like poor people, they don’t like me, and I don’t want &#
16. seeing as how low income residents have treated the city i would say its great
17. both, can be good for the economy but minorities
18. Both good and bad.
19. “. . . is”: uncontrollable in a free society.
20. It’s fine, but needs to be better organized.

Indeed, gentrification in a complex topic but clearly the majority feels that it is needed on some level in St. Louis.

– Steve Patterson

Weekly Poll: What Do You Think Of When You Hear The Term “Affordable Housing”?

Earlier this month I participated in a two-day conference on affordable housing sponsored by FOCUS-St. Louis (agenda- PDF):

FOCUS St. Louis, in partnership with the Des Lee Collaborative Vision, presents Housing: Building a New Foundation for Economic Prosperity. This symposium explores affordable housing in Missouri and Southwest Illinois, taking a close look at the disparity between the location of many jobs and the location of housing that is affordable for workers who fill those positions, and ways to resolve these issues to help build sustainable, prosperous communities.

You are thinking, “Why bother in St. Louis?”  Our housing is cheap, right?  I was on a panel discussing land use policy as it relates to affordable housing.

Affordable Housing is the subject of the poll this week (upper right of site). Results and commentary on Wednesday April 6, 2011.

– Steve Patterson

Is Gentrification a Problem in St. Louis?

The word “gentrification” is often used as a negative term against many developments in St. Louis, but is the use valid?  The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines gentrification as:

“the process of renewal and rebuilding accompanying the influx of middle-class or affluent people into deteriorating areas that often displaces poorer residents”

To me a key part of the definition is “often displaces poorer residents.”  The dictionary says the first use of the word was in 1964, a very different time than 2011.

Here is the opening to the Wikipedia entry:

Gentrification and urban gentrification are terms referring to the socio-cultural displacement that results when wealthier people acquire property in low income and working class communities. Consequent to gentrification, the average income increases and average family size decreases in the community, which sometimes results in the eviction of lower-income residents because of increased rents, house prices, and property taxes. This type of population change reduces industrial land use when it is redeveloped for commerce and housing. In addition, new businesses, catering to a more affluent base of consumers, tend to move into formerly blighted areas, further increasing the appeal to more affluent migrants and decreasing the accessibility to less wealthy natives.

Urban gentrification occasionally changes the culturally heterogeneous character of a community to a more economically homogeneous community that some describe as having a suburban character. This process is sometimes made feasible by government-sponsored private real estate investment repairing the local infrastructure, via deferred taxes, mortgages for poor and for first-time house buyers, and financial incentives for the owners of decayed rental housing. Once in place, these economic development actions tend to reduce local property crime, increase property values and prices and increase tax revenues.

Political action, to either promote or oppose the gentrification, is often the community’s response against unintended economic eviction caused by rising rents that make continued residence in their dwellings unfeasible. The rise in property values causes property taxes based on property values to increase; resident owners unable to pay the taxes are forced to sell their dwellings and move to a cheaper community.

Gay men have often been accused of gentrification because we’ve seen the potential of many rundown areas, back to the same Wikipedia entry:

Manuel Castells‘s seminal work about gay men as “gentrifiers” in San Francisco, California, shows that “many gays were single men, did not have to raise a family, were young, and connected to a relatively prosperous service economy” is a pattern replicated in other North American cities.

The documentary Flag Wars (2003), directed by Linda Goode Bryant, shows the social, class, and gender tensions in the Silk Stocking neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio, between an urban African-American community and the mostly white gays and lesbians moving in to the neighborhood, whom the original residents accused of gentrification and racism. In turn, the new residents accused the community of homophobia.  In 2006, in Washington, D.C., a religious congregation in the black Shaw neighborhood opposed the granting of a liquor license to a gay bar that was to open across the street from the church.  The bar was successfully opened and has since been replaced by another gay bar at the same location.

Gay people are not always the gentrifiers: real estate valuation trends can push out poor gay people, as in the Polk District in San Francisco: radical gay activists saw the value of a poor neighborhood as refuge for the economically and socially marginal.

Gentrification is the topic of the poll  this week (upper right).

– Steve Patterson

Poll: Must St. Louis Public Schools Improve To Stop Population Loss?

For years it has been suggested that underperforming St. Louis Public Schools must be turned around to stop the loss of population. Do you agree? If so, how?

The counter argument is  fewer and fewer households have kids.  St. Louis should focus on attracting aging Baby Boomers & Busters (Gen X) whose kids are grown and Generation Z who don’t yet have kids. This is the subject of the poll this week (see upper right of blog).

– Steve Patterson