St Louis: a Case Study in Sprawl

St Louis loves sprawl so much that we've perfected it to an art. Our outer suburbs are a fashionable display of fussy strip malls and quaint light posts dividing seas of cookie-cutter vinyl boxes, occupied only by strands of lurching cars under the twinkling red-amber-green of traffic signals. Here in the central city, we are so impressed by this sterile beauty that we are turning our historic core into a shadow of suburbia.

Our administration imported a celebrity planner from Toronto, and have proven themselves just as good at ignoring him as they were at ignoring a long line of his competent predecessors. We have a plan, tho. One more expensive master plan that the board of aldermen will never adopt because it will threaten the 28 fiefdoms we have incorrectly labeled as wards.

A stunning downtown plan was nullified mere months after its completion when the administration fought like caged beasts to demolish an architecturally and historically significant building in order to build a parking garage for the Missouri state courts. They deceived the National Trust for Historic Preservation into funding this demolition that severed an awe-inspiring streetscape in a late-eighteenth century urban canyon. They shamed a successful loft developer who dared to suggest that the building could be saved and still provide the court's parking needs while adding to the city's inventory of residential lofts and unique commercial space.

Now, they're building a cookie-cutter Walgreen's and its asphalt lagoon between two of the city's most important historic district. Bohemian hill was to have been a cutting-edge urban infill project of affordable and market-rate housing with [omg!!!] office and retail space mixed in. This dire threat to sprawl had to be put down! So, they pulled the eminent domain card. Luckily, they got smacked down on that one, but land had already been assembled so here comes suburbia to the big city yet again.

I think that very soon, if the housing market ever recovers, the north side will be indistinguishable from Wentzville. Our brave politicians helped the former president of a large contracting company assemble large tracts of land there in secret. He acquired stable, occupied houses and evicted their occupants, then left the buildings open to vandalism and deterioration. In spite of the growing presence and success of independent rehabbers in the area, the administration helped him get legislation introduced to state government that would give huge economic benefits to developers who assemble large tracts of land in 'distressed communities'. The legislation encouraged land clearance along the lines of the failed urban renewal programs of the 1960's, and threatened to destroy existing neighborhoods. But this was o.k. with the powers that be in St Louis because it would put 'marketable' [read suburban] housing in the north side. Also, one must conclude, because it helped their campaign funds.

The latest developmental whimper is the scaling-down of Ballpark Village. In a desperate attempt to get development--any development--our fine city fathers are pressuring the Cardinals to move forward with the remnants of the old Busch Stadium site. There must be an election coming up, but to be fair, the Cardinals left the site in deplorable condition. The Riverfront Times did the best story on the situation in 'A Village Runs Through It'. The current plan is to eliminate most of the housing and scale back the commercial space, effectively rendering Ballpark Village a pretty set-piece rather than a neighborhood.

It's like I always say, 'If you can't build it right, don't build it at all.'