Where are we going as a Region?
St. Louis
I recently had a friend of my cousin’s move to St. Louis. As I took him around town, helping him find his new home, we were talking about how he got here. He mentioned that he had an opportunity to move to Minneapolis or St. Louis and chose the job here in St. Louis. He said “Your cousin Lauren said that she would move to Minneapolis, but not St. Louis.” This got me thinking, why would someone want to move to St. Louis?
The reasons that I hear most people say is, the cost of living is great, it’s a good place to raise a family, and its easy to get around. These reasons are reasonable and make sense, although they are not the most exciting. In response to why not move to St. Louis many point to the negatives of St. Louis such as, no airport hub, loss large company headquarters, high crime rates, and racism. There is certainly some truth to these criticisms, although there is room to debate all of them. My opinion is, St. Louisans tend to view St. Louis through one of two extreme lenses. We are over critical or feel like St. Louis is great and can do no wrong.
We need to work towards balance. I think we need to look at our short comings honestly and openly. Then create a vision for the future and work towards this goal. We need a succinct community vision to rally around. No matter what your politics, we can all agree that Obama’s slogans of “Yes we Can” and “Change we can believe in” were extremely effective. In St. Louis our last rallying slogan was “St. Louis is perfectly centered and remarkably connected.” The slogan has some truth to it, but it is basically promoting where we are. In order to really get people enthused about St. Louis, our slogan needs to have an element of vision, where we are going. Young people in the community and those outside, like my cousin, can get excited about a place like St. Louis if they see it is going in a positive direction. St. Louis does have a tremendous amount of positive momentum, with the bio-tech industry, great rivers greenway, historic rehabilitation, and we still are number 6 in the United States for fortune 500 company head quarters. We just need to come up with an honest and visionary plan that the whole community can rally around. What are our shortcomings? What would an ideal St. Louis look and feel like?
