STL Develops

A quote I recently read in the December 2008 issue of Urban Land which is published by the Urban Land Institute, made me think about St. Louis.  The author Patrick Hanlon, a community branding expert, wrote “The strength of community lies in spirit-shared values, trust in one’s neighbors, and a vision filled with hope and dreams.” Do we have these elements of spirit Hanlon outlines?

He later outlines 7 elements that are strands of a community’s culture: creation story, creed, icons, rituals, lexicon, non-believers, and leaders and claims cities with a rich cultural heritage relish all of them.  Do we have these elements?

I think we are stronger in the elements of community culture than the strengthening elements of spirit Hanlon outlines.  I would like to know how you feel. Where are we strong? Where are we lacking? What is our creation story, icons, lexicon? Who are our leaders?

After my last post, I feel I was a bit harsh on my home town. I only get angry because I care, and public transportation is an extremely important issue for the future of our region. That being said, we have some tremendous initiatives in our region as evidenced by our designation as an All American City by the National Civic League in 2008. Initiatives that prove St. Louisans have demonstrated the ability to work together for super ordinate goals. The National Civic League cited the Great Rivers Greenway District, Downtown Now, and The Boomerang Press as examples of exceptional regional collaboration. These examples are all large-scale initiatives that involve government collaboration, along with private assistance, and volunteer work. I think it is important to note that these initiatives involve cooperation and various stakeholders working together for something greater than the some of its parts. These types of projects make our region attractive, but they cannot be realized by individual municipalities or as for profit initiatives. They must be a regional collaboration. This means that some areas will benefit first and maybe more than others. For example, new “Greenways” cannot be created in all areas at once, even though everyone is paying for them. All too often, stakeholders including taxpayers, politicians, and business people will support projects only when they see an immediate benefit for their lifestyle, town, or company respectively. The author of the editorial page in the 6/11/08 Post Dispatch summed up regionalism and this award well:

“The big challenge for St. Louis remains taking regionalism far beyond bike trails and arts projects. In some minds, “regionalism” is code for “city-county merger.” That’s politically unlikely here, though it should be noted that Louisville, Ky., Nashville, Tenn., and Indianapolis all have adopted some form of metropolitan-wide government.

All of them are competitors for jobs and industry with St. Louis, and all have seen improvements in government efficiencies and economies because they took regionalism to scale.

However unlikely metro-wide government might be in St. Louis, there still are efficiencies the region could take short of merger — collaborative efforts on transportation, transit, economic development, tax incentives, police and fire protection and airport governance to name but a few. The entire metro region should celebrate its All-America recognition and strive to act more regionally more often.”
We have a city with tremendous assets and talented people. These existing assets and the demonstrated ability to work together to create very positive progressive initiatives is what makes it so frustrating when we miss out on opportunities to really propel ourselves forward. Although, we missed the opportunity to fund Metrolink expansion at a crucial time, hopefully the next opportunity we have to further a major regional plan or service will be seized.

Today’s  New York Times article has brought to the forefront of my mind the repeated backwards thinking of our city. Our decision to not fund public transportation as ridership increases and the national trend away from sprawling development towards urban development begins to take hold, is truly mind blowing. 

Its embarrassing to be a poster child, once again, for failure. As if Pruitt-Igoe being the international symbol of the fall of modernism, our decision to forego railroad development in favor of the steamship, our alderwoman urinating in a trash can during a meeting, or our perennial status as one of most crime ridden cities in the country weren’t enough.  The problem here is the collective us, the citizens of St. Louis.  It’s easy to point the finger at government, but the problem here is not enough people are interested in the big picture.  How can we build a great progressive city? This is the question citizens need to ask themselves. I think too often people look at a narrow view of the issue. ”I don’t take the bus, they had cost overruns, so I’ll vote no.”  Even citing mismanagement of the Metrolink expansion, doesn’t justify what is going to happen when the services get cut.  Not to mention, you can make a strong case that the mismanagement was due to powerful citizens influence on the process.  First of all, we used a local contractor who had never built an extension like the one we were building.   Then, they decided to bury part of the track near Wash U to make the wealthy neighbors next door happy.  Well, that added tremendous costs. Plus our state is a joke when it comes to transit. Check out this quote from the business journal:

“The state of Illinois gives St. Clair County, population 200,000, about $20 million a year in transit funding. By comparison, the state of Missouri allocates $1.4 million in transit funding for the 1.3 million people in the St. Louis city and county region. That funding could be cut further to $1.15 million amid the state budget crunch, according to Dianne Williams, a spokeswoman for Metro.”

Its so frustrating that we have many elements of a great city, but all too often they are separate initiatives that are not part of an overarching goal.  We consistently make bad decisions as a region and state.  We have a lot of very positive aspects of this region, but until we can work together towards a regional vision, we will continue to fall behind the rest of the country.