The area is a center for the arts with  12,000 theatre seats within 4 blocks and 12 galleries and museums.  The physical beauty of the architecture and the location of the district make it interesting in terms of real estate investment.  Grand Center is located between downtown St. Louis and the Central West End.  The neighborhoods between Grand Center and Downtown as well as the area between Grand Center and the Central West End have been suffering from disinvestment for years.  I asked the presenters about Grand Center’s role in these areas and they indicated they felt the private market would invest in and rehabilitate these areas.  I feel they are correct, especially given that Saint Louis University is an anchor in the area, the coretex life sciences  district is adjecent, Washington University is near the Central West End, and people are moving back to the city.  Look for the area between the Central West End and Downtown to experience substantial development in the next decade.  The city government should be actively planning and setting zoning to ensure that existing residents are included in the coming redevelopment.  We’ll see.

The state of Missouri is offering up to $14,999 for down payment and closing costs for owner occupied housing purchasers of foreclosed property. Qualified buyers can receive up to 20% of the purchase price with a $14,999 cap. The loan is offered at 0% interest and is forgiven after 5 years of occupancy. First time home buyers are eligible for the $8,000 federal tax credit in addition to this program!

To qualify the income limit is 120% of the area median income, for example $81,450 for a family of 4 (See Chart of Income Eligibility). In addition, the borrower is required to receive 8 hours of homeownership counseling. This program is very appealing and applies to many individuals. For more information on requirements go to the MHDC website or contact me for a referral to a certified lender. Don’t waste money on foreclosure lists,I’ll be happy to send you a list of foreclosures available by school district, county, city, size or just about any other search criteria you desire.

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?

“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.

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.

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?

I recently attended the holiday luncheon for the St. Louis Section of the American Planning Association (APA). In the beginning of the luncheon, Dr. Mark Abbott of Harris Stowe and the current President of the APA St. Louis chapter mentioned that he thought St. Louis was the most important city in the United States for planners for a variety of reasons. I didn’t write down his exact quote, but I think I’ve accurately written his point. Since he mentioned this, I’ve been wondering, why would St. Louis be the most important city for Urban Planners? I came to the conclusion that if St. Louis becomes a great city once again many extremely important and difficult problems will have been solved.

First, Industrial cities in the Midwest and Northeast continue to struggle. How to replace the jobs and economic power of heavy industry, as well as make use of the land that was formerly occupied by these uses, is a major problem for cities. If St. Louis succeeds, there will need to be a replacement for these industries.

Secondly, St. Louis is racially polarized, and has historically been a city with harsh racial oppression and segregation. I’m convinced if St. Louis is to succeed there will need to be a unified city and not two separate and distinct communities, largely divided by North and St. Louis. This is a problem not unique to St. Louis, but in many ways heightened. There are no other large minority communities, so it is largely a black and white issue. Also, the city is one of the most segregated in the country. If black and white St. Louis were able to largely work together for the region it would be an enormous accomplishment as well as an extremely powerful national force.

The third reason St. Louis could be the most important American city for planners is the fact that it has fallen so far. It is the poster child for urban decline. While other cities may be in worse shape, none were ever as prominent and successful as St. Louis once was. Detroit is the only other city in St. Louis’s league in terms of the amount of decline an American city has endured. If St. Louis successfully turned around it would be a shining example and undoubtedly have tremendous influence on the success of other industrial American cities.

It comes down to question what the tax payers will get for their money? Will they get a more efficient transportation system that better meets the public transportation need in the region, or will Metro squander their hard earned money? The state recently completed an audit of Metro focusing on its handling of the cross county extension. The Audit finds that metro mismanaged the recently completed cross county expansion and questions several additional compensations that were paid to staff members. You can read the full report in order to see what the state auditor found as well as Metro’s response to the findings. It is important to note that the report is critical of some of metro’s spending and the management of the cross county extension, but not Metro’s overall handling of the regions public transportation system.

I am willing to forgive a company for making a mistake, and clearly management of the cross county expansion was mistake. I believe partially because it was an extremely large project for Metro to take on with little experience. Also, they were allegedly pressured to use local companies when larger companies from out state, with more experience could have been used. The fact remains that demand for public transportation is up and Metro is losing a significant amount of funds unrelated to cost overruns and wasted spending. According to Metro’s website the reduced revenue includes:

• Federal subsidies, peaking at $22 million annually, were phased out by 1999.

• State of Missouri subsidies were reduced from $3.5 million in 2001 to $1.4 million today.

• Regional leaders elected to build the Shrewsbury I-44 MetroLink Branch with local funds to speed construction. Metro must commit $37 million annually in Prop M funds to pay back the bonds.

• St. Louis County reduced its appropriation to Metro by nearly $10 million to meet non-transit obligations in 2009.

• $10 million in federal startup funds for the Shrewsbury I-44 MetroLink Branch will expire in Fiscal Year 2010.

• Municipal TIF projects have diverted up to $8 million annually from 1/2 cent transportation fund

If we are going to be a progressive region, we simply need a strong transportation system. If we want to just stick with the old and continue to spend money on roads and reduce spending on public transportation, we are going to be left behind once again. This attitude of ignoring population trends, which suggest the future population increase will be in urban areas as urban sprawl is beginning to reverse, is akin to those who decided St. Louis should stick to reliance on the river and not paying to lay railroad tracks that would have linked us with New York. You may remember Chicago decided to try the new technology and lay the rail road tracks. St. Louis needs to begin to think progressively and fund public transportation, while making sure to keep pressure on Metro to perform.

The reason this is so important, is that many people claim that the suburbanization of America was a result of personal choice, and therefore unavoidable and “just the way it is.”  However, this is not true, the federal government clearly influenced this phenomenon, as explained in City Politics: Private Power and Public Policy by Dennis R. Judd and Todd Swanstrom were the data for this post comes from unless otherwise noted.  The housing market in the United States prior to 1934 was basically completely market driven, banks in essence loaned money to consumers and typically charged high down payments, often 30%-50%, and had short amortization terms, often 6-10 years.  FHA insurance insured loans given by banks that followed certain criteria and allowed consumers to use 20% down payment and amortize the loan over 25 or 30 years.  This program overwhelmingly benefited the suburbs, between 1935 and 1975 over 75% of the of the FHA insured mortgages insured new housing.  About 33% of all homes bought in the 1950’s were VA or FHA insured.  You may say, so just because people moved to suburbs with their loans, doesn’t mean there was anything malicious going on?  Well Examine this excerpt from the 1938 FHA underwriting manual:

“Areas surrounding a location are [to be] investigated to determine whether incompatible racial and social groups are present, for the purpose of making a prediction regarding the probability of the location being invaded by such groups.  If a neighborhood is to retain stability, it is necessary that properties shall continue to be occupied by the same social and racial classes.  A change in social or racial occupancy generally contributes to instability and a decline in values.”

Notice the word “invaded”, if certain incompatible groups move into a white area it is considered an invasion by the FHA.  Here are the definitions of invade from Websters Dictionary online:

1: to enter for conquest or plunder

2: to encroach upon : infringe

3 a: to spread over or into as if invading : permeate <doubts invade his mind> b: to affect injuriously and progressively <gangrene invades healthy tissue>

Is it really fair to say that when someone moves into a neighborhood, they are invading.  So far none of this really shocked me, what shocked me was the ranking of favorable races that was submitted by Homer Hoyt in 1933 when he was an FHA advisor advisor.  He later became the principal housing economist for the FHA from 1934-1940 which obviously includes the period when the 1938 underwriting manual was written.  In his report Hoyt said:

“While the ranking may be scientifically wrong from the standpoint of inherent racial characteristics, it registers an opinion or prejudice that is reflected in land values; it is the ranking of races and nationalities with respect to their beneficial effect upon land values; Those having the most favorable effect come first in the list and those exerting the most detrimental effect appear last:

1. English, Germans, Scotch, Irish, Scandinavians

2. North Italians

3. Bohemians or Czechoslovakians

4. Poles

5. Lithuanians

6. Greeks

7. Russian Jews of lower class

8. South Italians

9. Negroes

10. Mexicans”

Apparently, which part of Italy you come from matters, probably because those from the south have darker skin color.  I think the above information is substantial evidence that the federal government intentionally promoted segregation and provided “favorable” groups with much more favorable financing which allowed these people to greatly benefit from the greatest engine of wealth building for the average American, home equity.