STL Develops

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.

According to a release by the St. Louis Business Journal , Missouri and Illinois officials have agreed to build a new Mississippi River Bridge at a cost of $640 million. There are four lanes, two in each direction, planned for this bridge, which will link Missouri and Illinois just north of the Edward Jones Dome.

I’m happy to see that our elected officials in Missouri came together for a plan to build this bridge. The federal government has pledged $239 million dollars for the project, which would have expired if there was no agreed upon plan. The original plan was for a signature bridge, an architectural gem, that would have been a regional identifying landmark. The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is an example of a signature bridge. While this type of bridge would have been ideal, it would have cost double the amount of this project.

It appears the current proposed bridge will effectively link Missouri and Illinois commuters and allow the Illinois side of the region to continue to grow. It is important for Illinois to be able to expand, in order to keep St. Louis CIty as the center of the region. If St. Louis is going to be a world-class city again, Downtown St. Louis will need to be strong. A strong Downtown has been linked to a strong overall region. St. Louis has expanded predominantly to the West, Wentzville is 42 miles from Downtown St. Louis. In Illinois Pocahontas is 42 miles east of St. Louis. If you’ve even heard of Pocahontas, IL you know there is a tremendous amount of developable land between St. Louis and Pocahontas. Clearly demand for land in Illiinois will continue to rise. It is essential that this area be linked to St. Louis, and this new bridge will help accomplish this.

Hopefully, when detailed plans are released they will show that this bridge is will also be linked to North St. Louis. Previous plans showed the bridge linking with Highway 70, with an exit at Cass Ave. The exit was planned to be landscaped and provide opportunity for businesses to form that could access the increased customer base the highway would provide. This would help develop that portion of North St. Louis.