Transportation Investment Key To Redeveloping The North Riverfront Area

St. Louis tried redeveloping the North Riverfront, the largely vacant area just North of Laclede’s Landing, by razing it and building an NFL stadium. That failed…thankfully. Next up, the area was included in our bid to win Amazon’s HQ2. Last week Amazon announced their list of 20 cities being considered — St. Louis’ bid didn’t make the cut.

So now what to do with the North Riverfront? I say stop dreaming about a magic pill that’ll do it in one shot. The street grid still exists, sidewalks need to be built. There’s lots of room foe new buildings and existing buildings awaiting new uses. St. Louis could invest in the area and enact a form-based code to guide future development. The investment would take the form of infrastructure — utilities, sidewalks, and transportation.

St. Louis is working on a North-South light rail plan to the West. This new line will use low-floor vehicles, not the high-floor vehicles used on our current MetroLink light rail lines. Modern streetcar & light rail lines use the same vehicles, the light rail usually just being longer and on a track where higher speeds are available. What does this have to do with the North Riverfront area?

We can use the same vehicles, maintenance facility, etc to operate lower-speed circulation streetcar route that’s connected to the proposed North-South line,

The orange line is just under 2 miles long. Yes, I know, a bus is a far cheaper way to move people. I also know a bus route doesn’t spur private development. This have the potential to connect The Arch, Laclede’s Landing, the upcoming North-South line, and the NGA HQ.

— Steve Patterson

Sunday Poll: Should Future School Board Members Be Appointed Or Elected?

For more than a decade we’ve elected members to the local school board, but it has been 3 appointed members of a special administrative board working to win back accreditation for the St. Louis Public Schools.

The city’s elected school board has not been in control of the district since 2007, when the state stripped the St. Louis Public Schools of its accreditation, declared it a transitional school district and replaced the elected board with the three-member appointed Special Administrative Board.

The move was not intended to be permanent. When the district regained its accreditation last January, that signaled to state and district leaders that it was time to think about a transition away from the Special Administrative Board. (Post-Dispatch)

This is the topic of today’s poll:

This poll will close at 8pm.

— Steve Patterson

St. Louis Board of Aldermen Week 30 of 2017-2018 Session

The St. Louis Board of Aldermen will meet at 10am today, their 30th week of the 2017-2018 session.

FIVE (5) NEW BOARD BILLS ON THE AGENDA* FOR INTRODUCTION TODAY 1/19/18:

*Note that just because a bill is on the agenda doesn’t mean it’ll be introduced, similarly, bills not on the agenda might be introduced if they suspend the rules to do so. This information is based on the published agenda as of yesterday @ 8am:

• B.B.#239 – Bosley –An Ordinance recommended by the Planning Commission on January 11, 2018, to change the zoning of property as indicated on the District Map and in City Block 2485, from “G” Local Commercial and Office District to the “B” Two-Family Dwelling District, at 4231-41 N. Grand; and containing an emergency clause.
• B.B.#240 – Williamson/Oldenburg – An ordinance providing for and directing the submission to the qualified electors of the City at a Special Bond Election to be held in said City on the 7th Day of August 2018 of a proposal for the incurring of indebtedness and the issuance of bonds said City in evidence thereof in the aggregate amount of not to exceed Fifty Million Dollars upon the assent to the said proposal of two?thirds of the qualified electors of said city voting thereon, and containing an emergency clause.
• B.B.#241 – Ingrassia –An Ordinance pertaining to the collection of administrative citation fines assessed by the Building Commissioner pursuant to Ordinance 66857 on buildings or structures within the City of St. Louis which are detrimental to the health, safety, and welfare of the residents of the City; authorizing the Comptroller, upon receiving certification of administrative citation fine amounts to cause a special tax bill to be assessed to property owner or if the amount is unpaid for more than one year authorizing the amounts be added to the annual real estate tax bill; containing a severability clause and an emergency clause.
• B.B.#242 – Ingrassia –An Ordinance pertaining to enforcement of code violations related to buildings, structures and premises in the City of St. Louis; partially repealing and amending Section Eleven of Ordinance 66857 and enacting in lieu of a new sub-section C related to the procedures for the collection of administrative citation fines in accordance with Sections 479.011 and 67.451, RSMo; containing a severability clause and an emergency clause.
• B.B.#243 – Spencer –An ordinance requiring the City Information Technology Services Agency to create, and maintain in good functioning order, a calendar on the homepage of the City of St. Louis website specifically for the purpose of publishing required notifications of City departments’ and divisions’ “public meetings” as the term is defined in 610.010 RSMo, and requiring said City departments and divisions to publish notifications of public meetings on said calendar.

The meeting begins at 10am, past meetings and a live broadcast can be watched online here. See list of all board bills for the 2017-2018 session.

— Steve Patterson

Readers Split On Homicide Rate

Last year St. Louis had more homicides than we’d seen in a couple of decades. This year we have a new police chief, hired from within, and our mayor in her first full calendar year in office. Will they be able to lower the number of homicides this year?

Of course none of us know for sure…we can only guess. My personal feeling is until we make significant progress toward addressing economic inequality we’ll continue seeing the same level of violence. Inequality — real & perceived:

Hicks and Hicks (whose relation is unclear) found that the link between conspicuous consumption and high crime rates is much stronger than the link between income inequality and crime.

That said, when spending is visible, the rates of only certain types of crimes tend to spike. Theft and vandalism, interestingly, aren’t significantly more present, but murder and assault are. These findings actually take a bit away from Gary Becker’s hypothesis, seeing as a visibly luxurious car apparently isn’t likely to inspire theft. Instead, this study adds to what’s called “strain theory,” which is another way of making sense of criminal behavior. Strain theory suggests that when poorer people perceive inequality, they feel less of a commitment to social norms and in turn come to view crime as more acceptable. The key insight the Hicks’s study provides is that when potential criminals are giving up on social expectations, they’re doing so based on information that’s visible, not information that’s password-protected. (The Atlantic)

Placing signs in your yard saying “We’ve got to stop killing each other” or calling on a deity might make you feel better — but they don’t do a thing to address the actual problems in our high-crime neighborhoods. How you ask?

From Talk Poverty in 2015:

1. If the private market fails to provide enough jobs to achieve full employment, the government must become the employer of last resort.
2. When growth is below capacity and the job market is slack, apply fiscal and monetary policies aggressively to achieve full employment. Right now, this means not raising interest rates pre-emptively at the Fed and investing in public infrastructure.
3. Take actions against countries that manage their currencies to subsidize their exports to us and tax our exports to them. Such actions can include revoking trade privileges, allowing for reciprocal currency interventions, and levying duties on subsidized goods.
4. Support sectoral training, apprenticeships, and earn-while-you-learn programs.
5. Implement universal pre-K, with subsidies that phase out as incomes rise.
6. Raise the minimum wage to $12/hour by 2020 and raise the overtime salary threshold (beneath which all workers get overtime pay) from $455/week to $970/week and index it to inflation.
7. Provide better oversight of financial markets: mandate adequate capital buffers, enforce a strong Volcker Rule against proprietary trading in FDIC-insured banks, strengthen the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and encourage vigilant oversight of systemic risk in the banking system by the Federal Reserve.
8. Level the playing field for union elections to bolster collective bargaining while avoiding, at the state-level, anti-union, so-called “right-to-work” laws.
9. Maintain and strengthen safety net programs like the EITC and CTC, SNAP, and Medicaid.
10. In order to generate needed revenue and boost tax fairness: reduce the rate at which high-income taxpayers can take tax deductions, impose a small tax of financial market transactions, increase IRS funding to close the “tax gap” (the difference between what’s owed and what’s paid), and repeal “step-up basis” (a tax break for wealthy inheritors).

To many of us the choice is clear — all of the above or continue to see the violence escalate.

Here is the results of the recent non-scientific Sunday Poll:

Q: Compared to 2017, the number of homicides in the City of St. Louis for 2018 will be…

• significantly lower 1 [3.85%]
• slightly lower 7 [26.92%]
• about the same 7 [26.92%]
• slightly higher 8 [30.77%]
• significantly higher 2 [7.69%]
• Unsure/No Answer 1 [3.85%]

A year from now we’ll know who was right.

“Many white Americans of good will have never connected bigotry with economic exploitation. They have deplored prejudice but tolerated or ignored economic injustice.”
–Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Why We Can’t Wait, 1964 (Newsweek)

Aresting and locking up more people isn’t the answer, providing an economic alternative to crime is the long-term solution.

— Steve Patterson

St. Louis’ Dr Martin Luther King Drive

This is my 14th consecutive year looking at St. Louis’ Martin Luther King Drive — documenting physical changes since the prior year. Next year, my 15th, may well be my last. Each year it gets more and more depressing to do.

Each year there is at least one bright spot, but they pale in comparison to the profound disinvestment.

So here is a look at St.Louis’ Martin Luther King Drive, starting at 14th and heading West to the city limits. In some cases I’ve included previous photos to compare to this yesr. All photos for this year were taken a week ago.

A few bright spots…but lots of overwhelming problems.

— Steve Patterson