St. Louis needs greater density

“Dense concentrations of people are one of the of the necessary conditions for flourishing city diversity.”

The above quote is from Jane Jacobs’ classic, ‘The Death and Life of Great American Cities.’ In chapter 11, ‘The need for concentration,’ Jacobs continues:

“One reason why low city densities conventionally have a good name, unjustified by the facts, and why high city densities have a bad name, equally unjustified, is that high densities of dwellings and and overcrowding of dwellings are often confused. High densities mean large numbers of dwellings per acre of land. Overcrowding means too many people in a dwelling for the number of rooms it contains.”

I think all too often in St. Louis this confusion abounds. The trend to convert two-family buildings to a single family structure is in part because of the false notion that we need to reduce densities. I hear it all the time. What do we accomplish by reducing the total number of dwellings in this fashion? We make it harder to create a vibrant & diverse city. While I don’t have any facts & figures in front of me I’d say we are probably only breaking even as far as dwellings are concerned. For every new house or loft constructed we are reducing a four-unit building to two or a two to a single. Downtown is gaining units while the other neighborhoods are losing needed density. This is not a good thing!

Back to Jane Jacobs, “In districts where densities are too low, they can be raised and variation increased by adding new buildings simultaneously in different, separated spots only. In short, densities should be raised – and new buildings introduced for this purpose – gradually rather than in some sudden, cataclysmic upheaval to be followed by nothing more for decades. “

Jacobs is not advocating wholesale destruction of neighborhoods to create high density housing – she is suggesting over time cities need to increase densities to a level to support a diverse & vibrant city life. The ideal place for increased density is near MetroLink stops – both current and future. Most city neighborhoods are low density and need more dwellings and people – not fewer.

Jacobs’ book will be discussed Sunday 12/12 at 1pm. The location is Grbic at 4071 Keokuk (@ Meramec).

– Steve

Candidates for St. Louis’ Primary Election

Interested in who is running for Alderman in your ward as well as for Mayor and Comptroller? If so, you can keep an eye on the St. Louis Board of Elections website:

Click here for filings for the 3/8/2004 primary.

Not many challengers out there so far. Come on folks – are you going to let the incumbents just breeze through another election and be in office another four years?

In my Ward, the 25th, Carl Coats is challenging Dorothy Kirner. Challengers have also filed in the 5th & 23rd wards.

If anyone needs to be challenged this election is 7th Ward Alderwomen Phyllis Young. She posed no objection to the demolition of the Century Building for a parking garage. Phyllis – it is time for you to retire from elected office. Withdraw and let someone else run.

– Steve

St. Louis’ Public Meetings list offers some help staying informed

Since I’m critical of the management of the City of St. Louis in much of my writing I thought it would be wise to get more involved – to learn more about the process and be better informed. Well, just learning how to get better informed has been a process in and of itself.

I started with a pretty handy link on the City’s website appropriately titled Public Meetings. This dynamic list shows you public meetings to be held in the upcoming 31 days. As of today eleven meetings are scheduled with the first being the Affordable Housing Commission on December 7th.

Affordable Housing sounded interesting so I clicked on the link and I get information on the time & location of the meeting. But, I don’t get a link to their web site, an agenda or anything. So I go to the St. Louis City web site and search for Affordable Housing Commission and get their website. But, it doesn’t really tell me anything. I do get a list of Commissioners & staff, their mission and prior development awardees. I have no clue if this commission meets monthly and what the upcoming agenda will be. If they do meet monthly – say on the first Tuesday of each month – the next meeting would be on January 4th which is within the next 31 days. So, perhaps they don’t meet each month? Or they do but don’t want to meet that close to the new year? I move on…

Next on the list is the Planning Commission scheduled for December 8th. Clicking the link I get the time & location of the meeting as well as a detailed agenda – excellent. Some of the list is pretty cryptic but with many addresses & neighborhoods listed I can probably see if I’m interested in attending. What I don’t get is a link to the Planning Commission site to know who is on the commission. I search the city website and the best I can do is find the Planning & Urban Design Agency site which indicates they provide staff support for the Planning Commission. Someone looking at the Planning & Urban Design site doesn’t know about the upcoming meeting or agenda. The agenda from the Public Meetings site does tell me the next meeting will be January 5th – exactly 31 days from today. But, the upcoming 31 days on the Public Meetings site doesn’t list the January 5th meeting – the last one is listed for 12/27.

Next on the list is the Land Reutilization Authority (LRA) meeting, also on the 8th. Here I learn the meeting is at 8:30am at the same place most of these meetings are held – the 12th floor board room at 1015 Locust. No agenda, no link to the LRA site. Like most of these, a contact person is listed with phone number and email address. This one has a link to “SLDC Boards” but it simply takes you to the City web site – not to a list of SLDC Boards. But, a concise site with all the SLDC Boards does exist – click here for list. Once again I haven’t a clue who comprises the authority or what the upcoming agenda is.

Much of the rest of the list is in the same vain. You’ve got the Tax Increment Financing meeting without a clue who is making the decisions and what they are deciding. The Industrial Development Authority (IDA) at least has a working link to take you to the list of SLDC Boards but still no idea who makes up this authority or what is on the upcoming agenda. The Planned Industrial Expansion Authority (PIEA) public meeting notice is like the others – no link, no agenda and no clue who is makes up the authority.

Then we get to my favorite – the Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority (LCRA). A relic from the urban renewal days still abusing the powers of eminent domain for the public good. Of course, public good is now defined as a grandiose development plan with financing so complicated it is hard to see how much the tax payers are getting taken for but will give the Mayor and Alderman of the ward something to say they’ve done something. No agenda, no list of authority members, no link to site.

Same is true for the next three – the Port Authority Commission, the St. Louis Local Development Co. (LDC), and the St. Louis Development Corporation. No agenda, no list of decision makers and with the exception of the LDC, no link to a more detailed site. But, like all of SLDC boards, no agenda is provided online.

Last on the list is the Cultural Resource Preservation Board for Monday December 27th. I’m disappointed by the date because I’ll be out of town. The link to Planning & Urban Design sends you to the City’s site – not to Planning & Urban Design. I have Cultural Resources bookmarked and there I see the December meeting date, due to holidays, has changed to December 20th. The agenda is not yet posted yet but I know from past experience it will be. I also know from past experience it will be available in PDF format with all the detail presented at the meeting. Cultural Resources sets a great standard for informing the public. The Cultural Resources site is highly informative and includes a list of current Preservation Board members. I would prefer the list to show expiration dates of their terms but just knowing the names helps when you attend these public meetings.

Of the eleven upcoming public meetings I’ve got (or will have) two agendas, and only two lists of Board/Authority/Commission members. Sad.

While the Board of Adjustment, Board of Appeals and Board of Public Service are all public meetings they must not have any meetings in the coming month as past meetings were included on the Public Meetings site. But, like the others links to more information are either not provided at or too general to be helpful. These meetings are also publicized in the City Journal. This document is published weekly and is available by subscription or PDF online. The most recent issue is 18 pages of board bills and public notices. Basically, you’ve got to have lots of time on your hands, be paid to review these comings and goings, or be looking for something specific.

While the Public Meetings listing is hardly as informative as it could be, it is a start. It may take some phone calls or emails to find out an agenda or who is on the board. The pessimist in me says this information is absent or difficult to find on purpose – we wouldn’t want the public to be informed about the goings on within the government. Instead I’ll take the optimistic view that the city simply doesn’t have its act together with respect to the power of the internet.

When I get my act together, I intend to have a pretty exhaustive listing of links to various web sites relating to Urban Design – of local & general interest.

– Steve

Urblogs worth spending time with

Atlanta-based strategic planning firm Civic Strategies defines an Urblog as “those that are focused on a metro area, provide interesting commentary about local politics, culture or urban life and aren’t so ideological that they’re painful to read. So how much ideology is too much? Hey, it’s our list, so we get to decide.”

Civic Strategies recently added Urban Review St. Louis to their list of “urblogs worth spending time with.” Cool, thanks!

“Steve Patterson’s Urban Review – St Louis is a more biting version of Larry Felton Johnson’s Atlanta blog about urban design. Patterson is angry at a lot he sees around him, and he’s particularly steamed about the demolition of revered old buildings. Urban Review – St. Louis is part of a collection of blogs called the STL Syndicate (including Blog St. Louis and Commonspace). What does it say about St. Louis that it is nurturing the best urblogs in the country? Perhaps simply that somebody cares in River City.”

I’m quite flattered by the recognition. What is really flattering is how popular Urban Review St. Louis is becoming. On average I get about 90 hits per day – certainly no competition for the Post-Dispatch – but not bad for less than two months. A quick look at the stats for this week show many readers are coming from computers at City Hall (or within the St. Louis City government), East-West Gateway Council of Governments, Washington University, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Monsanto and yes – AG Edwards. Interesting, very interesting.

To the folks at Monsanto – I’m not going to critique your campus the way I did the AG Edwards campus. Why bother, it is so suburban it doesn’t warrant the effort. Enterprise’s headquarters, on the other hand, is not so suburban so it will be fair game. Perhaps I can decide who has the greener lawn – AG Edwards or Enterprise?

I hope the powers that be at City Hall and East-West Gateway continue reading, maybe they’ll learn something about urbanity, the folly of the grandiose, and the details that make city life great.

– Steve

St. Louis’ Gateway Mall leaves much to be desired

The view below is from my friend’s private office in downtown St. Louis:

Not a bad view?

What do you see?

I see a useless strip of green where historic buildings used to be, sterile buildings on the North and equally sterile buildings on the South. From the Old Courthouse to the Municipal Courts this is a dead zone.

Oh sure, at lunch people are relieved to escape their cubicles for the outdoors and you’ll see people out and about. However, the rest of the time this area has no real meaning to the people of St. Louis.

People moving into the lofts only a few blocks to the North are not doing so because of this space. In a future post I’ll take a more detailed look at the Gateway Mall – why it was ill conceived, why it is an urban failure and what can be done to correct the situation.

– Steve