Edwardsville Church Votes for Sprawl

Edwardsville’s First Presbyterian Church voted a week ago yesterday to begin construction of a new larger facility on a large tract of land on the edge of town, next door to a mega church. For decades the church has been located in a very cute neighborhood just blocks from Edwardsville’s Main Street and literally around the corner from the Post Office. From their website:

First Presbyterian Church was founded March 17, 1819. It has the distinction of being the first church organized in the city of Edwardsville, and one of the oldest Presbyterian churches in Illinois…. Construction on our third and current home of worship took place in 1924. A large Christian education annex was added in 1960. Several improvements including the elevator, and a covered courtyard called “The Inner Room” were completed in association with the 175th Anniversary celebration in 1994.

Apparently some years ago the church purchased a 30 acre tract of farmland on the outskirts of town  as an investment. Indeed, the land has increased in value as expected but now a faction of the church wants to relocate to the sprawling edge- to be more “visible” in the community. With a vote of roughly 90 to 68 they’ve decided to begin the process of building a new church and apparently make plans for a gym. Visibility in the community no longer means being in the midst of a neighborhood in the center of town where a pedestrian might be alble to hear your service as they pass by but on a busy road where motorists can read your flashing sign from hundreds of yards away. Some look at sprawl and auto-centric development as a reaction to poor inner-city schools and white flight, but neither are the case in Edwardsville where they have a single school system and are nearly 90% white (87.7% per 2000 census data). So what explains all their sprawl? Auto-centric development has become completely ingrained in our society from homeowners, business owners, developers, bankers, architects & engineers to elected officials. Sprawl is the norm. What does it say about our society when a church votes to leave a charming neighborhood adjacent to an equally charming small town main street? Normal Rockwell would paint a picture of the current setting but wouldn’t go near where they plan to locate. Sadly, all the moves to the edge are ruining what was a picturesque landscape. I’m certainly not going to tell people what sort of faith to have but I will question the motives of a church for leaving the place where they’ve been for decades simply for a big parking lot, a gym and visibility on the scale of a fast-food restaurant. Churches have an important role as part of the community, not helping destroy the community by bolting to the suburban fringe. I talked with a couple of the members just days before the vote, they were hoping to stay put. Some members of other nearby Edwardsville churches were also lending support as they collectively want to strenghten the core of Edwardsville rather than see it left behind as sprawl engulfs the nearby farmland. I hope those that wish to stay in the center of Edwardsville do so, including their money. The suburban group may not be able to raise the $3.8 million they need to build their gym with attached santuary (in phase II). Update @ 8:10am — By the way, I forgot to mention that FBC’s architects are St. Louis Design Alliance which has offices on the Delmar Loop near the MetroLink stop.

Post-Thanksgiving Charity Events

Cranksgiving:

Cranksgiving is a charity bicycle ride that will help stock the local food banks. It will take place on 11/26, the sunday after Thanksgiving. Participants will be given a short shopping list of food items, as well a list of stores they must buy them from along two routes. After navigating the route and making the store purchases ($10-15 total), the participants return to Bicycle Works. Those who return with the correct items from the correct stores will be entered into a raffle of donated prizes. At the end of the ride you may join us as we pedal together to donate the food.

Cranksgiving originated in New York City about ten years ago. Last year, more than 50 bike messengers donated over $500 worth of food to a local soup kitchen. Messenger or not lets bring this tradition to St.louis.

Please Help spread the ride
Cranksgiving @ Bicycle Works
Sunday 11/26 @ 1 pm
http://stlbikeworks.com

Dining Out For Life – 2006:

EAT, DRINK AND BE CARING.

Join us on Tuesday, November 28, 2006, for the 13th annual Dining Out For Life to benefit Saint Louis EFFORT FOR AIDS.

Dining Out for Life is an international event that has raised over $1 million since 1990 to help Saint Louis EFFORT FOR AIDS provide education on the prevention of HIV/AIDS and comprehensive support services for those affected by the disease. It’s an incredibly important event that not only helps nourish the community…but also the soul. We sincerely hope you’ll dine with us at one of our participating Dining Out For Life restaurants when at least 25% of your check will be donated to support the work of Saint Louis EFFORT FOR AIDS.

Click here for more information and a list of participating restaurants.

St. Louis Should Look to Boston as We Study Parking Meters

A regular reader of Urban Review sent me a link to an article in Monday’s Boston Globe over their new Pay-n-Display parking meters:

Boston’s new high-tech parking meters along a four-block stretch of Newbury Street are keeping pace with their high-rent surroundings: They are generating at least 34 percent more money per space than their predecessors.

The article raises many of the issues raised here, people don’t like not being able to piggyback on the previous persons time and having to buy more time than you need if using a credit card.

Boston’s new meters are from one of the two companies that are providing meters in St. Louis, Parkeon. Their units, however, are different from those being tested here. The main difference is theirs accept dollar bills. Here is what they have found since installing the new machines mid-October:

The preferred method of payment has been dollar bills (45 percent), followed by coins (40 percent), and plastic (15 percent).

There the rates are double what they are on Grand ($2hr two hours in Boston vs $1 for two hours on Grand). Those using a dollar bill in Boston automatically get 30 minutes on the meter — no change if you want only 15 minutes. Using a credit card in Boston gets you two hours, the same as here — this is to offset fees charged by credit card companies.

I’m concerned the lack of dollar bill acceptors in the test machines in St. Louis will prove them to be less advantageous over the existing meters. This is especially true given the costs of the new devices, which is another difference.

The Suburban Journal reported on November 2nd:

The Parkeon meter costs about $12,000 and the Duncan meter about $5,000. By contrast, 10 regular meters cost about $5,000.

But the Boston Globe article shows them getting better pricing:

Under a contract with the manufacturer, Parkeon of Moorestown, N.J., Boston has the option of buying 1,000 meters over the next three years, which could effectively replace all of the city’s existing 6,600 single-space meters. The first 25 meters cost $7,219 apiece; after that the price rises to $10,000 apiece, for a total of nearly $10 million.

So we are getting quoted $12,000 each for units that don’t accept bills but they can pay $8,000-$10,000 for ones that do? The only explanation I can come up with is the $12,000 price is a one-off price and that under a contract similar to Boston’s we’d get a similar deal. Boston is showing an increase of over $3 per space per day compared to last year. If multiplied out by their total number of spaces the new meters could pay for themselves in just over a year from increases in revenue alone. Again, their biggest revenue (45%) are coming from bills followed by coins and lastly by credit/debit cards.

Back to South Grand were testing is ongoing. For grins I tried to put in money into the Pay-n-display machine after the required parking one evening and it was smart enough to refuse the money and indicate on the screen that parking was free at that time. This is nice for visitors that are never sure how late to feed the meters. What I have not yet tested is if you park at say 7:45am for an hour long breakfast or meeting — will the machines let you deposit money before the official time begins at 8am or must you run back out at 8am and pay?

Before the St. Louis Treasurer, who oversees parking in St. Louis, draws any conclusions and signs any contracts I’d like to know more about which cities have these systems, how extensive are they (CBD, commercial district or city-wide), and how many of them use bill acceptors.

Urban Review Has Moved

After two years with the STLSyndicate I decided it was time to branch out on my own, in the blogoshere that means your own server. So if you are reading this, you are on the new site of Urban Review. All the old posts have been moved so regular readers will find things pretty much as they have been. For new readers, welcome.

Here is a list of some of the changes form the old system:

• Currently I don’t have the popular “most recent comments” section on the right but I have RSS available for comments. We will be adding the “most recent comments” in the near future.
• Until I can get some spam blocking measures in place, the first comment per IP address will need to be approved, after which future comments will appear automatically. I will approve all except spam so continue to speak your mind including telling me I am way off base if that is what you think.
• The template we are using has a quite lovely standard picture. Don’t get to used to it as it will be going away in the coming weeks.
• The graphics are a little nicer than the old but this may change as we tweak the aesthetic during 2007.
• I’ve dropped the “subscribe” email address — it was primarily another way for spammers to hit me. I will still offer the option of receiving an email as I do new posts — just send me an email to steveATurbanreviewstlDOTcom with a note to be informed of new posts. I’ll call this notification so as not to be confused with RSS subscriptions.

What is in store for the future:

• Bulleted & numbered lists like this are so much easier to do in WordPress than in Moveable Type. This will hopefully allow me to improve the visual appearance of posts as well as improve the readability.
• Banner advertising is gone, but not for long. Next month we willl be setting up an ad server and I will be selling advertising on this site to help cover the enormous amount of time I spend researching & writing.
• Links will be considerably easier to organize and update so I will begin working on that soon. They may go from being on the right to a links page.
• Categories are the same as they were before but look for these to get edited, revised and updated. I never had a plan for categories when I started so this will now get addressed and cleaned up.
• Additional pages will be added to communicate my big picture view of the region and specific issues such as transportation and housing. These will serve as position papers without the usual academic stuffiness associated with that sorta writing.
• I have a few other ideas I am tossing around. This software platform will give me the flexibility to grown, expand and change easily as issues warrant as much. Anything you’d like to see?
• I will be able to handle some changes to the site myself but some of the more complicated matters will be handled by a programmer and a graphic designer. That explains the “we” in places above — they are far more talented than I am when it comes to this HTML and CSS stuff.

I want to thank STLSyndicate organizer & host Brian Marston for all his help over the last two years. It has been as part of the Syndicate that Urban Review has gone from obscurity to recognition. Best wishes to him and all the associated blogs.
UPDATES

• 11/23/06 10am – “Recent Comments” now added to right sidebar.
• 11/23/06 10:30am – Comment verification added so that comments don’t have to be approved.
• 11/23/06 8pm – A series of 160+ quotes added to main page as “Food for Thought.” See upper right.
• 12/03/06 9pm – “Preview” feature added to comments, generic verification replaced cool word verification.

KWMU To Discuss New “Where We Stand” Report

KWMU Radio (90.7FM) will discuss the Economic and Social Health of St. Louis on Wednesday morning (11/22/06) from 11am to noon (CST) with a repeat at 10pm. Podcasts will also be available for download to your computer.

On-air guests discussing East-West Gateway’s new report “Where We Stand: A Strategic Assessment of the St. Louis Region,
5th Edition“ will be:

Les Sterman
Executive Director
East-West Gateway Council of Governments

Richard Rosenfeld
Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice
University of Missouri-St. Louis

Todd Swanstrom
Professor of Public Policy Studies
Saint Louis University

Dr. Swanstrom, some of you may recall, is one of my professors at Saint Louis University in the Public Policy Department. This should be an interesting discussion.