What I love about St. Louis

I’m in my 20th year in St. Louis.  Although I have come close to moving elsewhere over the years at this point I don’t ever see myself leaving St. Louis.  I complain daily about this and that but I do so because I care.  If I didn’t I would have loaded the U-Haul years ago.  I’m just not sure where I would have moved.  Every city/region has issues.  The grass may look greener over there but it really isn’t.

Of course I love my many friends in St. Louis.  I love the quality of the locally owned restaurants in St. Louis.  But I want to list positive physical attributes that makes me appreciate the City of St. Louis.  Here is what I came up with, in no particular order:

• 19th century street grid of (mostly) short/walkable city blocks. Although severed by highways much of the grid remains in place.  I love how some streets, such as Gravois,  cross the grid at an angle.
• Solid feel of the mostly masonry structures. I love our rare wood frame buildings but the most ordinary streets, even if largely vacant, feel very substantial.  The subtle variety in colors and the different details are fascinating and show the pride of those who built the buildings.
• Neighborhood corner storefronts and commercial streets. Much of our city was built prior to the automobile and as such it has the walkable street grid mentioned above.  Often the street corners have storefront buildings that once housed various merchants selling dry goods, meats, produce, bread, candy, and bicycles. In some neighborhoods these continue to in this fashion — visit the Hill to see for yourself.  Along streetcar lines we’d often see a collection of storefronts.  Today these and others make up some of our best districts in terms of architectural scale. Examples: Euclid in the CWE, Meramec & Virginia in Dutchtown, Ivanhoe, Macklind between Chippewa and Loughborough, Morgan Ford, North Broadway in Baden, Manchester Ave in The Grove, Auto Alley on Locust in Midtown, downtown, North 14th Street in Old North, and the Delmar Loop. You can see the Wellston Loop was once thriving – I’m optimistic it will be again.  These places and so many others have character that comes from their period and their age — it can’t be built new.
• Adaptability of building stock to new uses. Warehouses, factories, schools and churches have been retrofitted with new uses from when first built. I love that we have tax credits available to make the reuse of existing structures possible.
• Enormous potential for growth – economic and population. I can still recall that Saturday in August 1990 when I drove my friend Mary Ann’s Honda Civic into St. Louis along I-44 from Oklahoma.  By the time we reached Grand I was hooked.  In the years that have followed I’ve explored every part of this city.  St. Louis Hills is different than Soulard which is different than Hyde Park -  all good and all have potential for increased population.  Our main corridors can become densely populated routes with streetcars connecting them to each other and the larger region.  I can see St. Louis with a population double today’s population.  I’m as excited by the potential as I was that first day I arrived.  The rest of my life will be spent as an urban planner helping St. Louis and other cities reach their full potential.
• Geographic location. Some like the mountains or warm climates. I like being in the middle, flights to either coast are not so long.  My family in Oklahoma is close enough to see annually.  Chicago and other cities are reasonably close.  I like that we have four seasons.
• Mississippi & Missouri rivers. People seem naturally drawn to bodies of water.  For some they like the ocean.  Others it is living near a lake.  For me I like river cities.  I like the idea of the navigation, the power of the moving water.  I’ve seen prettier river towns but the Mississippi is a beast of a river.

If I hadn’t ended up in St. Louis I would have likely found another 19th century manufacturing city to call home. Perhaps Detroit or Cleveland?

I will continue working to shape St. Louis into my vision for the future.  That may involve negative or hostile views but I think St. Louis is worth fighting for and change doesn’t come without a fight.  I figure I’ve got about thirty years left and I want to make the most of them.  I can guarantee that I will never reach a point where I can sit back and say there is nothing else to be done — the city/region is perfect. Even if our population is doubled and our schools are the best in the nation I will still see room for improvement.

I’ve thought at various times I should live in a better place where things are more urban.  The truth is I like solving problems – urban problems.  Live in utopia and you have no problems to solve.  I’m emotionally attached to St. Louis, no question about that.  Solving urban problems outside the City of St. Louis are less emotional for me but just as thrilling.

– Steve Patterson

Locating Rec Centers

The City of St. Louis is building two new large ($20 million + each) recreation centers, one just completed in Carondelet Park (map), on the south side, and one just getting started in O’Fallon Park (map), on the north side.  As is typical of rec centers of this type, it turns out that access for people who won’t be driving seems to be both an afterthought and a real challenge. Bigger picture, this really shouldn’t be a surprise. There are three primary reasons. One, the majority of the users, especially the adult ones, WILL drive. Two, siting rec centers is a function of both budget and protecting departmental turf. And three, large rec centers, rightfully, generate the same NIMBY responses from many residential neighborhoods as many big-box retail developments – they operate long hours in large structures that generate a lot of traffic.

When it comes to building new, modern, larger rec centers, rarely are there “enough” funds to do everything one would want to include, so the first decision is usually to locate the rec center in a park; after all, the land is/would be “free”, there is no specific line item for land acquisition. In reality, it’s never free. One, parkland is a finite resource, with multiple demands from multiple user groups to accommodate their programs. Land dedicated to a rec center and its parking lots can’t be used for, for example, soccer fields or Frisbee golf. And two, like any other greenfield development, utilities need to be extended from the park boundary into the site. Since these are large, multi-million dollar public investments, there’s also a tendency to want to make them monuments, and what better place to put one, where it will remain visible, for decades.

Both of these centers are/will be prominently located, visible from neighboring interstate highways (I-70 on the north, I-55 on the south). While this may be good for the civic and political egos, as well as for marketing their programs, it means that both utilities and pedestrians will need to travel a lot further from any park boundary to reach them, to say nothing of the physical barrier the highway creates. There’s also an assumption that there is a need to connect rec center activities with other park uses and facilities. In reality, there’s rarely little, if any, interaction among uses, although a few staff members may end up multi-tasking. For example, the locker rooms used for the gym and the pool don’t get used by softball players or picnickers, and home runs hit over the outfield fence don’t interact well with either the outdoor pool deck or a parking lot full of parked cars. Still there’s an inherent desire in any department to protect turf – if they give up a program, that can mean a reduction in both staffing and budget.

In the case of the new Carondelet Rec Center, the nearest bus stop is on South Grand, at Holly Hills Avenue, approximately 3 blocks from the rec center’s front door. Getting there, as a pedestrian, is possible – there is a sidewalk, but one that follows a circuitous route, first south on Grand to Holly Hills Drive, then east across an ancient (and non-ADA-compliant) bridge over the railroad tracks, then south along the east side of the new parking lot. It looks good, and somewhat “easy”, but if you’re riding the bus, because you’re young or disabled or just don’t want to drive, 3 blocks is still 3 blocks, especially when compared to all the free, at-the-door, parking offered to those who drive.

With the clarity of 20/20 hindsight, I would’ve preferred to have seen both rec centers sited much closer to a major public street, and potentially located closer to the population centers of both sides of town. I also would have had no problem locating them outside a park, on land already under the control of the St. Louis Development Corporation. When I was researching both sites, I made the mistaken assumption that the north center was being located on the southwest corner of Taylor and Broadway, behind Metro’s North Broadway Metro Bus Center; there was dirt being moved on what appeared to be an ideal, and very-accessible, site. It turns out that, much like on the south side, that the north side rec center will be located near the center of O’Fallon Park:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUtG-9eo2JQ

And no, this isn’t unique to St. Louis. Whether it’s Richmond Heights or Des Peres, St. Peters or Fenton, Kirkwood or Chesterfield, most new rec centers end up being located in recreation complexes, ideally suited for the proverbial soccer moms (and dads) and their mini-vans, but not so much for even local kids on their bikes.  To move away from an auto-centric urban environment, we need to be doing more of what Clayton has done, either consciously or by coincidence, and less of what St. Louis and too many other suburban cities have done and continue to do.

The just opened rec center on the South side is operated by the YMCA as the Carondelet YMCA.

– Jim Zavist

Cash, Jack, Square, St. Louis and life in cities

As I’ve written before, how we live in cities changes because of technology.  The streetcar allowed cities to physically grow outward and the automobile took cities further and further outward.  The mobile phone has allowed us to be away from a land line.  The phone booth has disappeared. The notebook and wi-fi has moved the office to the corner coffeehouse.

Cities exist as a place to exchange goods and services. St. Louis, for example, started in 1764 as a place to trade fur.  Currency is exchanged for goods and services.  In St. Louis that currency has been Spanish, French and American.  The bills and coins have changed since the mid 18th Century.

Today we often use a debit or credit card rather than cash.  I have coins for the purposes of feeding our 20th century parking meters.  Newer vending machines often take plastic.  Cash is on the way out with other paper items, like newspapers.

Enter Jack.  St. Louis native and founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey.  Jack hates cash so he started Square to allow people to easily accept plastic with their mobile phone, initially the iPhone (and iPod Touch). The national press covered the start-up announcement last week.

According to Square’s website, payees can start accepting payments via Square in under 60 seconds, with “no contracts, monthly fees, or hidden costs.” The company donates one cent from every transaction to the charity of the payer’s choice. In order to streamline the process, payees can register for Square and upload a photo, so that payees can verify that you are who you say you are.

It’s not yet clear how Square’s transaction fees will square with those of traditional merchant accounts. “We’re not giving out rate sheets just yet, as they are in flux until we have a general launch,” Dorsey told wired.com via e-mail. “When we do though, the fees will be completely transparent, simple and upfront.”

In order to accept credit card payment using Square’s iPhone app, a merchant attaches a card-reading dongle to the smartphone’s audio input – or “any device with an audio input jack.” Once the customer signs the phone with their finger, the transaction is complete, after which the app can e-mail a receipt to the customer.  (Full story: Wired)

The initial debut is limited at first but it will open up in 2010.  Articles mention two of the three cities that have vendors using the new system: San Francisco and New York.  Sure, lots of new technology comes from these cities.  But what about that third city where this new cutting edge technology is available?  Seattle? Nope.  Denver? Chicago?  Getting warmer.  Try St. Louis:

Dorsey partnered with Jim McKelvey, president of Mira Digital Publishing and founder of Third Degree Glass Factory in St. Louis, on the new San Francisco-based company, which also has offices in St. Louis and New York.

Dorsey, 32 is chief executive of the new company, which has rolled out service at select locations, including Third Degree Glass Factory in St. Louis and other businesses in San Francisco and New York, McKelvey said. The company plans to introduce the service to everyone in early 2010, according to a statement on its Web site, squareup.com, which lists 11 staff members. McKelvey said it wasn’t yet known how many local employees the company would have.

The inspiration for Square came in February, when McKelvey could not sell a piece of his glass art to a customer in Panama because he couldn’t take her American Express credit card for payment. “I was complaining to my friend, Jack, about this,” McKelvey said. “It should have been possible but wasn’t.” (Full story: St. Louis Business Journal)

Square will change retailing, cities and the business of exchanging money. PayPal was started by eBay as a way to facilitate payment of auction items but now PayPal represents a big portion of eBay’s total revenues.  Revenues are measured in billions, not millions.  Google has Google Checkout.  Apple licenses a technology from Amazon to process millions of small micro-payments.

The traditional brick and mortar retailer has been stuck with with a card reader connected to a land line, if they could justify the fees.  For the street vendor, farmer at a farmers’ market, artist at a street fair or others seeking payment Square will be a huge.

The mobile app is expected to sell for 99¢, the dongle will be free.  The fee rate will be very straightforward. This will permit those people who do business away from a card reader they will be able to accept plastic.

I think that this is truly disruptive. The reason Square exists is because of three macro trends: the pervasiveness of the mobile Internet, the increase in the use of electronic payment systems and most importantly, the availability of low-cost, always-on computers (aka smartphones) that allow sophisticated software to conduct complex tasks on the go.

The marriage of computing and connectivity without the shackles of being tethered to a location is one of the biggest disruptive forces of modern times. It is (and will continue) to redefine business models, for decades. Square is simply riding these waves.

There is no denying that the challenges facing Square are many. But the simplicity of the idea, the audacity of the company’s dream and the convergence of diverse technology trends make Square a company to watch.  (Full commentary: Gigaom)

The changes won’t be apparent in say April 2010.  By April 2020? Yes. Business licenses are typically linked to a physical address, a place of business.  As technology changes the address the Secretary of State keeps on file may just be where your business receives snail mail.  Actual transactions may take place miles away from that address.

Retail stores are not going to go away.  In fact technology such as this could help retailers have more than one point-of-sale location — such as one facing the urban sidewalk out front and one facing a rear parking lot entrance.  Apple is using a new system in their stores that includes bar code reader and other features for large volume sales.

Yesterday VeriFone decided it needed to provide a mobile option for it’s service:

The PAYware app and device, which plugs into the iPod dock connector and cradles the phone, is free when users sign a two-year contract.

Along the lines of a cellphone contract, users pay an activation fee of $49, a monthly fee of $15 and 17 cents on each transaction.

The subscription model makes it an unrealistic option for the casual Craigslist seller, which Dorsey pegged as his target market. Indeed, VeriFone is going after cafes (as is Square), home repair and door-to-door salespeople.  (Source: Los Angeles Times)

Unlike Square, the Verifone solution is specific to the iPhone and iPod Touch. Mobile credit/debit card acceptance will be huge.

– Steve Patterson

Accessing the Lucas Park dog run

When downtown residents began planning a downtown dog run a couple of years ago it was known then that at least one potential member/user from an adjacent building uses a wheelchair.

So I was surprised when I heard last month the newly constructed dog run in Lucas Park had accessibility issues.  The newly constructed sidewalk (above) ramps up to the gate.  Like any door that you pull toward you there is a need for at least 18″ on the handle side of the gate to permit entry.

You can see they had only a few inches to the side.  The paved area ends as well making wheelchair access a real challenge.

A few weeks later that previous entry sidewalk was ripped up and a proper sidewalk was in place. Because of grade changes this will allow access from the lower center section and the higher outside section.  Access inside is now possible.

A small part of the interior has also been paved to permit wheelchair access.  I’m continually baffled at both small and big projects that don’t take into considerations the needs of their users.  I would have caught this mistake on paper but a year ago I got pushed out of the planning committee because I wanted an open chain of communications (Yahoo or Google Group).  I had plenty of other items consuming my time so I didn’t fight to stay where I wasn’t wanted (but clearly needed).

– Steve Patterson

Readers: Christmas is a secular holiday

To some Christmas is about the birth of their savior, Jesus.  But in the reader poll last week the majority of those planning to celebrate Christmas this year indicated, for them, the holiday was more about family & friends than the birth of Jesus.  Christmas, it seems, has become a secular holiday.

This has always been the case for me.  As a kid we’d go out to visit the grandparents on Christmas Day.  My maternal grandparents, both Mennonite, were deeply religious.  We’d have a single present per person, a big meal (with a prayer at the start) and spend time together.  They never had a Christmas Tree as far back as I can remember.  Too flashy.  Some years we didn’t bother to put up a tree either.

The poll results show those who view Christmas as a religious holiday are in the minority.

Q: December 2009 I will celebrate:

1. Christmas (Dec 25th/Family/Friends) 75 (46%)
2. Christmas (birth of Jesus) 59 (36%)
3. Festivus for the rest of us 9 (6%)
4. Winter Solstice 6 (4%)
5. Hanukkah/Chanukah 5 (3%)
6. Other answer… 4 (2%)
7. No holiday 3 (2%)
8. Kwanzaa 1 (1%)
9. The Hajj 0 (0%)

Of the 162 responses, 134 (83%) indicated they’d celebrate Christmas. But of those 134 celebrating Christmas, 59 (44%) indicated it was about the birth of Jesus for them.  This is just 36% of the total.  Total unique visitors during the poll period was 2,7,91.

– Steve Patterson