Can We Compete? My Thoughts. 12:40 PM

I love how the Post-Dispatch is forcing the conversation on St. Louisans: can we compete in a changing economy, with a lot of the metrics stacked against us?

There is no simple answer to this question. It's an impossibly complicated, messy question with an even more tangled answer. But there are good steps we, as a city and region, could be taking to get to that elusive answer (answers, in reality).

One obvious one to me is: openness. Let's be an open city--a place where ideas big and small are discussed and debated openly, involving all parties.

In my mind, our government and our larger power structure in the city is essentially conservative and concerned with self-preservation. No one in the system wants to surrender power. Remind me why we can't have an open discussion of just how many aldermen we need. Tell me again why we don't have a huge public forum discussing how aldermanic courtesy is hurting our city. Or why we have primaries or political parties at all in an essentially one-party system? Preserving age-old divisions (white vs. black vs. other; North Side vs. South Side vs. Central Corridor; etc.) is the last thing St. Louis needs. Yet few want to take a dip into these murky waters to try to change the status quo.

Few leaders put forth good ideas or any ideas at all. Most of our local government officials still operate under the rubric of damage control. They react to constituent complaints and try to mop up after each one.

We need an open government that involves residents at all turns. We need our elected officials floating ideas about how to improve our city. We need our corporate underwriters to get on board with helping ideas come into fruition.

The ideas don't have to be literally big--like the NorthSide project or China Air Cargo Hub. In fact, as it relates to development, they should probably be small, organic, and incremental. But there should be a constant stream of ideas to improve our city. Let's reexamine our circa 1949 zoning code. Let's look into completely obliterating the "North of Delmar" stigma. Let's all have a discussion about what's right for the Ballpark Village site. And on and on and on and on (crime, schools, etc.).

But we can't have this discussion if we're not all at the table--or if there is no table at which to discuss.

Take a look at what one rapidly improving city has done. Pittsburgh's Public Square Project is all about connecting citizens to their government, opening it up, and demystifying its ways. PopCity Pittsburgh has a great article that sums up the group's goals. While St. Louis is working on similar projects in different capacities (see UrbanSTL, which is uniting urbanist voices into one super-network), there's still no one place that we all come together--whether online or in the physical realm of our large, fragmented region. We need this discussion table more than anything right now--so that a lot of the ideas floating around can gain currency and spread. Most importantly, those at the table should be from all the varied backgrounds St. Louis can offer. While projects like Citygarden are great and improve our city, their public consultation process is limited and doesn't represent the city's denizens as a whole. In large part, St. Louis is either apathetic about its government, doesn't understand it, or doesn't trust it.

Our first step needs to be: open up our government! Part and parcel to this is more regional cooperation and coordination between our many governments. This is all easier typed than done; but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be rebuilding our own "Public Square" and letting the light shine in on our government. That way we can get people involved and motivated to discuss how to move our city and region forward.

(Thanks go to Jeff Vines for forwarding me the Pittsburgh Public Square Project!).

Rex Sinquefield Aims to Kill Taxes in Missouri: Will He Take Preservation Down with Them? 12:03 PM

In yesterday's Post-Dispatch article "Big changes proposed for taxes," Rex Sinquefield defended his proposal to eliminate the state income tax and replace it with an expanded sales tax. Proponents of this method call it the "Fair Tax," as everyone pays the same tax rate on the same goods.

The provision, SJR29, would do all of the following (from the Post-Dispatch):

— Repeal state's 6 percent individual income tax, 6.25 percent corporate income tax and franchise tax beginning Jan. 1, 2012.

— Replace lost revenue with a greatly expanded and higher sales tax.

— Tax items and services that are currently exempt, including groceries, prescription drugs, medical care and K-12 private schooling.

— Eliminate all tax credits, such as those for historic preservation and maternity homes.

— Exempt business-to-business transactions, used goods and college tuition.

— Give all households a "prebate" to cover higher sales taxes on spending up to the poverty level.

— Require two-thirds vote by Legislature to enact more tax exemptions


At this juncture, I am most interested in the fate of historic preservation, one of Missouri's top economic development tools via the state tax credit for historic rehabilitations. Ridding of income tax means rendering tax credits useless.

Sinquefield notes that he actually supports historic preservation efforts and believes the tax credits should be replaced with "direct subsidies". I would like to ask him, how would this work? The state of Missouri's legislators have already attempted multiple times to eliminate the historic preservation tax credit altogether without the assistance of the Fair Tax proposal. Indeed, they have already placed restrictions on it, capping tax credits for larger projects. If the Fair Tax takes out those tax credits that were alleged to only benefit wealthy, connected developers, largely in St. Louis, who will be the unlucky one to try to introduce "direct" historic preservation subsidies?

I worry they would disappear forever--and with them, a city like St. Louis's chances for seeing large swaths of its aging built environment renovated as we saw in the 2000s under the current tax credit program.

I worry about other aspects of this proposal as well, including the effects on higher sales taxes on small, local, independent businesses and the possibility of people crossing state lines to avoid such higher taxes on goods.

The measure is headed for floor debate, possibly as soon as this week. If approved, voters would decide the ultimate fate of the bill in November.

Vote "Green" for St. Louis Mayor? The Green Party "Gets It" Re: Transit 7:07 PM

While I am skeptical about the ability of any Green Party candidate to get in to office--much less successfully run it--I have to say that Green Party mayoral candidate Elston McCowan's platform intrigues me, especially as it relates to transit.

Here are some tidbits and my comments:

Cities across America, from Boston to Seattle and Miami to Minneapolis-St. Paul have developed or are developing creative ways of reducing their dependence on the automobile, a major cause of both air pollution and global warming, while making their communities healthier and more livable. It is past time that St. Louis join them. It is the goal of a Green administration to see that this happens.

Wonderful. Our next mayor, no matter who s/he is, must realize that St. Louis is falling well behind on the transit curve and that there are real benefits to subsidizing transit (to the environment).

Though Francis Slay advocated using public money to pay for a private stadium and for tax give-aways he could not find money to increase train and bus routes.

While this comment is excessively snarky for a campaign website (in my opinion), it does ask an important question: why, as a city, can we not find ways to finance public transit but we can discuss foregoing tax dollars for private developers of suburban retail centers?

The Slay administration has stood by while St. Louis’ transportation system has become embarrassingly outdated. Highway 64/40 is being rebuilt with no plans for bus lanes or “high occupancy vehicle” (HOV) lanes reserved for cars with three or more occupants. A Green mayor would actively work to ensure that every highway and thoroughfare in the St. Louis area has bus and HOV lanes.

This was a total no-brainer. Rebuild a highway with more lanes and new sound walls? For hundreds of millions? And with the need to sacrifice several homes along the right-of-way in Richmond Heights? The "New I-64" is a net loss to the region's quality of life. Adding HOV lanes would have been a small gesture towards sustainability.

Businesses are hurt by requiring more parking spaces than are necessary. The Slay administration has done nothing to reduce the vast areas dedicated to parking spaces and parking lots. Excessive parking spaces are dangerous for bicycles, interfere with commerce by increasing the walking distance between
shops, and degrade the attractiveness of neighborhoods.

Current rules require businesses to have 1 parking space for every 3 people in the occupancy permit. The Green Party would change this to 1 parking space for every 5 people immediately and 1 parking space for every 9 people in two years.

Wow! Are we in Portland, Oregon or St. Louis, Missouri? It is exciting to think that any potential leader of St. Louis would include this in his/her platform. St. Louis sorely needs parking reform if it is to retain its urban character.

Car-free zones

Improved mass transit and traffic light preemption will let St. Louisans get to work faster by public transportation than by driving cars. This will lead to more people using buses and trains. If St. Louisans could also get to neighborhood schools, shopping and recreation areas by foot and bicycle, the City could design car-free zones with no parking spaces for privately owned cars [but with parking for emergency, disabled, construction, delivery and shared vehicles].

The Green Party advocates the development of car-free, high-density, mixed residential/commercial areas. In these areas, citizens could do most of their shopping in their community and use mass transit for most of their remaining
trips. This should be promoted by developing demonstration neighborhoods which are (1) adjacent to mass transit routes, and (2) require commercial space to be set aside for neighborhood shops such as grocery stores, clothing stores, hardware stores, laundromats and barber shops. An essential part of such communities is that they have a vehicle sharing or renting program for the few trips when a car, truck or mini-van is truly needed. All such developments should dedicate at least 30% of homes for low income families.

Again, an impressive vision. However, I do not believe the demand for this type of development is foreseeable for St. Louis at this time. There's a reason the folks up in Old North are retrofitting North 14th Street into a through street after an ill-fated attempt to "mall" it.

I encourage you to read the entire platform, both for transit and all other areas that McCowan highlights. There are some truly progressive ideas contained within them. But transit really stuck out. Safe bicycle lanes, expanded Metrolink, safe streets for pedestrians, reduced parking mandates, "green" vehicles for city employees, etc....all of these ideas should be discussed. They author a welcome dialog in a city that rarely speaks to matters of supporting and sustaining urbanism.

My position on smoking in St. Louis City 6:08 PM

Reading the enormously long list of comments over at Urban Review regarding a potential public smoking ban in the City, I was inspired to sound off.

There are many on the pro-smoking side of the issue that claim that the health risks associated with secondhand smoke are overblown (no pun intended).

I say: who cares?

Surely, the basis of any legislation banning smoking in the City would be precisely that angle: public health. But is it not true that, say, if I made so much as a threatening gesture at you, that could be classified as battery? Anything we do that affects another deserves consideration--and yes, perhaps regulation.

Whether or not I'm going to develop cancer from a brief exposure to secondhand smoke should be immaterial. Personally speaking, I went to smoke-ridden places in St. Louis all the time when I lived there, and still do when I return. There are a lot of good times to be had at places that are very smoke-friendly and ill-ventilated. The point is that I, and many others, suffer from an inability to breathe, dine, or simply relax around cigarette smoke. Just after it was reported that St. Louis is the worst place for the asthma-afflicted (yours truly being among those ranks), pro-smoking folks should realize that it's sometimes less about the chronic effects of secondhand smoke than the immediate--an inability to breathe.

Again, within the Urban Review comments on the particular topic, I hear a resounding response to this latter point: go somewhere else. Another more compelling point is that a local business owner should have the right to dictate what goes on in his or her own building. Of course, the former argument could be invalidated on the sheer arrogance of it. It's sort of a stretch, but telling a nonsmoking asthmatic who suffers because of others' smoking but wants to actually enjoy his/her city's nightlife just to go somewhere where smoking is prohibited is sort of like telling a wheelchair-bound individual to just go where the ramps are. Perhaps the real issue is what class of people should be protected--those who have taken up a habit that affects others nearby or those who suffer from these persons' habits.

Besides, there is simply a rational viewpoint in this matter, in my opinion. Smoking should never be allowed around food, at the very least. And what is so wrong with having to step outside to smoke a cigarette?

Here in New Orleans--of all places--a public smoking ban was passed on the grounds of public health. However, it only affects establishments that derive at least 60 percent of their sales income from food--therefore, smoking in bars is still allowed. Many St. Louis restaurants are already smoke-free or smoke-segregated, so this is not a huge issue.

My take on this argument is that smoking could be considered a form of battery. I am not interested in the mutual accusations of conspiracy theories among pro-smoking and anti-smoking interest groups. I'm interested in being able to go out and breathe simultaneously!

All that said, a smoking ban would be ineffectual if not statewide. Even a City-County ban might simply encourage "tavern sprawl", where patrons retreat to Jefferson and St. Charles Counties for their smoke-and-drink combo. With public smoking nixed on both sides of the Mississippi River, unhappy smokers will likely get used to the days of taking their cigs outside and reminiscing about the good old days when smokers were free.

Am I wrong?

Hashed out Economic Stimulus Bill Spells Trouble for Transit 12:00 PM

This is bad news for St. Louis, which is situated in Missouri, which simply never funded transit to begin with.

The announcement that highway construction--not maintenance!--will outfund transit 3:1 is bad news all around.

But it's worse news in a city whose transit agency is already perilously cash-strapped. Any stimulus bill should recognize the difficulty of funding inter-urban transit and should reallocate funding towards this end.

Please, write to Claire McCaskill and let her know you're a supporter of transit who doesn't need another highway!

To demonstrate your point, show her an aerial of the I-44/I-55/Tucker interchange so that she can see exactly what interstates have done to cities and why they don't deserve the money!

Vote today! 10:31 AM

So St. Louis watched the debates in greater numbers than any other city.

Well, let's make sure the voter turnout is just as exemplary.

Without offering an explicit endorsement, I ask you to vote, in part, according to this all too important question:

Who will best address the problems of our cities? Who is most connected to those problems? Who do you think offers the best solutions?

If you need help finding your polling place or having any other Election Day questions, please click here for the City, or here for the County.

I'll be watching the results of St. Louis County's Proposition M vote--the tax increase to fund Metro's operations and expansion--very closely.

A historic day in St. Louis 6:28 PM

Today's rally for Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama in St. Louis underneath the Arch. I have to admit: this photo nearly gave me chills. For once, I felt like the Arch Grounds were a vital public space, a veritable D.C. Washington Monument Reflecting Pool.

On some political blog I was reading, someone even noted a great irony: that Obama rallied about 100,000 supporters (yes--that's the largest rally so far in this country!) in front of the courthouse where Dred Scott, in 1857, was deemed not a citizen of the United States due to his African ancestry. What a triumph for the bygone soul of Mr. Scott!

The photo is from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch story "Huge crowd hears Obama".

Just look at that crowd!