SPOTTED!: Steve Patterson on his beloved Honda Metropolitan Scooter? 3:44 PM

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Steve, is that you, at Washington and Grand?

(Credit goes to Michael Powers for this find.)

Michael Powers also confirmed from the owner of City Diner on South Grand that in front of the storefront where Steve's scooter is awaiting its green light, City Diner's second location is coming soon!

SLU says "Be Urban"...Really? 12:21 PM

Check out this promotional video for St. Louis University. Click on "Be Urban" to see what I'm talking about.

It's nice to see SLU try to market their urban location; the brief shots of downtown, Midtown, and Central West End were nice and did pique my interest as a lover of cities.

But I am a little bothered by their emphasis on the amount of greenery they have, since, of course, a lot of respectable and even beautiful urban buildings came down to produce that coveted "green space".

I can only imagine the Midtown of the era between 1970 and 1995. I'm sure it was a dark place, with ever increasing vacancy and crime. Pruitt-Igoe, not too far away, had failed; the notion of "progress" as a linear flight of stairs was dying, and a whole generation of rapid suburbanization seemed to, once and for all, render struggling urban neighborhoods obsolete.

Yet SLU has torn so much of that vilified built environment down that it's difficult to describe them as products of their time--especially because their ongoing attempts to buy up all of Midtown/Grand Center and hold a monopoly over dining, entertainment, and boarding options is a terrific threat to urbanism today. Their grafting of historic buildings here and there shows the carelessness and arrogance of an amateur painter blotting out the details of a masterwork to produce a desired "cleaner" or more organized vision.

While I realize that SLU must try to increase enrollment, and thinks that this is the best strategy ("we have greenspace--lots of it--in the heart of the city!"), truly they have only held this neighborhood back and kept it from connecting the east-west spine of Downtown-Midtown-Central West End. I suppose the greater question, to me, is where are the city residents who care? I realize that the neighborhood has been drained of its non-SLU residential units long ago. Why do the citizens of St. Louis never get to dictate, at least in part, what their built environment looks like? The keys to the city are in the hands of megadevelopers and huge landowners that are not at all accountable to the citizens of St. Louis.

McKee. SLU. The Catholic Church. You name it: they own this city and have the right to do what they want with it because they receive little, if any, protest. It's time for a wider vision of St. Louis, one that sees SLU's closure of Josephine Baker Street and demolition of the Livery Stable for a surface parking lot as an affront to the City of St. Louis, not just to the Locust Business District and to Midtown.

SLU, please, follow your own advice: Be Urban!

Help develop a master plan to guide future developments. But don't dominate the process.

Encourage, do not shun, small entrepreneurs and investors from revitalizing what is left of the small- and mid-scale historic core of the neighborhood.

Do not demolish buildings for parking lots. If the campus is truly connected to those surrounding neighborhoods as was shown on the video, there is no need for a car at all, right?

Look to Olive Street between Spring and Vandeventer for future student housing, if the demand is there. Consult an architect to do so--no more historicist crap with faux-patinaed roofs.

In an urban neighborhood, an overabundance of green space with no defined street walls causes a vacuous effect that is unsettling to the average urban dweller. Create intelligent green spaces that will be well used and enjoyed. Surrender dead zones to urbanization.

Personally, I would reopen Spring as a through-street. The corner of Spring and Laclede could then be restored, its urban buildings replaced. Even the clock tower area could be reconfigured to allow urban buildings to flank the circle.

Enough from me, though. What did you think of the video? It's nice to hear and see SLU say the words "Be Urban"; I just want them to learn what "urban" really is. Because, to me, urban is not a mere ability to see tall buildings rising from endless expanse of empty parkland from your window. Urban is a function of density, activity, visual complexity (not coherence, necessarily), walkability, et cetera--all things that Midtown is presently lacking.

Before and After in St. Louis Place 2:43 PM

2002 City Aerial - St. Louis Place

2008 City Aerial - St. Louis Place


If you scroll through these images quickly, you can see the effects of Paul McKee and Blairmont. A couple dozen buildings disappear in this six year span.

(Put them in the same position on a PowerPoint file to get the best visual effect. Scroll back and forth and watch the neighborhood disintegrate, looking worse despite the obvious difference in seasons.)

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.

Ballpark Village in St. Louis: A "Branded City" 11:47 AM

Check out this Mediaweek article on "Branded Cities".
The article stops short of a full-fledged definition of these branded cities, which are a type of retail development. Here is the paragraph that most closely sums them up.

It’s easy to see why branded cities—places where people either work, live or play—are catching on. They are self-contained urban centers where signs aren’t just viewed for a few seconds from a car window—or maybe a few minutes, if someone is on foot. The interactive element provides an added attraction: “If you create an environment where people engage in media, it changes the dynamic,” says Adam Bleibtreu, CEO of The Retail Media Company, which is responsible for the design and advertising strategy of El Portál. “If you give people the opportunity to effect their environment, they talk about it; they come there more frequently; they stay longer.”

So, essentially, they're outdoor plazas with mixed uses that incorporate large screens and signage for public media opportunities. For example, people could descend on the space for a game tournament, or to watch a large television event like the Superbowl, all while being able to stroll through an urban shopping center of sorts.

The article mentions Victory Plaza in Dallas, a mixed-use "branded city" development that is adjacent to American Airlines Center (where the Stars and Mavericks play).

Photo Courtesy of Dallas News

Says the article of Victory Plaza's programming:

Special pre-game and postgame concerts and parties in the plaza draw traffic from the arena, typically ranging from 20,000 to 35,000 people, according to Clark Dunklin, a partner in the out-of-home agency Big Media, which sells ad avails for the complex.

For more information on Victory Park in Dallas, see their website.

While I recently spoke on this blog about avoiding forced "branding" of new urban development, such a concept might seem possible for the portion of Ballpark Village immediately adjacent to the stadium. Surely, of course, these areas are likely to be noticeably empty without an event, but good planning could ensure that the retail uses at street level mandate a wider use of the space than just large scale events.

Above all, I do not want Ballpark Village to turn into a rushed development that crams boxy office towers into a small space on an artificial time frame. This will only prove detrimental to the idea of developing this important piece of downtown real estate into a valuable contributor to a revitalized and connected cityscape.

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?

District-ification in downtown St. Louis 10:46 AM

It's tempting for planners and even plain ol' citizens to approach urban development with the idea that, whatever the development is, it must immediately have an identity.

And so, our city brought us Laclede's Landing, the remnant of the city's warehousing district, revived as a "nightlife district".

Downtown Now! brought us an Old Post Office District. Some refer to most of the "63101" ZIP as the "Central Business District". Some call the area around the Convention Center as the Convention Center District. Now, we have the Loft District on Washington. We almost had the Bottle District, near the Convention Center. We're trying to build a district in disguise--Ballpark Village. And Chouteau's Landing will be downtown's unspoken "Arts District". The Civic Center is yet another district--a product of the City Beautiful movement of the turn-of-the-century that called for grand public buildings to be arrayed along wide boulevards, awing all passers-by (Civil Courts, City Hall, the Municipal Courts Building, all along or near Market Street).

Some of these "districts" have more merit than others. Those that do have found an identity over time. This is precisely how urban areas work: a wedge is developed and, hopefully, absorbed into the urban fabric over time, becoming part of its story.

We need not force a story at the very outset, though. The district-ification of St. Louis leaves it a choppy, disconnected grouping of intentionally single-use districts.

As I've said many times before, Ballpark Village, Chouteau's Landing, and the Chouteau Lake and Greenway (as well as any Arch-Riverfront development) provide a unique opportunity to reconnect a severely tattered built environment. One of the problems of large, private redevelopment schemes is that they are not accountable to the public and, more importantly, developers rarely know how to develop at the macro-scale, and even less often do they work with other developers on completely "separate" projects.

It is my hope that a combination of citizen vigilance and city-led efforts (Planning and Urban Design Agency, anyone?) will mold these proposed "districts" into an organic whole that will reconnect and benefit the city. Identities of each project might become clouded (God forbid someone enjoy a pre-game snack in Chouteau's Landing rather than Ballpark Village OR enjoy an art gallery in BPV)--but this is good. This is what cities are. Developers don't define and give identity to the built environment--rather, it's a mixture of things for which the chief ingredient is time.