OT ballpark village

[billiken_roy]

I have never really given the hoped ballpark village much thought before, but this past weekend i was at the cardinal - reds games in Cincy and experienced the Cincy version titled "The Banks". really nice. and seems to be very successful. granted this was an attendance busting series, but it sure seemed the entire 30-40k was downtown hours before each game, eating, drinking, and being merry.

Cincy also designed the complex with underground parking from the football field under the banks and to the end of the baseball park. plenty of exits to get out reasonably quick. they also have three bridges that have walkway access to covington and newport, KY. the one bridge is strictly pedestrian. Newport is all newish shops, restaurants and bars with a huge aquarium. packed each night. Covington has more of a soulard feel also a number of good restaurants and bars. downtown cincy/ky is done right.

i also went to the cincy version of union station Sunday morning. they have it set up now as a museum center with various exhibits running at the same time plus an imax theatre. it is a little into the city, but the clientelle of the old train station was definitely good and the attendance was very good. i saw the lost city of popeii exhibit and thought it was fantastic.

st louis needs to go to cincy. if cincinnati can figure it out, surely st louis can.

[slufanskip]

I have never really given the hoped ballpark village much thought before, but this past weekend i was at the cardinal - reds games in Cincy and experienced the Cincy version titled "The Banks". really nice. and seems to be very successful. granted this was an attendance busting series, but it sure seemed the entire 30-40k was downtown hours before each game, eating, drinking, and being merry.

Cincy also designed the complex with underground parking from the football field under the banks and to the end of the baseball park. plenty of exits to get out reasonably quick. they also have three bridges that have walkway access to covington and newport, KY. the one bridge is strictly pedestrian. Newport is all newish shops, restaurants and bars with a huge aquarium. packed each night. Covington has more of a soulard feel also a number of good restaurants and bars. downtown cincy/ky is done right.

i also went to the cincy version of union station Sunday morning. they have it set up now as a museum center with various exhibits running at the same time plus an imax theatre. it is a little into the city, but the clientelle of the old train station was definitely good and the attendance was very good. i saw the lost city of popeii exhibit and thought it was fantastic.

st louis needs to go to cincy. if cincinnati can figure it out, surely st louis can.

Cincy has Dusty Baker

[jbizzle09]

Cincy has Dusty Baker

Can't argue there.

[billiken_roy]

speaking of Dusty, noticed a habit of his that was amusing. everytime dusty takes out a pitcher, about a step before he gets to the pitcher he claps his hands once and then holds out his hand. watch him next time. it would be funny to have 45,000 fans do the clap thing when he does it to mock him.

as to a comment on the series, cardinals should have won every game. metheny seems to be trying to be lagenius and being cute with moves and lineups imo. hopefully he snaps out of that. but the real difference maker that the reds have is chapman. omg. majority of pitches hit 100 mph + that my friends is a closer.

[MB73]

The Ballpark Village clusterschtook is just another example of failured leadership in St. Louis.

The last mayors that really tried to encourage businesses to come to the city (or stay) and actually got out and hit the pavement and wined and dined companies, etc, were Cervantes and Schoemel. They did not get pushed around, either. A deal was a deal.

After that, they all just let things happen, and the City and the County cannot agree on everything. A mess.

Even goddam Cincinnati has outflanked us. KC, Indy, Memphis, all of our competitors have better city infrastructures and businesses. Who do we have left? The Brazilians even bought AB.

We still have the best baseball team, though. We will be OK. Bad luck streak.

[AlumniFan]

Denver has some similarities to what BRoy stated. Lots of ways that pedestrians (and cyclists) can move around the city easily and conveniently. St. Louis is the antithesis of this. It is run by people with their hand out CONSTANTLY. Nothing happens until you tell them what you're going to do for them. I love St. Louis, but unless someone does something, it is a dying city.

That said, the idiots who say, "I never go downtown. It's too dangerous and it's dead down there" obviously have not been downtown. It is often vibrant. I have worked downtown from 1992 until just very recently and it is increasingly more active and more engaging. However, unchecked crime (due to fear of unfounded allegations of inappropriate profiling) is beginning to drive people away and is capping the potential of the core of downtown. I keep hearing younger people living downtown, especially those beginning to have children, saying that they have to make a change and referencing this issue.

It is the proverbial one step forward, two steps backward. Community leaders must divorce themselves from the divisive narratives of the past and come together to bring to fruition things like Ballpark Village for the mutual benefit of everyone - residents, commuters, workers, investors, taxpayers, etc. Alas, some are too invested in these narratives and without them they cannot retain power, money, etc. hence they continue to attack the very forces that can help their community. Welcome to the United States in 2012.

[willie]

First, I would never defend Ballpark Vilage,It's a joke. Why the city has not held Dewitt to the fire is beyond me. I also spent the weekend in Cinnci and liked the city. I wasn't blown away with their immediate surrounding area. I thought they lacked areas like Shannon's,Padios,Bucks and Keener Plaza.Too many highways around the stadium. I do agree with Roy that Newport was cool. Just a little better then East St Louis. It's too bad Busch wasn't built on our river. Great American was a good stadium. Bad news was their beer cost the same as Busch. Second most expensive beer in baseball.

[Pistol]

Hoo boy.

Cincy has done wonders on its riverfront in the past several years. The Banks is a hugely ambitious project, and what you saw is only Phase I. Phase II is still in development and will tie the rest of the riverfront together nicely. The area has become way more pedestrian friendly, and yeah, the underground parking is big-time; anytime a city can develop space otherwise used for a parking lot/garage is a positive.

However, using the Banks as a comparison for Ballpark Village is not quite apples to apples. The new proposal for the Arch grounds would be more apt, given that it involves redevelopment of an underused riverfront area isolated from the rest of downtown because of a major sunken highway artery (then again, the fact that it's a National Park also makes that one not quite apples to apples). Cincinnati also has the advantage of Covington-Newport-Bellevue, which is a far cry from East St. Louis-Granite City-Sauget. Northern Kentucky retained its old brick residential neighborhoods instead of wiping them out for major industry and an insane network of highway ramps. To be fair, NKY has only recently seen economic development along the Ohio River in a big way (e.g. Newport on the Levee) and is still not all the way over being seen as the lower-income alternative to Cincinnati, which is justified.

The Banks may look wonderful now- and it is- but what St. Louisans might not realize is that the planning started back in 1996. Ground didn't break until 2008. Businesses on the Banks didn't begin opening until late 2011 (not including the Freedom Center, which opened in 2004, and the stadiums, which were already there in the form of Riverfront Stadium and US Bank Arena, which still stands). The whole project won't be completed until 2018, if it stays on schedule. The Ballpark Village project could not have broken ground until 2006; if it got underway this or next year, it'd come in way earlier than the whole Banks project. In the sense that a major downtown project has been greatly delayed for a host of reasons, frustrating the citizens, The Banks and Ballpark Village are similar.

Also, Hamilton County is on the hook for the Paul Brown Stadium and Great American Ball Park deals, which are unquestionably the worst in pro sports (followed by the Edward Jones Dome deal). So the bookends of a much larger, beautiful riverfront development are crippling the County with debt. (Here is an article about it; the numbers are staggering). Like St. Louis, Cincinnati has lost some major headquarters over the years, most recently Chiquita, as Charlotte bent over backwards with tax breaks to lure them away (a fairly recent practice which I find deplorable on every level, businesses holding cities hostage for tax breaks). Unlike St. Louis, it has managed to hang on to more and has some Fortune 500 companies downtown, Procter & Gamble being the biggest.

Yes, there are local politicians in power who are stubborn and corrupt and forgo their job - public service - in order to grease their own pockets and those of their buddies. That's not unique to this City. The biggest difference is that we also don't have the strength of a larger county, such as Cincinnati with Hamilton County, and we have the political infrastructure of a much larger city than we are now (accepting our population loss and shrinking with grace is something that has not come easily to this city, nor many others). Cincinnati and St. Louis both have good mayors right now; Mayor Mallory has the major advantage of having 9 City Council members compared to St. Louis' 28 (pending the outcome of the bill to shrink this number), and they turn over more frequently. STL's aldermen are shockingly entrenched in some wards, and a lot of them are awful, awful human beings.

Cincy also has the advantage of being slightly smaller; city proper, Cincy and STL are not too far off, but in terms of MSA, they're about 2.1 million to our 2.8 million, or 27th in the US to our 19th. It's a little bit easier to change opinions and really get steam going in a smaller place. Just another factor of many.

Anyway, I could clearly go on and on about this, but just wanted to point out that The Banks didn't happen overnight. Cincinnati has done a lot of great things on the riverfront and can be a great example for St. Louis. The mix of corporate and political greed that led to the Ballpark Village standoff is a complete embarrassment and has left us with a parking lot, an uneven softbal field, and a drainage ditch with no drain (and an empty building, if you include the former Bowling and Cardinals Halls of Fame). Until we get over that crap (and as AlumniFan says, change our misguided perceptions and work toward common goals), we'll be stuck with more dead-end projects, broken promises, and unfulfilled potential.

[RiseAndGrind]

The Ballpark Village clusterschtook is just another example of failured leadership in St. Louis.

The last mayors that really tried to encourage businesses to come to the city (or stay) and actually got out and hit the pavement and wined and dined companies, etc, were Cervantes and Schoemel. They did not get pushed around, either. A deal was a deal.

After that, they all just let things happen, and the City and the County cannot agree on everything. A mess.

Even goddam Cincinnati has outflanked us. KC, Indy, Memphis, all of our competitors have better city infrastructures and businesses. Who do we have left? The Brazilians even bought AB.

We still have the best baseball team, though. We will be OK. Bad luck streak.

Disagree. Strongly. Reality.

[Pistol]

By the way, I find Cincinnati to be more similar to St. Louis than any other city in the world. Both are Midwestern river towns, largely Catholic, parochial (they both think they're the only people who ask where you went to high school), and bear a number of other smaller, striking similarities that become apparent when you spend time in each. The Banks in particular has a special place in my mind because my wedding reception was at Paul Brown Stadium and the windows on the club level overlook The Banks (mostly under development in August 2011). Also, I'm moving back to Cincinnati in September. My wife's family is from there and we've decided to settle down there. First, we're going to have some fun and drive around the country from mid-late September through Christmas. But unfortunately I have to give up my SLU season tickets and settle for her dad's Xavier seats. And man, I will miss this place. I love STL like I love an idiot brother who is both my best friend and someone I want to punch in the head sometimes (which isn't too far from reality, with my unapologetically South City nutcase brother).

[Pistol]

Disagree. Strongly. Reality.

Memphis is way worse off than STL. I was just there in February. Downtown is dead outside Beale Street. Most of the rest of the city is dead, too. The infrastructure is crumbling. It feels even more segregated than STL, somehow.

[RiseAndGrind]

Hoo boy.

Cincy has done wonders on its riverfront in the past several years. The Banks is a hugely ambitious project, and what you saw is only Phase I. Phase II is still in development and will tie the rest of the riverfront together nicely. The area has become way more pedestrian friendly, and yeah, the underground parking is big-time; anytime a city can develop space otherwise used for a parking lot/garage is a positive.

However, using the Banks as a comparison for Ballpark Village is not quite apples to apples. The new proposal for the Arch grounds would be more apt, given that it involves redevelopment of an underused riverfront area isolated from the rest of downtown because of a major sunken highway artery. And that's in the early stages. Cincinnati also has the advantage of Covington-Newport-Bellevue, which is a far cry from East St. Louis-Granite City-Sauget. Northern Kentucky retained its old brick residential neighborhoods instead of wiping them out for major industry and an insane network of highway ramps. To be fair, NKY has only recently seen economic development along the Ohio River in a big way (e.g. Newport on the Levee) and is still not all the way over being seen as the lower-income alternative to Cincinnati, which is justified.

The Banks may look wonderful now- and it is- but what St. Louisans might not realize is that the planning started back in 1996. Ground didn't break until 2008. Businesses on the Banks didn't begin opening until late 2011 (not including the Freedom Center, which opened in 2004, and the stadiums, which were already there in the form of Riverfront Stadium and US Bank Arena, which still stands). The whole project won't be completed until 2018, if it stays on schedule. The Ballpark Village project could not have broken ground until 2006; if it got underway this or next year, it'd come in way earlier than the whole Banks project. It's a project of less scope, but once again, not quite apples to apples.

Also, Hamilton County is on the hook for the Paul Brown Stadium and Great American Ball Park deals, which are unquestionably the worst in pro sports (followed by the Edward Jones Dome deal). So the bookends of a much larger, beautiful riverfront development are crippling the County with debt. (Here is an article about it; the numbers are staggering). Like St. Louis, Cincinnati has lost some major headquarters over the years, most recently Chiquita, as Charlotte bent over backwards with tax breaks to lure them away (a fairly recent practice which I find deplorable on every level, businesses holding cities hostage for tax breaks). Unlike St. Louis, it has managed to hang on to more and has some Fortune 500 companies downtown, Procter & Gamble being the biggest.

Yes, there are local politicians in power who are stubborn and corrupt and forgo their job - public service - in order to grease their own pockets and those of their buddies. That's not unique to this City. The biggest difference is that we also don't have the strength of a larger county, such as Cincinnati with Hamilton County, and we have the political infrastructure of a much larger city than we are now (accepting our population loss and shrinking with grace is something that has not come easily to this city, nor many others). Cincinnati and St. Louis both have good mayors right now; Mayor Mallory has the major advantage of having 9 City Council members compared to St. Louis' 28 (pending the outcome of the bill to shrink this number), and they turn over more frequently. STL's aldermen are shockingly entrenched in some wards, and a lot of them are awful, awful human beings.

Cincy also has the advantage of being slightly smaller; city proper, Cincy and STL are not too far off, but in terms of MSA, they're about 2.1 million to our 2.8 million, or 27th in the US to our 19th. It's a little bit easier to change opinions and really get steam going in a smaller place. Just another factor of many.

Anyway, I could clearly go on and on about this, but just wanted to point out that The Banks didn't happen overnight. Cincinnati has done a lot of great things on the riverfront and can be a great example for St. Louis. The mix of corporate and political greed that led to the Ballpark Village standoff is a complete embarrassment and has left us with a parking lot, an uneven softbal field, and a drainage ditch with no drain (and an empty building, if you include the former Bowling and Cardinals Halls of Fame). Until we get over that crap (and as AlumniFan says, change our misguided perceptions and work toward common goals), we'll be stuck with more dead-end projects, broken promises, and unfulfilled potential.

+1

I'd point to Newport and the size of Hamilton County as two of the major contributing factors to Cincy's recent "success."

[RiseAndGrind]

Memphis is way worse off than STL. I was just there in February. Downtown is dead outside Beale Street. Most of the rest of the city is dead, too. The infrastructure is crumbling. It feels even more segregated than STL, somehow.

It's because the entire city, outside of Beale St., is DEAD.

[milwaukeebill]

Memphis is way worse off than STL. I was just there in February. Downtown is dead outside Beale Street. Most of the rest of the city is dead, too. The infrastructure is crumbling. It feels even more segregated than STL, somehow.

I went to Indy a number of times before I was 21. So i was not on the bar scene but every time I was there I absolutely hated it. Maybe people whove gone to the bar scene or hung out there more can refute this but I know I am not applying to jobs there post-grad.

[MB73]

Disagree. Strongly. Reality.

How so? Seriously.

[jbizzle09]

Hoo boy.

Cincy has done wonders on its riverfront in the past several years. The Banks is a hugely ambitious project, and what you saw is only Phase I. Phase II is still in development and will tie the rest of the riverfront together nicely. The area has become way more pedestrian friendly, and yeah, the underground parking is big-time; anytime a city can develop space otherwise used for a parking lot/garage is a positive.

However, using the Banks as a comparison for Ballpark Village is not quite apples to apples. The new proposal for the Arch grounds would be more apt, given that it involves redevelopment of an underused riverfront area isolated from the rest of downtown because of a major sunken highway artery (then again, the fact that it's a National Park also makes that one not quite apples to apples). Cincinnati also has the advantage of Covington-Newport-Bellevue, which is a far cry from East St. Louis-Granite City-Sauget. Northern Kentucky retained its old brick residential neighborhoods instead of wiping them out for major industry and an insane network of highway ramps. To be fair, NKY has only recently seen economic development along the Ohio River in a big way (e.g. Newport on the Levee) and is still not all the way over being seen as the lower-income alternative to Cincinnati, which is justified.

The Banks may look wonderful now- and it is- but what St. Louisans might not realize is that the planning started back in 1996. Ground didn't break until 2008. Businesses on the Banks didn't begin opening until late 2011 (not including the Freedom Center, which opened in 2004, and the stadiums, which were already there in the form of Riverfront Stadium and US Bank Arena, which still stands). The whole project won't be completed until 2018, if it stays on schedule. The Ballpark Village project could not have broken ground until 2006; if it got underway this or next year, it'd come in way earlier than the whole Banks project. In the sense that a major downtown project has been greatly delayed for a host of reasons, frustrating the citizens, The Banks and Ballpark Village are similar.

Also, Hamilton County is on the hook for the Paul Brown Stadium and Great American Ball Park deals, which are unquestionably the worst in pro sports (followed by the Edward Jones Dome deal). So the bookends of a much larger, beautiful riverfront development are crippling the County with debt. (Here is an article about it; the numbers are staggering). Like St. Louis, Cincinnati has lost some major headquarters over the years, most recently Chiquita, as Charlotte bent over backwards with tax breaks to lure them away (a fairly recent practice which I find deplorable on every level, businesses holding cities hostage for tax breaks). Unlike St. Louis, it has managed to hang on to more and has some Fortune 500 companies downtown, Procter & Gamble being the biggest.

Yes, there are local politicians in power who are stubborn and corrupt and forgo their job - public service - in order to grease their own pockets and those of their buddies. That's not unique to this City. The biggest difference is that we also don't have the strength of a larger county, such as Cincinnati with Hamilton County, and we have the political infrastructure of a much larger city than we are now (accepting our population loss and shrinking with grace is something that has not come easily to this city, nor many others). Cincinnati and St. Louis both have good mayors right now; Mayor Mallory has the major advantage of having 9 City Council members compared to St. Louis' 28 (pending the outcome of the bill to shrink this number), and they turn over more frequently. STL's aldermen are shockingly entrenched in some wards, and a lot of them are awful, awful human beings.

Cincy also has the advantage of being slightly smaller; city proper, Cincy and STL are not too far off, but in terms of MSA, they're about 2.1 million to our 2.8 million, or 27th in the US to our 19th. It's a little bit easier to change opinions and really get steam going in a smaller place. Just another factor of many.

Anyway, I could clearly go on and on about this, but just wanted to point out that The Banks didn't happen overnight. Cincinnati has done a lot of great things on the riverfront and can be a great example for St. Louis. The mix of corporate and political greed that led to the Ballpark Village standoff is a complete embarrassment and has left us with a parking lot, an uneven softbal field, and a drainage ditch with no drain (and an empty building, if you include the former Bowling and Cardinals Halls of Fame). Until we get over that crap (and as AlumniFan says, change our misguided perceptions and work toward common goals), we'll be stuck with more dead-end projects, broken promises, and unfulfilled potential.

+1

This is a wonderful post, Pistol. Also, sorry to hear that you are leaving us in a short while.

[Pistol]

+1

This is a wonderful post, Pistol. Also, sorry to hear that you are leaving us in a short while.

Thanks, man. I'll still be traveling to catch the Bills whenever and wherever I can. I wish their west coast games were just a little earlier this year; I have a feeling we'll miss them at Washington and Stanford by just a couple weeks.

I had no intention of writing that much. Just came out. I channeled my inner Taj.

[brianstl]

The Ballpark Village clusterschtook is just another example of failured leadership in St. Louis.

The last mayors that really tried to encourage businesses to come to the city (or stay) and actually got out and hit the pavement and wined and dined companies, etc, were Cervantes and Schoemel. They did not get pushed around, either. A deal was a deal.

After that, they all just let things happen, and the City and the County cannot agree on everything. A mess.

Even goddam Cincinnati has outflanked us. KC, Indy, Memphis, all of our competitors have better city infrastructures and businesses. Who do we have left? The Brazilians even bought AB.

We still have the best baseball team, though. We will be OK. Bad luck streak.

Stuff like this cracks me up. St Louis has more Fortune 500 headquaters than any of those cities. Hell, St. Louis ranks 6th in the country in Fortune 500 headquaters, tied with Chicago. This metro area's biggest problem (besides the city not being part of the county) is the undeserved self-loathing many residents seem to have for it.

[Pistol]

Stuff like this cracks me up. St Louis has more Fortune 500 headquaters than any of those cities. Hell, St. Louis ranks 6th in the country in Fortune 500 headquaters, tied with Chicago. This metro area's biggest problem (besides the city not being part of the county) is the undeserved self-loathing many residents seem to have for it.

City or metro area, though? It's a much bigger difference in STL, where we're separate from the County. We don't get to share in the Hamilton County or Cook County pie like Cincinnati or Chicago can. Fortune considers Express Scripts, Centene, Graybar, Monsanto, and Emerson to be in St. Louis along with Ameren, Charter, and Peabody. That seems like very generous geography to me.

[MB73]

I am talking about The City. Roy started the thread about Ballpark Village, in The City.

SL city population was 900,000 now it is 350,000. It is a mess. Oh, Washington Avenue rocks, people will tell you. Other than that, what?

I was born and raised in The City. How can you 28 yr olds raised in west county understand the history here?

And ask an executive level banker, if you really know one well (I do and have spoken with several), about the whole SL Metro area economy, not just The City, to boot. Though I doubt they will be candid, they will tell you the public version. Summary: the SL area economy is in bad shape.

Flights into SL airport are 40% of what they were 10 yrs ago. Etc, etc.

Yeah, things are great, Brian.

[Westy03]

ask an executive level banker, if you really know one well (I do and have spoken with several)

[brianstl]

I am talking about The City. Roy started the thread about Ballpark Village, in The City.

SL city population was 900,000 now it is 350,000. It is a mess. Oh, Washington Avenue rocks, people will tell you. Other than that, what?

I was born and raised in The City. How can you 28 yr olds raised in west county understand the history here?

And ask an executive level banker, if you really know one well (I do and have spoken with several), about the whole SL Metro area economy, not just The City, to boot. Though I doubt they will be candid, they will tel you the public version. Summary: the SL area economy is in bad shape.

Flights into SL airport are 40% of what they were 10 yrs ago. Etc, etc.

Yeah, things are great, Brian.

Well, you were talking about both the city and the county in your first post. Of course the number of flights are down from ten years ago St Louis is no longer a hub city. Cincy's number of flights have, also, seen a drastic cut as Delta cuts it's operations there. In fact, Lambert is busier than the airports in every city you listed. Lambert serves more than 2 million more passengers a year than Cincy or Indy and more than 1 million more than KC or Memphis.

St Louis has it's problems. Getting a airline hub back here would help a lot. That said, every metro area you listed has bigger problems than the St louis metro area.

[Pistol]

I am talking about The City. Roy started the thread about Ballpark Village, in The City.

SL city population was 900,000 now it is 350,000. It is a mess. Oh, Washington Avenue rocks, people will tell you. Other than that, what?

I was born and raised in The City. How can you 28 yr olds raised in west county understand the history here?

And ask an executive level banker, if you really know one well (I do and have spoken with several), about the whole SL Metro area economy, not just The City, to boot. Though I doubt they will be candid, they will tel you the public version. Summary: the SL area economy is in bad shape.

Flights into SL airport are 40% of what they were 10 yrs ago. Etc, etc.

Yeah, things are great, Brian.

It's easy to sit in your easy chair or bomb shelter or whatever in Chesterfield and lob stones.

Do you honestly care how kids raised in West County perceive the City, or if they understand its history?

As of the 2010 census, the City population was actually 318,000.

Washington Avenue arguably "rocks" to some; to others it's become a huge nuisance because of crime problems. The City can't quite figure out how to handle it at the moment.

I'm happy you know some executive level bankers. I'd be interested to be a fly on the wall during one of your power lunches. But it's no secret the whole metro area has issues, not just the City. This past year has been the first time I've begun to hear City-County reunification conversations in earnest, and not just driven by City people. That wouldn't happen if the County weren't also having major financial problems. My lower-level banker associates are aware of it, too.

[bonwich]

Stuff like this cracks me up. St Louis has more Fortune 500 headquaters than any of those cities. Hell, St. Louis ranks 6th in the country in Fortune 500 headquaters, tied with Chicago. This metro area's biggest problem (besides the city not being part of the county) is the undeserved self-loathing many residents seem to have for it.

St. Louis has had a large number of Fortune 500 companies for decades, and has declined for decades. Perhaps the local penchant for bending over for megacompanies is actually the metro area's biggest problem.

[brianstl]

St. Louis has had a large number of Fortune 500 companies for decades, and has declined for decades. Perhaps the local penchant for bending over for megacompanies is actually the metro area's biggest problem.

According to the Post's own David Nicklaus the high water mark was 11 in 2000. In the list that came out this year we have 9. I think at one point during the 2000's we dropped to 7.