OT: Midtown Development

[hsmith19]

I have no idea what we're arguing about at this point, or what it has to do with whether the new SLU hospital's design is "urban" or not. But the Deaconess Hospital actually moved from the CWE out to the Oakland neighborhood specifically to get out of the urban core. That part of Dogtown wasn't developed at all until after the World's Fair, and some of it wasn't subdivided until the 1940s. Along with Holly Hills and parts of St. Louis Hills, it's one of the newest neighborhoods in the City and was targeted by Deaconess for precisely that reason.

[bonwich]

800,000 -> 300,000 means that "density" is pretty far down on the design criteria these days. And if you bound the area by Grand, Chouteau, Spring and Park, there simply isn't enough SLU Hospital and associated buildings to fill up the space anywhere near dense. 

[hsmith19]

12 hours ago, bonwich said:

800,000 -> 300,000 means that "density" is pretty far down on the design criteria these days. And if you bound the area by Grand, Chouteau, Spring and Park, there simply isn't enough SLU Hospital and associated buildings to fill up the space anywhere near dense. 

We're talking density of development, which encourages greater density of the remaining population you do have and greater walkability and livability within your core neighborhoods. For a shrinking city looking to "smart size," density of development is right at the top of the list. If you can't fill up the space, you shrink your footprint. You don't spread the buildings out more than they need to be. This is all basic stuff. It makes the precise opposite of sense to build a sprawling, suburban style complex smack dab in the middle of a shrinking city.

Again, the specifics of this design itself are not terrible for an urban setting. But this idea that we can discard basic ideas about sound urban design because we're in a shrinking city is downright bizarre.

[Old guy]

This is an interesting problem hsmith, St. Louis is indeed a shrinking city. In some ways its buildings downtown appear to have been destined for a much larger and prosperous city, something like you see in Vienna which was built as the capital of an empire which has since disappeared. Maybe accepting that there is an overabundance of free space (certainly the case for the place the new hospital is being built at) and designing accordingly (clashing with prior urban styles) is not such a bad idea.

[hsmith19]

23 minutes ago, Old guy said:

This is an interesting problem hsmith, St. Louis is indeed a shrinking city. In some ways its buildings downtown appear to have been destined for a much larger and prosperous city, something like you see in Vienna which was built as the capital of an empire which has since disappeared. Maybe accepting that there is an overabundance of free space (certainly the case for the place the new hospital is being built at) and designing accordingly (clashing with prior urban styles) is not such a bad idea.

True. Being a city of 300,000 built for a million is both a blessing and a curse. In terms of urban fabric it "feels" like a big city in certain ways that some newer, much bigger cities really don't. But the attitude that because we are shrinking we don't have to worry about planning or design and can just sprawl every which way is the biggest threat to that asset. The problem with a lot of suburban style developments is not so much poor planning as it is a complete lack of planning. With the SLU hospital there were at least efforts at planning the development and making it consistent with broader efforts in the area, in spite of attitudes like bonwich's above being fairly common among the general citizenry.

The good news is we can't keep shrinking much longer. If we haven't hit the bottoming out point yet, we're at least very close. When we finally reach the point where the City is maintaining its population, I think we can expect modest improvement in efforts at regional cooperation. But the County's growth totally stalled around the year 2000 and they're just now realizing it, so it will probably take some time for perception to catch up with reality.

And FWIW, while Vienna's empire disappeared, the St. Louis metro region does still exist, St. Louis City is still its cultural capital, and Downtown St. Louis is still one of its two economic capitals.

[Billiken Rich]

If you want to see stlouis county really lose population, including yours truely, merge city and county into one giant one party ruled over regulated mess.  That giant sucking sound will be all those that can, moving to Jefferson, Franklin, St Charles, and Warren counties.........I love Saint Louis but I will not be pushed any further down the rabbit hole of one party governance.......

[bonwich]

I could have sworn I'd seen discussion of a lot of this several months ago, and indeed, the most recent P-D article presents nothing new in terms of renderings or overall site design. NextSTL has a lot more pictures to that effect here, from February:

https://nextstl.com/2017/02/new-renderings-unveiled-550m-ssmslu-hospital-project/

That posting shows a few things not apparent in the single rendering (which isn't new) in the P-D article:

- The new hospital actually does come out to the curb, or very close to it.

- The green space in front of which someone is illegally riding a bicycle on the sidewalk is actually a setback for the parking garage.

- The backside appendage on Firmin is being bulldozed and "green space" is going in there, but it won't be visible from the street. IIRC, it's supposed to be a "healing space," or somesuch New Age concept. 

The larger question, and the one that I think will truly determine how well SLU/SSM does in restoring somewhat of an urban environment, will be what ends up happening to the Pevely lot. 

[hsmith19]

11 minutes ago, Billiken Rich said:

If you want to see stlouis county really lose population, including yours truely, merge city and county into one giant one party ruled over regulated mess.  That giant sucking sound will be all those that can, moving to Jefferson, Franklin, St Charles, and Warren counties.........I love Saint Louis but I will not be pushed any further down the rabbit hole of one party governance.......

Okay, I'm not sure where to start with this, but here goes:

1) Nobody has proposed a uni-gov scenario for City and County, although groups like Better Together are feeding the paranoia by not even bothering to clearly lay out all the possibilities for a consolidation or reunification, much less taking a position on any of them. I think the possibility of the County consolidating some of its six thousand municipalities and unincorporated areas is a far more likely first step, and they don't have to involve the City at all to do that. Then and only then would talk of the City re-entering the County as a new municipality make sense, and even then that is a far cry from consolidation on par with Indianapolis or Louisville.

2) St. Louis County is already losing population to the exurbs, and has for a while now. The current growth rate in places like O'Fallon will not be sustainable much longer. New employers are already having to recruit a work force from over an hour away because of the lack of affordable housing.

3) St. Louis County has been marching toward one party governance for a long time now, totally independent of the City. The County is going to continue to get more heavily minority and more heavily low income for the foreseeable future, and therefore more heavily Democratic, regardless of what eventually happens to the City's political status.

[hsmith19]

6 minutes ago, bonwich said:

I could have sworn I'd seen discussion of a lot of this several months ago, and indeed, the most recent P-D article presents nothing new in terms of renderings or overall site design. NextSTL has a lot more pictures to that effect here, from February:

https://nextstl.com/2017/02/new-renderings-unveiled-550m-ssmslu-hospital-project/

That posting shows a few things not apparent in the single rendering (which isn't new) in the P-D article:

- The new hospital actually does come out to the curb, or very close to it.

- The green space in front of which someone is illegally riding a bicycle on the sidewalk is actually a setback for the parking garage.

- The backside appendage on Firmin is being bulldozed and "green space" is going in there, but it won't be visible from the street. IIRC, it's supposed to be a "healing space," or somesuch New Age concept. 

The larger question, and the one that I think will truly determine how well SLU/SSM does in restoring somewhat of an urban environment, will be what ends up happening to the Pevely lot. 

Yes, as I said above, they really did strive for a contiguous development that made sense for the site. Doesn't stop me from being disappointed in some aspects of the ultimate result. It was more New Urbanist (TM) than I would have preferred. But they certainly didn't follow your advice to completely ignore objectives like density just because the City's population has been declining for a half century now...

[bonwich]

7 minutes ago, hsmith19 said:

Yes, as I said above, they really did strive for a contiguous development that made sense for the site. Doesn't stop me from being disappointed in some aspects of the ultimate result. It was more New Urbanist (TM) than I would have preferred. But they certainly didn't follow your advice to completely ignore objectives like density just because the City's population has been declining for a half century now...

I think you missed the second half of my post. My comment on density was qualified by defining the site by Grand, Chouteau, Spring and Park. So they simply redefined the site (shrunk the footprint, as I think you said somewhere) and made it dense within its own context.

In other words, I think we're basically saying the same thing, but my density comment was interpreted in a way it wasn't meant to be. Like that never happens in written discussions of short burst where there's no tone of voice.  

[hsmith19]

Just now, bonwich said:

I think you missed the second half of my post. My comment on density was qualified by defining the site by Grand, Chouteau, Spring and Park. So they simply redefined the site (shrunk the footprint, as I think you said somewhere) and made it dense within its own context.

In other words, I think we're basically saying the same thing, but my density comment was interpreted in a way it wasn't meant to be. Like that never happens in written discussions of short burst where there's no tone of voice.  

Fair enough. But what is your position on the City-County merger?

[Old guy]

Like Billiken Rich said, a merger of the City and St. Louis County will signal it is time to move to St. Charles or Jeff County. No problems there.

[hsmith19]

4 minutes ago, Old guy said:

Like Billiken Rich said, a merger of the City and St. Louis County will signal it is time to move to St. Charles or Jeff County. No problems there.

I think you can rest easy. If you are really as old as you say, you will be dead long before there is a plan on the ballot.

[cheeseman]

5 minutes ago, hsmith19 said:

I think you can rest easy. If you are really as old as you say, you will be dead long before there is a plan on the ballot.

+1

[bonwich]

26 minutes ago, hsmith19 said:

Fair enough. But what is your position on the City-County merger?

I shall cogitate on a response over a bag of Old Vienna Red Hot Riplets. 

[Billiken Rich]

29 minutes ago, hsmith19 said:

Okay, I'm not sure where to start with this, but here goes:

1) Nobody has proposed a uni-gov scenario for City and County, although groups like Better Together are feeding the paranoia by not even bothering to clearly lay out all the possibilities for a consolidation or reunification, much less taking a position on any of them. I think the possibility of the County consolidating some of its six thousand municipalities and unincorporated areas is a far more likely first step, and they don't have to involve the City at all to do that. Then and only then would talk of the City re-entering the County as a new municipality make sense, and even then that is a far cry from consolidation on par with Indianapolis or Louisville.

2) St. Louis County is already losing population to the exurbs, and has for a while now. The current growth rate in places like O'Fallon will not be sustainable much longer. New employers are already having to recruit a work force from over an hour away because of the lack of affordable housing.

3) St. Louis County has been marching toward one party governance for a long time now, totally independent of the City. The County is going to continue to get more heavily minority and more heavily low income for the foreseeable future, and therefore more heavily Democratic, regardless of what eventually happens to the City's political status.

1)  I am not worried about "uni-gov."  Having 300,000 new voters in St.louis County with loyalty to one party is enough of a bogeyman for me.  Why would anyone in the county vote to dilute whatever power they have left?

2) and 3) One sure fire way to accelerate  these problems is to bring the city back into the county.  Why do you suspect that St. Louis County is losing population?  Creeping nanny-state socialism?  Loss of Jobs?  Straight up  white flight/racism? 

When I see the mayor and county executive getting together on a $12 an hour minimum wage increase, I start to see the end of my time in this county due to creeping nanny-state socialism.....

[hsmith19]

13 minutes ago, Billiken Rich said:

1)  I am not worried about "uni-gov."  Having 300,000 new voters in St.louis County with loyalty to one party is enough of a bogeyman for me.  Why would anyone in the county vote to dilute whatever power they have left?

2) and 3) One sure fire way to accelerate  these problems is to bring the city back into the county.  Why do you suspect that St. Louis County is losing population?  Creeping nanny-state socialism?  Loss of Jobs?  Straight up  white flight/racism? 

When I see the mayor and county executive getting together on a $12 an hour minimum wage increase, I start to see the end of my time in this county due to creeping nanny-state socialism.....

1. It sounds like you don't understand any of the different possible paths to consolidation or reunification. What "power" are you speaking of, exactly? There are less than 60,000 City voters who turn out for the really big local elections, like the Mayoral race we just had. But if you're really terrified of those 60,000 City people who vote, just remember that we already have representation in the state legislature and statewide races, and that your County Council and all County-wide offices are already controlled by Democrats. Maybe you should move all the way to Kansas just to be safe. What exactly scares you about those City voters? Another couple of Democratic seats on the County Council? A return to a black Democrat instead of a white Democrat as County Executive?

2. No, I do not think "nanny-state socialism" in either the City or the County is why people are moving to the exurbs or leaving the St. Louis metro region altogether. What local government programs do you think amount to the nanny state, exactly? It can't be the City-wide minimum wage that barely had time to take effect before outstate Missourah put the kibosh on it, because these trends have been going on for a couple decades now. I tend to think national patterns of white flight to the exurbs and black flight to the inner ring suburbs are a bigger driver of what's happening in our metro, along with almost no net growth of people moving into the metro generally.

[Old guy]

39 minutes ago, hsmith19 said:

I think you can rest easy. If you are really as old as you say, you will be dead long before there is a plan on the ballot.

Whooo, now I can die happy right where I am and leave to my kids the chore of selling property and moving to another county.

[JMM28]

The city army should just break the DMZ and invade and occupy the County. Boots on the ground are what's needed now. Roll tanks down 40. 

[hsmith19]

Just now, Old guy said:

Whooo, now I can die happy right where I am and leave to my kids the chore of selling property and moving to another county.

If your kids share your ideals then it's not too late for them to boot you to a nursing home and sell now.

[hsmith19]

1 minute ago, JMM28 said:

The city army should just break the DMZ and invade and occupy the County. Boots on the ground are what's needed now. Roll tanks down 40. 

Speaking of a DMZ, I can't see too many of the South City regiments willing to occupy Lemay. Maybe we should go with a General Sherman approach.

[SShoe]

59 minutes ago, Billiken Rich said:

1)  I am not worried about "uni-gov."  Having 300,000 new voters in St.louis County with loyalty to one party is enough of a bogeyman for me.  Why would anyone in the county vote to dilute whatever power they have left?

2) and 3) One sure fire way to accelerate  these problems is to bring the city back into the county.  Why do you suspect that St. Louis County is losing population?  Creeping nanny-state socialism?  Loss of Jobs?  Straight up  white flight/racism? 

When I see the mayor and county executive getting together on a $12 an hour minimum wage increase, I start to see the end of my time in this county due to creeping nanny-state socialism.....

I just got back from Denver where there has to be 30 plus cranes floating over downtown.  Ask that city how it's doing with a unified, nanny-state, socialist government. Or Indianapolis and Nashville. Or Minneapolis, which doesn't have a unified government, but maintains strong regional controls over issues such as transit funding and sales tax revenue sharing.  All of these places are eating our lunch.  If consolidating governments means losing a few Richs and Old Guys, then so be it. I'm sure they wouldn't mind selling their homes in a market that's growing at a 3% clip vs. the current 1%.  Even if it means their trash cans all look alike.

[Old guy]

Before you deal with a General Sherman's approach make sure you visit Columbia South Carolina. The main drag out there (bordering the State University) is extraordinarily wide. When you ask the natives how come it is so wide they just shrug and say "that is where Sherman went through." Whatever is left behind using a General Sherman approach will probably be of little use for years, it will just be adding yet more blighted areas to the city. Nope, the Sherman burned earth approach is not advisable as something that would benefit the city.

 

 

[Billiken Rich]

7 minutes ago, SShoe said:

I just got back from Denver where there has to be 30 plus cranes floating over downtown.  Ask that city how it's doing with a unified, nanny-state, socialist government. Or Indianapolis and Nashville. Or Minneapolis, which doesn't have a unified government, but maintains strong regional controls over issues such as transit funding and sales tax revenue sharing.  All of these places are eating our lunch.  If consolidating governments means losing a few Richs and Old Guys, then so be it. I'm sure they wouldn't mind selling their homes in a market that's growing at a 3% clip vs. the current 1%.  Even if it means their trash cans all look alike.

Good Points on Denver and Indy.  I'm not all that familiar with Minneapolis.  For every up and coming city though there's a Detroit, or Gary.  

[SShoe]

Just now, Billiken Rich said:

Good Points on Denver and Indy.  I'm not all that familiar with Minneapolis.  For every up and coming city though there's a Detroit, or Gary.  

And those cities are as fragmented as ours.