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St. Louis' last streetcar made its last trip to the carbarn in 1963, and thus the city had to start from scratch when it decided it needed a light metro after all.
Actually the last STL streetcar (Hodiamont line) made its final trip in 1966, which is actually later than most of its peer cities.
Saint Louis truly was a special case of stupid. They bulldozed dozens of historic rowhome neighborhoods and replaced them with crime-filled project highrises. Coupled with urban renewal, was the hubris of the place.
They split off from Saint Louis County in 1877 because they didn't want to "share the wealth" only for de-industrialization and the loss of Mississippi River importance to bite them hard 70 years later. Then they realized how awful being a death spiral independent city can be.
Couple it with corruption (Lacy Clay included), and a really myopic political elite and you have the makings of Saint Louis - one of the most depressing failures in American urban history.
But Cincinnati I think had far more potential.
In 1840, it was the 6th largest city in America, only surpassed by: Baltimore, Boston, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia. It had 2.5 times more people than Saint Louis and 12x Chicago. It was THE Midwest city.
It never had to lose that title. It could have become what Chicago became. But even though Northeast cities were able to maintain their industrial and commercial wealth even when the nation moved West, Cincinnati failed horrifically.
By 1890, Chicago would have 1.2 million. Cincinnati would have 296,000, or the same it had in 2010, 120 years later.
They all peaked decades ago. The worst is St. Louis. Chicago recovered the best, but still not what it should be today. St. Louis had a lot of potential, but crime, segregation, poor leadership, etc. derailed its trajectory. I don't see any of the cities booming or passing the current comparable boomtowns.
The funny thing about Kansas City is, its population is once again approaching its 1970 peak of just over 507,000.
But the city does seem to have lost the momentum it had in the 1960s and early 1970s. The city fathers annexed lots of land from the end of WWII up to the 1970s in anticipation that it would expand out into the cornfields, but they didn't reckon with the same depopulation in the core that St. Louis experienced.
And where voters enthusiastically approved several major public facilities in the 1960s, attempts to build similar facilities now have proven difficult to effect at best. Of course, this could be because the most successful of the facilities the voters did agree to build, the Power & Light District, will be a drain on the city treasury for decades to come, contrary to what its promoters had promised.
Kansas City is doing great, so I don't understand that option. I wouldn't be surprised if CSA passes 3 million in 20 years. In fact, it surpassing Saint Louis is a near certainty before 2050 in my opinion.
Optimistic about...Cincinnati, Kansas City, Pittsburgh
Neutral about...Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee
Pessimistic about...Baltimore, Cleveland, Saint Louis
Saint Louis truly was a special case of stupid. They bulldozed dozens of historic rowhome neighborhoods and replaced them with crime-filled project highrises. Coupled with urban renewal, was the hubris of the place.
They split off from Saint Louis County in 1877 because they didn't want to "share the wealth" only for de-industrialization and the loss of Mississippi River importance to bite them hard 70 years later. Then they realized how awful being a death spiral independent city can be.
Couple it with corruption (Lacy Clay included), and a really myopic political elite and you have the makings of Saint Louis - one of the most depressing failures in American urban history.
But Cincinnati I think had far more potential.
In 1840, it was the 6th largest city in America, only surpassed by: Baltimore, Boston, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia. It had 2.5 times more people than Saint Louis and 12x Chicago. It was THE Midwest city.
It never had to lose that title. It could have become what Chicago became. But even though Northeast cities were able to maintain their industrial and commercial wealth even when the nation moved West, Cincinnati failed horrifically.
By 1890, Chicago would have 1.2 million. Cincinnati would have 296,000, or the same it had in 2010, 120 years later.
One big thing that happened was during the Civil War River Traffic crashed and got replaced by Trains as its outlet (New Orleans) was hostile. This hurt all the River cities a lot post war. It was something beyond Cincinnati’s individual control.
Just curious... how much more could Chicago be? Its already a top #3-4 American city.
Further, Chicago stole a lot of thunder from St. Louis, which I think is more or less the winner of this poll.
Chicago began to rival NYC in population in the 1920's-30's....it got passed by Los Angeles as it lost nearly a million people and is now dealing with being a peer to Houston. I'm pretty sure that's not the future they had in mind in the roaring 20's.
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