If you were the mayor of st.louis what would be your plans? (St. Louis: apartment)

[Amercity]

1. Get the st.louis metropolitan police under st.louis control. Its bs to see a state that could care less about its most vital city control its police.
2. Get stlouis city as a munipiality in the county. Also get u city to merge with st.louis city. This would add 40,000 people, washington university, delmar loop and 5 sq miles

This is all I could come up with for now. What would you do?

[chicagoerin]

I can't offer much in the way of advice as to how to pull St. Louis out of the downward spiral that it is in. I think one of the points you hit on is jobs.. how to create them, i have no idea. Last night on the news they showed a few thugs saying that they have to rob and steal in order to have money for food. They can't get jobs so their only option is to rob and steal. The comment sent shivers down my spine. The way they said it was so matter of fact. The Megan Boken murder is truly heart wrenching. One article I read said the Police department quotes 25 armed robberies from Jan-July in the Central West End. That is horrific! This neighborhood is considered one of the nicer/most upscale city neighborhoods. Doesn't sound safe to me. Or nice. Or upscale. St. Louis city and police leaders draw anger for response to killing : Stltoday

[Dawn10am]

Crime reduction, first and foremost. Once the crime rate gets under control I think the other problems will start to work themselves out. If people see the city as safer they're more likely to move back (solving the population decline problem) and pay more property taxes (which could help fix the school problem). I love living in the city but this recent crime wave has got me nervous to even leave my apartment. Megan Boken was killed two blocks from where I live, and the recent spate of armed robberies in the CWE is not encouraging. I really hate to agree with chicagoerin on anything, but something has to be done about the out of control crime.

[flynavyj]

I think Erin and Dawn are right on track, it has to be crime reduction.

My number one priority as mayor of St. Louis would be to make St. Louis desirable! This is all encompassing, you have to make the city desirable for singles, families, retirees, students, entrepreneurs, businesses, industry, EVERYONE! So, i'd start by creating a "desirability" commission with the task of investigating steps that would improve the desirability for each of these categories. Ensure that our ultimate goal is able to be achieved on the available budget, and then implement as appropriate.

The number one thing I can ID that will both residents and businesses out of the city is the crime, it MUST be addressed. It's sad that people have to lose their lives around here for folks to realize we have an epidemic but it needs to be fixed, and NOW. But simply increasing police presence isn't the real way to fix it, all that does is ensure that the criminal element will move to locations that has less police presence, in other words it doesn't fix the problem it simply makes the problem relocate...works for the city, sux for someone else.

So then you have the issue of how do you make people not want to commit crimes...well, you can't make someone want to work, but maybe the argument should be made that you won't get arrested for working a regular job...

I do think that violent crimes need to be punished more severely, but once again that's just fixing things on the back end...we need to get folks from committing the crimes in the first place.

I think this is a good question, and I love hypothetical discussions...let's keep it going!

[Chicago76]

I'm more interested in restoring the tax base of the city to get sufficient funds to develop long-term funding strategies of what the city currently lacks. In the N. and S Corridor, over 18 pop from 2000 to 2010 was essentially flat. The under 18 pop declined about 25%. North city lost 25% of its kids too in addition to a lower rate of over 18s. The middle class family component is probably the biggest revenue generator that has gone unaddressed.

Currently, this demographic abounds in SW city, but the city really needs to focus on expanding its foothold where they've already seen some progress: namely the flagship neighborhoods of Soulard, Benton Park, Shaw, TGS, Compton Heights, and Lafayette Square. The city needs better rehabilitation incentivization in BPW, TGE, Fox Park, and Mckinley Heights. If you can stabilize these neighborhoods at an accelerated pace, you've developed a large contiguous pocket of inner core neighborhoods with substantially reduced crime that is substantially more attractive to families. At the same time, a portion of housing needs to be set aside for those of lower income in those areas at manageable levels. Those neighborhoods should also be connected by some sort of circular express bus service to provide better connectivity.

For the life of me, I have no idea why the second gifted and talented elementary school in SLPS (Mallinckrodt) is a mere 1.5 miles away from the other (Kennard). Those areas are fairly stable as is. IMO, the second one should have been placed either in the inner core S. City neighborhoods (as a way of drawing families to TGE or BPW (admission preference if you live within a mile) or near Skinker-DB/CWE (better access to north city).

I realize this is very near S City focused (and somewhat self serving, considering that is where I live), but in my opinion, the big problem in STL is that there are too many battles against poverty and stabilization fought across too many fronts. It makes more sense in the long term to fight the easiest to win battles first to consolidate improvements in city and then to expand on those improvements or focus elsewhere. The city is simply too broke to effectively deal with problems in much of North City. The only way to fix those is to increase the tax base where it is easiest (the tipping point neighborhoods in S City). More affluent areas generally require less funding (because they are easier to maintain/administer) and they provide more in terms of money that could be allocated elsewhere to deal with the deeper problems.

The other issue I have is that the riverfront presence in this town absolutely sucks. The arch is nice, but with the highway, industrial corridor, and lack of attention to well connected pedestrian ways/bike trails, there is very little charm. I realize that a bike trail exists going north along the river, but it's not easy to find, and as far as scenery goes, there is very little to write about, unless you're into industrial grit. Other midwestern cities on major waterways do a much, much better job of interacting w/ the water. Part of the improvements here will come from federal projects, but as a whole, the city needs to take some initiative here too. The downtown brand really suffers as a result of the disconnect between the river and the city.