Loving the Midwest: Positive attention from the NYT (Kansas City, St. Louis: 2013, home)

[JuanHamez]

St. Louis recently got some positive attention in a NYT article entitled "Loving the Midwest." We need more like this!

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/op...e-midwest.html

[NewStLouisan]

Sounds more negative than positive to me. The writer comes off as smug and condescending towards a fine city, and seems like she never leaves the Chesterfield city limits. The city she describes is very different from the St. Louis I live in.

[Dawn10am]

I'm not so sure that the article is positive, especially when read by someone on the coasts. She makes it sound like St. Louis sucks but once you get used to it it's not so bad after all. I get the impression that she probably lives somewhere far out in the County and thinks that all of St. Louis is parochial, boring, and conservative like that, which is untrue. NewStLouisan, you're right. What she described in there is not my experience of St. Louis at all. We need more articles that emphasize the excitement of St. Louis and the transformation occurring in the City which is luring hundreds of young people down here who are essentially recreating the city, rather than articles that emphasize people grudgingly accepting the status quo.

[Brickmama]

The article is garbage and reeks of a person living in St Chuck or West Co. We won't see any Brooklynites flocking to STL after reading the article and we probably shouldn't use it to attract newcomers. We have a lot of young people and vibrant areas in the city. If I were to walk outside from my Downtown Lift plenty of people will be out enjoying the sidewalk cafes. Not everyone goes to bed at 9. She needs to leave her bubble.

[billiken]

I saw quite a few friends repost this on social media...which was confusing, because to me, all it says is "this place sucks unless you have a family." I practically stopped reading after her complaints of everything being dead at 9PM.

[RDM66]

Originally Posted by JuanHamez

St. Louis recently got some positive attention in a NYT article entitled "Loving the Midwest." We need more like this!

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/op...e-midwest.html

I'm with everyone else. I don't think the article was too flattering for St Louis.

I live in Kansas City and the New York Times has a small bureau with two or three reporters here who cover the Midwest. Whenever they write about Kansas City they typically trash it and only pay it backhanded compliments. I remember one article in particular from a year ago written by one of their reporters who had just moved to Kansas City. She was a vegetarian and she was wailing and moaning because there were no decent vegan restaurants in KC. She also mocked us by saying that we still fry everything in lard here. (Half true. )

Seriously, what was the NY Times thinking when they sent this woman to the boondocks? For Christ’s sake, it’s Kansas City: The home of red meat like the Kansas City strip steak and barbeque. We’re not a vegan-friendly town.

[Dreadnought]

I certainly don't agree with every point she made, but it was very well written. I believe she is a novelist.

[marigolds6]

You have to read this from the lens of what people on the coasts currently think of St Louis.

Namely a gang ridden lawless burnt out hole of robbery and murder. The idea of someone even raising a family in St Louis is inconceivable, much less the idea that St Louis is a good city for raising a family (even if the writer is probably really writing about West County).
Yes, this is too sleepy of a view of St Louis, but it is an important contrast with the current view of St Louis as the most dangerous city in America.

[marigolds6]

Originally Posted by Dreadnought

I certainly don't agree with every point she made, but it was very well written. I believe she is a novelist.

A novelist who is about to publish a book set in St Louis, hence the article.

[Dawn10am]

Originally Posted by marigolds6

A novelist who is about to publish a book set in St Louis, hence the article.

Oh god...I shudder to think what she's going to write in there.