Mayor Slay wants the City of St. Louis to enter St. Louis County (Chesterfield: violent crime, home)

[DinsdalePirahna]

Of all the places that I have lived, I think Long Island has it almost figured it out.

The countys (Nassau and Suffolk, each) have consolidated the police forces into the Suffolk County Police and The Nassau County Police (Most FDs are volunteer).

They have a town system which lets cities and villages retain their identities, but are able pass laws across jurisdictions and spread services evenly though out the town)

There are some exceptions some cities/villages have incorporated with their own mayors, police services (Port Jeff and Muttontown come to mind) but they are the exception rather than the rule.

[marigolds6]

I've seen Indianapolis and Louisville thrown out as "successes". I wouldn't be so quick to claim success there. While the suburbs have prospered from the merger and cut costs, it has been mostly at the expense of the cities which have lost services while paying more taxes. City of Indianapolis has been particularly hard hit because of its previous reliance on special districts while Louisville's problems have stemmed in a large part from the use of suburban fire districts. We have both of those issues here that could hit the city with a double whammy in a merger.

[imperialmog]

I do at the very least see it as starting to be more likely in the long run, the biggest stumbling blocks are a bunch of small fiefdoms that don't want to give up their power. Also unfortunately race plays the white elephant in the room in any consolidation plans.

Also in the long run a conglomorated city should also include part of the adjacent counties as well. (Now could a unified city in more than one state work?) Of course some sort of borough system is also something to be discussed so some level of local autonomy is planned which would make it more palatable.

[STLCardsBlues1989]

Slay aide, Clayton mayor talk regional cooperation - STLtoday.com (http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/7F7898DFF02CA40C862576F2001492F9?OpenDocument - broken link)

[moorlander]

YouTube - city county merger

this is tonight. Watch it.

[ktCakes]

"the county's reputation?!"
blech. It's exactly that attitude that makes me want to stay separate.
But, I'll watch. And I promise, with an open mind.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by moses ware

I hope this will take place.Just call it st.louis, this will create a city of 1.3million people we can compete with other cities.

Wouldn't the city of St Louis still be its own city, only it would be part of St Louis County? If so, the county would be 1.3 million, but the city would still be the same as it is today.

I can see that happening. Simply bringing St Louis City into the county.

Now making the entire county a single city with or without St Louis City being part of it seems nearly impossible as much of the county has established incorporated suburbs. You could probably do that with some of the un-incorporated areas like South County and create a new large suburb, but no way the entire county. It does suck that StL gets hit hard with crime stats because of its size though. KCMO has a high crime rate even though half of it is low crime suburbia, I don't want to know what KCMO's crime stats would be if it didn't have the Northland and other areas to offset the east side's violent crime stats.

Bringing the city into the county wouldn't really change much about St Louis as far as stats etc, but it's probably long over due for more internal reasons such as revenue sharing, cooperation, duplication of county services such as courts, judges, police and of course a more unified government to deal with metro transit, the culture tax etc.

Hope you make it happen (bringing the city into the county).

Making the county a single city of 1.3 million? That's one hell of a pipe dream, but I would love to see that happen too. Might be able to do it if you let St Charles County have Chesterfield or let Chesterfield become its own "county".

[stlcitygirl]

^
HA! Chesterfield would never be a part of St Charles County, they would rather die (and I don't blame them).
I disagree, I think it would change the stats drastically. No more most dangerous list, most miserable, highest STD's, etc etc.
For years these "lists" unfairly represented STL by a very small portion of the population of the actual metro area.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by stlcitygirl

^
HA! Chesterfield would never be a part of St Charles County, they would rather die (and I don't blame them).
I disagree, I think it would change the stats drastically. No more most dangerous list, most miserable, highest STD's, etc etc.
For years these "lists" unfairly represented STL by a very small portion of the population of the actual metro area.

I know, a bunch of StLouis "city" wanna be's, they love the StL County identification, but are still typical outerbelt suburban culture. They look down on St Charles, yet are much more like St Charles than St Louis City or even the county inside 270.

I guess you didn't understand my last post. There are two things that could happen here. One is possible, although it would be very difficult, the other is probably not possible.

Option one:
The city could simply become part of the county like Clayton is. The city would still have the same population and the crime stats would be the same, but the county would gain 350k (or whatever it is). But the city would be part of a very large county and its revenue stream helping the city financially.

Option two:
The other option is to turn the county into a single city including StL. That city would have a population of 1.3 million and yes, the crime stats would go down dramatically for this large city compared to StL City today. But all the incorporated cities in St Louis County would have to agree to dissolve and become a new new city (highly unlikely).

Everybody seems to be seeing the benefits of option two when in reality the best that could probably happen here is option one.

[stlcitygirl]

^
Ahh, I see. Either way, something has got to be done. I would love to travel back in time and strangle the fore fathers that made this decision.