St. Louis is the most dangerous city in the U.S

Except it's not.  But that's what we're expected to believe from CQ's yearly most dangerous city rankings.  Here's my take on it (mostly copied and pasted from a post I made on City-Data )

UMSL Criminologists were recently honored for a thorough breakdown and criticism of these rankings

While there is no doubt that we have a high crime rate, to suggest that St. Louis is the most dangerous city, or even a top 10 most dangerous city is an absolute joke. The fact remains that violent crime is highly localized in a handful of dangerous neighborhood - just like every other city. The difference is our numbers aren't watered down like cities with a larger city limits that include some suburban areas. Of course if we had a higher population in the city proper that would also help water down crime numbers like it does in Baltimore and Washington DC.

No doubt the authors of this study realize this and mention it in their report. But the fact is that the headline will read that St. Louis is the most dangerous city in America. That's all most people will read, and it has a strong adverse effect on the entire St. Louis metro area, most of which is very safe. The study is put together to sensationalize crime, grab a headline and some publicity. And it does it at the cost of irreparable harm to the cities listed.

I don't want to discount the fact that the crime rate is unacceptably high in our city. I live here, work here, and spend the vast majority of my time and money here. While I haven't had even one remotely bad incident happen to me, I know others who have. I definitely take some precautions to ensure I do not become a victim. I think the best cure for crime is better education, stronger communities, more/better police, and more people. It is hard to get more people to move here when ridiculous studies like this come out.

Finally, as the violent crime rate is the one cited, the fact remains that even in America's "most dangerous city" you still have roughly an only 2% chance of being a victim of violent crime. I imagine that percentage is even lower if don't live in or frequent certain neighborhoods, and lower still if you don't sell drugs or join a gang. The average is roughly 0.4%. Crime is a very significant issue in St. Louis that we should continue to address...but superfluous studies like this one are not helping.

Beer City, USA

I've been reading a lot of talk about St. Louis reclaiming its spot as the beer city in the U.S.  I have a copy of St. Louis Brews which is an excellent book detailing the city's rich brewing heritage.  St. Louis' large immigrant German population combined with our excellent cave system (invaluable before refrigerators) made our city the undisputed beer capital in the 1800's.

Over the course of the 20th century. Anheuser Busch became the world's largest brewery, while other area breweries closed up shop.  In he last 20 years, and especially in the last 10, St. Louis has seen an explosion of sorts of new breweries.  I feel that this has grown even more apparent since Anheuser Busch's hostile takeover by InBev in 2008.  While St. Louis still boasts the worlds largest brewery thanks to ABI, a new interest in craft breweries and specialized beer has really taken off here.

In the city alone, we have the Schlafly Tap Room, Amalgamated brewing (the Stable), Six Row Brew Co, Square One, Buffalo, Cathedral Square, and Morgan Street.  Over the course of the next year we will have at least three more.  That's not even mentioning some of the great microbreweries open in the area suburbs such as O'Fallon, Hill Brewing, and Augusta.

I say, the more the merrier.  St. Louis can take advantage of this new found craft brewing culture and draw in some extra tourism dollars (food/beverage tourism is really taking off) and maybe even some beer-influenced entrepreneurial (that is, influenced by beer...not under the influence of it...).  If you needed any other indication of how big the beer scene here is getting head on over to STLHops and read all the events, message board posts, and beer reviews.  While all the excitement is around the small microbreweries popping up, I also want to reiterate that I still support AB-InBev and they still employ thousands of fellow St. Louisans.  My grandma's house was on Utah in Benton Park and I still remember the distinctive aroma as a kid, from that old brewery on Pestalozzi.  It will always be near and dear to me and AB is no doubt a huge part of St. Louis still.  I have no issues getting a pitcher of Bud Light at a sports bar or ordering one at a hockey game.

But the microbreweries are the future of beer in St. Louis.  Hopefully one day in the not-so-distant-future, St. Louis will again reign as Americas Beer capital.  Imagine this: St. Louis boasts the worlds largest and most renowned brewery and has the most microbreweries to boot.  Excited yet?

Citygarden

Citygarden's appearance on the scene in summer of 2009 coincided with my burgeoning interest in things like the built environment and urbanism.  To be honest, I wasn't sure what it was or what to make of it when I first saw it.  A year and a half or so later, I must say that Citygarden is a top 5 spot in the city for me.

What makes it so special is that it gives people downtown a place to gather, to see things, to relax, to walk, and to eat.  It is well maintained, clean, full of interesting sculptures, a large projection screen, small limestone bluffs, and my personal favorite - the water fountain that is lit by LED's at night.  Oh and did I mention there's also a restaurant?

Citygarden is the ideal example that I would hold up as what we need to be doing more of in the city.  That's not to say that our most pressing issue is the lack of sculpture parks.  But it's a sign that we care and that we're heavily invested in our community.  When you drive through a neighborhood full of falling down buildings, weeds growing in cracks in the sidewalks, and acres of urban prairie - you do not think this is a city full of people who care.  When people care, all kinds of great things happen.

In the very center of downtown, where thousands of visitors, workers, and residents pass each day this is what we used to have:


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^St. Louis deserves better than that!  Citygarden is what St. Louis needed, and what St. Louis deserved.

This is what we're up against

There's an article in the post today about the city of Rock Hill looking to make their city more bike and pedestrian friendly.  Against my better judgement I had to click on the "comments" tab and see what the fine readers of STLToday.com had to say about this.  Here's a small sampling:

"Insanity. A few hippie bike riders are more important than normal people. Cheezzeee. Keep the thugs off the streets first. Nobody wants the crime that is occurring in Rock Hill. Then clean the trash up. After that, if hippies want bike lanes, then charge them for using them."

"If I were Rock Hill politicians, I would concentrate on keeping the growing crime problem from festering. (don't be like Mayor Slay)"

I had no idea Rock Hill was such a warzone.  And that everyone who rides a bike is a hippie.  There were even more egregious comments but I think you get the point.  My point isn't that crazy people post over at STLToday (I think we all are well aware of that by now).  But the fact is that our region is full of backwards thinking such as the above.  The St. Louis area, and probably most of the United States is a place where 40k to improve bike and pedestrian access is considered wasteful and 140 million for an extension of page avenue is considered smart and necessary.  Notice how the first comment I quoted mentions charging cyclists for the constructed bike lanes.  I wonder if he would approve of a toll where the Page extension begins?

Hypocrisy of the American automobile culture aside, how do we build better communities when the majority don't even want them?  Or do they? Maybe I'm just exaggerating how many people think like the above comments.  Judging by the overall lack of accommodation for bikes and pedestrians in the St. Louis region, I am inclined to believe that I am definitely not exaggerating.

I think we have made great strides in the last 10 years in making St. Louis a more bike and pedestrian friendly place.  The Great Rivers Greenway, Bike St. Louis, and Trailnet have made a huge impact.  Earlier this year it was announced that a bike commuter station would open downtown.  This is great stuff, but just imagine what could get done if we had an even bigger base of support for these things across the St. Louis area.

It's blog time

I've been wanting to start a blog for well over a year now.  I figured I wouldn't keep up with it, thought it would be too time consuming, and I didn't know if I'd have enough things to write about.

Well now I am finally taking the plunge.  This is my first and only blog, Pro STL.  I think not coming up with a clever name is probably another reason I never started blogging before.  Obviously I gave up in that respect.  My main focus will be on writing about day to day life in St. Louis, mainly focusing on the city and urban areas.  The "Pro" part of the name stems from the fact that I am a die hard St. Louis booster and spend way too much time battling the "Anti" crowd.  I also want to promote the area and my politics are on the progressive side of things.  So I guess you could say it fit.

My goal is to just write about my ideas, thoughts, and impressions of day to day life in the city of St. Louis.  I'm an optimist by nature so I am sure my writing will seem a bit too positive at times.  But I can't help it, I love this city.  Of course it faces huge obstacles, challenges, and it certainly isn't a utopia by any means.  I want to write about it all and add my voice the chorus of awesome St. Louis blogs.

About me...I'm 25, and have lived in the St. Louis area my whole life.  I consider myself fairly well traveled and love to experience other cities as well.  My parents were both born and bred south siders and I spent the first 10 years of my life in south city too before moving to south county where I graduated high school (no I am not telling you where from).  I received my BA in Political Science from UMSL in May 2008 and currently work for the Federal Government in downtown St. Louis.

In May of 2009 my girlfriend and I bought a house in the North Hampton neighborhood in south city.  I will write more about that, but that's when my outlook and attitude towards St. Louis changed completely.  I love the city and I can't wait to write more about it.  Stay tuned!