Your New Year's resolutions probably involve more Stairmaster and less My Daddy's Cheesecake. In an anthropomorphic kind of way, our city might just have resolutions for self-improvement, too. Urban-development bloggers Michael Allen (Ecology of Absence, eco-absence.org), Steve Patterson (Urban Review STL, urbanreviewstl.com), Antonio French (Pub Def, pubdef.net) and Toby Weiss (Built Environment in Layman's Terms, tobybelt.blogspot.com) have each demonstrated their love for the city's built environment—and frustration with its stewards. Here they lay out their own resolutions for the city.
Toby Weiss
Which project should be the city's top priority?
Implement protective zoning, public-transit improvements and energy-efficiency tax credits.
Why?
This recession will remind us that living in closely connected towns is a more responsible way to live.
What are the chances it will actually happen in '09?
Even without an official call to conserve, we are doing so out of necessity.
What should be the city's lowest priority?
This new Missouri-Illinois bridge idea.
Steve Patterson
Which project should be the city's top priority?
Replacing our 60-year-old zoning code that requires too much parking and separate-use zoning.
Why?
Our zoning still reflects the anti-city movement from the mid–20th century. Form-based zoning could do wonders.
What are the chances it will actually happen in '09?
No chance. Our elected officials use zoning to extract favors from developers
What should be the city's lowest priority?
Mega-projects where results seldom match promises. There's one possible exception: removing I-70's depressed lanes.
Michael Allen
Which project should be the city's top priority?
Getting the Board of Aldermen to pass a redevelopment plan for Paul McKee's North City project.
Why?
Considering the impact of filling more than 900 vacant properties, it's high time for a mechanism that can reconcile differences.
What are the chances it will actually happen in '09?
There's always the chance that entrenched special interests will sink a compromise.
What should be the city's lowest priority?
Building the lid over I-70. We should wait for the opportunity to reconnect the Arch grounds with all of downtown.
Antonio French
Which project should be the city's top priority?
A massive reinvestment in our city's deteriorated and atrisk neighborhoods.
Why?
What the city needs is a shift in focus. Rather than focus on downtown as the catchall solution to population loss, the city needs to invest in its biggest asset—its neighborhoods.
What are the chances it will actually happen in '09?
I fear we'll continue chasing largescale downtown projects. How many times do we have to hear the same song before we change the station?
What should be the city's lowest priority?
Another damn bridge.
