The former Pruitt Igoe on Google Earth

[memph]

Originally Posted by JivecitySTL

You must be kidding. Have you ever BEEN to St. Louis? The entire city is full of late 19th and early 20th century urban fabric. Sure, we've lost a lot, but we have SOOOOOOOOO much more than 90% of American cities.

I guess I shouldn't have said your city has very little urban fabric. It just has very little compared to how much it could have if it went down the path of San Francisco, Montreal, DC, Toronto or even Chicago, all of which were smaller (some by a lot) than St. Louis in 1870, when St Louis was already a major city with about the same population as today.

So how come the Southern part of St. Louis is so much more intact than the Northern part?

[JivecitySTL]

Originally Posted by memph

I guess I shouldn't have said your city has very little urban fabric. It just has very little compared to how much it could have if it went down the path of San Francisco, Montreal, DC, Toronto or even Chicago, all of which were smaller (some by a lot) than St. Louis in 1870, when St Louis was already a major city with about the same population as today.

So how come the Southern part of St. Louis is so much more intact than the Northern part?

The North Side experienced the highest proportion of suburban flight, due in large part to racial, socioeconomic and political forces. To be fair, the South Side of Chicago is has lost A LOT compared to the North Side, the North Side of Philadelphia has lost A LOT compared to South Philly, North Baltimore is much more depleted than other parts of the city, etc. So concentrated decay is not a St. Louis phenomenon, but rather, a common occurrence in older American cities.

[dc_denizen]

Debatable though whether St. Louis had a lot of choice on the "path" it took. It tried to pursue progressive policies (like Pruit Igroe, which replaced ramshackle working class hoods and was viewed as the cutting edge at the time), and invested in urban renewal. However, it wasn't the capital or the largest city of a country, it was located on a location optimized for river transport when the economy switched to rails and roads, and it wasn't set in an interesting or pretty geographic location. Also, it faced cutthroat competitors like Chicago and Minneapolis, as well as the Sunbelt. All things considered, it's done pretty well.

[should note that St. Louis is a huge rail center today so maybe comment on river/rail/roads not accurate]

[Centropolis]

yeah, i don't know the history of St. Louis railroads very well...but people sort of wrongly assume that St. Louis didn't think to invest in rail. the st. louis based pacific railroad unfortunately progressed at a glacial pace towards Kansas City after an initial groundbreaking in 1851. It was conceived of in 1849 to connect to San Francisco...I think part of the problem was that St. Louis railroads were poorly funded compared to (NY backed?) lines emanating from Chicago.

[ardecila]

Stephen Douglas owned much of Chicago's South Side and bought support for a Chicago-based route for the transcontinental railroad in exchange for the Kansas-Nebraska
Act that allowed slavery to expand.

But yeah, much of it is also due to NY influence. Chicago was already trading with NY via the Erie Canal/Great Lakes, and much of that infrastructure could be reused to service railroads.

[SignalHillHiker]

Watching that documentary now. Great so far.