Plan Maps Out How St. Louis Could Become A Global Geospatial Hub Over Next Decade

[dave8721]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

While the NGA is a nice geospatial entity to have, it's still mostly a defense-related entity, which will probably limit its potential.

And as long as ESRI's headquarters remains in Redland, CA, Redlands will remain the geospatial capitol of the world.

^This (as some one who works in the geospatial industry).

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

While the NGA is a nice geospatial entity to have, it's still mostly a defense-related entity, which will probably limit its potential.

And as long as ESRI's headquarters remains in Redland, CA, Redlands will remain the geospatial capitol of the world.

okay, well the article made no claims about "geospatial capital of the world" so thanks for that insight. and, yes, i'm sure its potential will be very limited because the military doesn't drive shit-loads of research and development or anything.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by 10023

I know a lot, and I don’t know what “geospatial technology” is meant to be. Is this GPS mapping?

Google Maps is geospatial technology.

[Emprise du Lion]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

If they build it like this, that would have been a much better site (with rail access even!). But this is just ridiculous. This does nothing for the surrounding neighborhood either. The correct place would have been a non-suburban office building in downtown SL.

While this is what us urbanists would have wanted, it's not what the feds wanted. It was either the site as shown in this thread or it was going in a cornfield next to Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.

Downtown was never in the conversation.

Originally Posted by jd3189

That picture is awfully depressing. Makes me really wonder what has been lost in St. Louis because of fucking “urban renewal”. That term was just codename for something sinister.

Besides the Pruitt Igoe site, you can't really blame urban renewal for the overall state of the neighborhood. The neighborhoods immediately north of the central corridor are some of the most blighted and vacant in the city. As time went on the homes were left vacant and eventually torn down.

If you really want your blood to boil then Google Paul McKee's role in this, but that's another story.

Originally Posted by 10023

I know a lot, and I don’t know what “geospatial technology” is meant to be. Is this GPS mapping?

They're a federal intelligence agency that provides information to the Department of Defense. St. Louis is home to their western HQ. They're the agency that helped locate Bin Laden, for example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation...ligence_Agency

Originally Posted by tablemtn

Would workers even feel safe in that area of St. Louis, considering the crime situation it is suffering through at the moment?

It's a secure federal facility that will have its own security. If they were concerned about the location then the cornfield would have won out. Their original facility is also located in St. Louis, just in south city next to Anheuser-Busch's brewery.

[mhays]

On the surface this site seems very excessive. The explanations I can think of would be (a) massive security-perimeter requirements, (b) the ability to expand in future decades, and (c) very cheap land so why not.

Their perimeter requirements must be massive. From the rendering, the main building appears to be about 400 feet from the nearest streets. The garages are separate enough that no car bomb would reach the main building. Even then, you could do 2/3 the site and make the same thing happen. That makes me think a potential expansion toward the pond seems like part of the master plan.

Other agencies with similar suburban concepts make do with 100-foot perimeters for example. But that's more about explosives. This one probably gets into stuff even farther over my head...various types of interference, observation, and so on.

A downtown site can do a lot of things, but probably not what they need. Sometimes agencies put out suburban-type requirements because their leaders are suburban thinkers (like the new FAA office near my city's airport, with surface parking), but in this case I'd guess the security/risk/tech people's concerns were key.

But I sure wish they'd cut a few blocks off the top...like if the perimeter was Benton Street maybe.

[samne]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

While the NGA is a nice geospatial entity to have, it's still mostly a defense-related entity, which will probably limit its potential.

And as long as ESRI's headquarters remains in Redland, CA, Redlands will remain the geospatial capitol of the world.

Theres alot more to Geospatial Technology than GIS, which is ESRI.

ESRI provides the leading GIS platform by far....but Google, QGIS and others are quickly catching up.

From the quick search this NGA is along the lines of advanced navigation, remote sensing cillection, monitoring, for mostly defence etc.

For an organization of over 14,000, Ive never heard of it.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

If they build it like this, that would have been a much better site (with rail access even!). But this is just ridiculous. This does nothing for the surrounding neighborhood either. The correct place would have been a non-suburban office building in downtown SL.

This is exactly what I said in the STL development thread last year.

But I was told that they need the space for security reasons?

Anyway with this being so detached from everything It seems like workers will just drive in and out of the complex and keep homes either in the suburbs or south part of the city.

[Emprise du Lion]

Originally Posted by mhays

On the surface this site seems very excessive. The explanations I can think of would be (a) massive security-perimeter requirements, (b) the ability to expand in future decades, and (c) very cheap land so why not.

If I recall correctly, a big reason for the move is the needed additional space and added security. So you nailed it.

Originally Posted by The North One

This is exactly what I said in the STL development thread last year.

But I was told that they need the space for security reasons?

Anyway with this being so detached from everything It seems like workers will just drive in and out of the complex and keep homes either in the suburbs or south part of the city.

They're going to expand their work force, but it's still primarily going to be the people who were already working at the current facility. Here's a link to it:
https://www.google.com/maps/@38.5925...7i16384!8i8192
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Na...!4d-90.2099847

In terms of transit, they are talking about putting in a MetroLink stop if/when the long fabled north/south branch of the MetroLink gets put in. Between Covid and declining ridership though, it may never happen.

[memester]

Originally Posted by 10023

I know a lot, and I don’t know what “geospatial technology” is meant to be. Is this GPS mapping?

NGA is a DOD agency. National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, sounds like satellite and drone image monitoring.

[10023]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Google Maps is geospatial technology.

Ok, so it’s cartography.

[mhays]

I'd assume it's WAY beyond that. Think the movie Enemy of the State. Or anything of the Mission Impossible or Bourne genre. Cartography PLUS a lot of tracking, analytics, etc.

[Centropolis]

pro NGA drones on my ass if i can get an extra jimmy johns to open.

[pip]

Originally Posted by 10023

Ok, so it’s cartography.

You discovered Google

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

Devil's Advocate:

Why would you go and design a mixed-use development full of new residential and commercial space at a time when there's a massive glut of vacant housing in historic, established neighborhoods that are teetering, and retail is struggling everywhere? Does anyone genuinely predict a sudden rebirth of greater St. Louis?

This plan removes the excess from the market and then increases demand for housing and services citywide. That is going to be a big boost to surrounding neighborhoods that are partially intact but desperately need investment. So you end up with more intact neighborhoods while deleting a massive dead area full of unused infrastructure that costs money and rotting empty houses used by criminals and drug dealers as hideouts? The only downside I see is the site plan is not transit friendly. But on the other hand, how many people who would work at this place would actually ride a bus in the northern half of St. Louis, anyways? I mean lets be real.

Urban renewal in the 1960s was pretty bad in retrospect, but I think from the perspective of someone living in that era who could not predict the future there was a logic to it.

There's a logic to it, sure. There was logic to bloodletting in the 1500s too. But we know better now. You can't solve a failing city by cutting out chunks like a cancer - buildings are never the root cause of a problem, just a symptom of deeper social issues.

The sheer size of this site creates opportunities that don't usually exist in poor inner city neighborhoods. You could use it to create an entirely ground-up neighborhood like Stapleton in Denver, with a dedicated school and park space. Hell, invite DR Horton or Lennar or somebody to build small cottages on the existing street grid.

What makes absolutely no sense is putting a government agency that needs utmost security and privacy into a (still) densely populated urban area, and just handing over the insane amount of land they need to do it. You can tell just by looking at it that there will be zero spillover benefits to the surrounding community, except maybe a new gas station.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by tablemtn

Would workers even feel safe in that area of St. Louis, considering the crime situation it is suffering through at the moment?

An excellent point. St.Louis has a rather lousy reputation due to it's urban blight and especially due to it's astronomical crime and murder rate. Building these start-up areas is the easy part but getting highly skilled and educated workers to work there is the hard one. Such needed workers are highly employable and mobile and can get a job basically anywhere they want. This is where things like quality of life show themselves as not just as positive social and living environments but also a definite economic advantage.

The best thing St.Louis could do to secure their economic future is to concentrate on making the city a more liveable and especially much safer one. Create a city trained workers WANT to move to and not have to because of their job as they are far more easy to entice in the first place and just as importantly easier to retain.

[10023]

Originally Posted by pip

You discovered Google

No, it was explained to me that these people make maps, and I am aware of the term that has been used to describe that activity for centuries.

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by 10023

No, it was explained to me that these people make maps, and I am aware of the term that has been used to describe that activity for centuries.

Don't even bother. Geospatial is a sexed up, marketing term for geography just as 'data science' is for statistics. We're used to this here.

The only new thing in there is progress in electronics, that allows more powerful computers.
But most people don't even know how computers actually work, so "geospatial" and "data science" sound amazing to them, like - wow, how advanced can that be!?

I'll tell you something. Computers are good at this:
1. Collecting and storing data.
2. Efficiently accessing data previously stored and applying treatment.
3. Storing updated data.

This is incremental. You repeat this process over and over again. That is the only thing computers and robots are good for.

Even artificial intelligence is not such a new tech. It is based on algorithmics and statistics that our elders have know about since (at least) the 1970s, as far as I know.
The only difference today is we have electronic components to efficiently implement it.

At some point, ignorant people need to stop fantasizing and be aware of what's real.

[mhays]

To an outsider, many professions probably seem like they're doing the same thing as 1950 but with incrementally better tools.

I highly doubt that's the case here.

[mousquet]

^ I certainly didn't mean to say that today's r&d was useless. Of course spending a lot of money in it is essential and everything grows more and more sophisticated.

I meant to say that these terms are only marketing. They would hype some every couple of years anyway, just to make the general public believe they invented something brand new overnight, which is laughable to insiders and only confusing to outsiders.

I would take these so-called 'tech terms' as a marketing trick. That's all.

[mhays]

New sectors/professions need new names.

In this case, I suspect the name comes from academia, not marketing.