Saturday, April 28, 2012

Re-Developing North Side St. Louis

A close friend sent me an intemperate e-mail several days ago about the move to revitalize what he called St. Louis’s “burned out” neighborhoods. His message was inspired by the report that McEagle Properties was trying to purchase 1,233 parcels of city-owned land as part of an $8 billion, two-square-mile redevelopment project. His e-mail raged against what he thought of as the insanity of improving those neighborhoods without enacting programs that would positively affect the school district, protect existing residents, disrupt drug use, reverse the horrific employment situation, and address the always vexing challenges race plays in St. Louis. Many of us, no matter where we live or what our backgrounds may be, could sympathize with his helplessness and frustration.

After spending a few hours during the next several days mulling over his concerns, I’ve concluded that St. Louisans cannot expect a developer to address society-wide problems that for more than 60 years defied government-sponsored solutions. Everyone who has visited the North Side in the past decade has seen the devastation, abandonment, the heart-breaking landscape of vanished dreams and aspirations. What few of us seem to know is how to reverse the massive devastation brought by decades of disinvestment and abandonment. Since President Reagan, the federal government has washed its hands of anything remotely resembling urban renewal. The State, with its rural-dominated legislature, has no interest in helping the City find a way out of its difficulties.

If federal and state governments are indifferent to the problems demonstrated so powerfully by the North Side, where can citizens look for solutions? Forget the City. It has neither the resources nor the ambition to tackle those persistent economic and social challenges. Local developers have tried for decades to turn individual neighborhoods around and have achieved some success with infill housing and store-front offices. But they are working at a small-scale and have no hope of addressing the larger issues of disinvestment and abandonment that characterize much of North St. Louis. So, what then?

Then you have to examine what people like Paul McKee and McEagle Properties have proposed. It’s easy to find reasons not to like their proposed development. You may object to their high-handed treatment of people living in the North Side. Perhaps you dislike the inevitable gentrification their project will bring. Perhaps it’s the vagueness of the plan that upsets you. Perhaps, like my friend, you think McEagle’s scheme will not result in “regeneration” but rather displacement.

In any case, the McEagle plan is the only one that attempts large-scale revitalization of the North Side. My advice with regard to that plan is to consider a number of options. You can turn your back, walk away, and let the chips fall where they may. You can jump on the opposition bandwagon and work to defeat it. Or you can form groups of like-minded citizens and work to guide the plan in directions you think appropriate.

If the famous organizer Saul Alinsky were alive he would tell residents of the North Side to organize and engage in appropriate actions that would get them a place at the decision-making table. But Alinsky is long gone and McKee is here, brandishing his plan like a preacher thumps his Bible.

The option I advocate is to become part of the process to ensure citizen concerns are not only heard but are incorporated into the plan. That requires hard work and dedication, both of which McKee has demonstrated. The challenge for average citizens is to follow that example, whether you agree with his plan or not.

Please note that this essay was published on April 25 in the St. Louis Suburban Journal West County edition as an Opinion Shaper column.

Monday, April 23, 2012

Who Can You Trust?

Trusting people in leadership positions today is difficult. After all, everyone knows about the horrific pederasty scandal that has infected hundreds of ministers and especially Catholic priests, the widespread failure of national politicians to be committed to anyone except their deep pocketed financial supporters or the “Base,” the endless greed of Wall Street and the Big Banks, and the abject failure of the U.S. Justice Department to be able to understand what the word “justice” means. And hey, don’t forget George W. lied shamelessly to the nation about Saddam Hussein supporting Al Qaida and Obama lied equally shamelessly about being a liberal Democrat who wanted to “change” Washington.

Now we are treated to the prospect of the Catholic hierarchy going after American nuns, intent on whipping them into submission for failing to march lockstep with the bishops, those paragons of virtue who purposefully hid priestly pederasts for decades. What an abject travesty that is.

So, who can YOU trust? What about your spouse? That suggestion makes me think of John Edwards or Eliot Spitzer or the young mother who killed herself after murdering her three children. What about your minister? Oh-oh, don't go there. What about the military academies? Not if you have daughters and don’t want to see them get raped by upperclassmen and then abused by the Academy administrators who lie about trying to stop the sexual attacks.

Can you trust your boss? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Sorry, I nearly choked to death on that one. What about your colleagues, can you trust them? Now that one's complicated. The answer is: it depends on a lot of things, like circumstances, meaning what's at stake and if there were witnesses.

Do you trust Republicans more than you do Democrats? As far as I'm concerned they're all unconscionable liars and charlatans so it's six of one and a half dozen of the other. How about corporations? Anyone out there trust Goldman Sucks? Oops, I meant Goldman Sachs; don't know how I could have made that silly blunder. Or what about General Motors or maybe JP Morgan and Jaime Dimon?

Can you trust stuff your friends say via Facebook, Twitter, or email? If you do you are certifiably mad since people post or send ridiculous, incorrect, off-the-wall shit every day. Which is why Snopes.com exists.

As for me, I trust my wife and my kids. I also trust my doctors, three of whom I've been seeing for more than 20 years. I trust my close friends and certain relatives. I have to be careful here because some of the ones I don’t trust follow this blog; just kidding. That doesn't mean I've haven’t been disappointed by their choices and actions. But that’s life.

Finally, as a group I trust nuns as much as I distrust bishops, which is a whole lot since many of those guys are worse than the worst politicians, who after all are only looking to fill their pockets and reward their supporters whereas many bishops are pederast protectors, like Cardinal Bevilacqua of Philadelphia, who had the great luck to die before he was arrested, or Cardinal Law, who was whisked off to Rome and promoted to a plum job by the Pope after documents revealed he had covered up decades of sexual abuse committed by priests in the Boston archdiocese.

Oh yeah, I'll take the good nuns any day.