Downtown St. Louis has made as little progress in urban revitalization as any big city downtown I have been visiting over the last twenty-five years, despite a number of high-profile projects, like Union Station, and the continued success in a number of other St. Louis neighborhoods, like the Central West End, Grand Center, Lafayette Park and Laclede’s Landing. It is significant that the Downtown does come alive, to a certain extent, on the nights of Cardinals games. But when there is no game, both at night and during the day, the streets and sidewalks of the Downtown are dead.

There are a number of contributing factors to this, beyond the impact of the car and the “white flight” that affected so many post-industrial downtowns in the 1960’s and after. First is how far apart from each other active uses are in the Downtown. Many of the streets, particularly Market, are quite wide. Those streets have little shade. Building entrances, particularly those of structures built after 1960, are far apart – and those buildings have only one pedestrian entrance, limiting the level of visible pedestrian activity. Ground floor retail is unusually discontinuous. The St. Louis climate is particularly hostile to outdoor activity year round. A high level of heat and humidity dissuades pedestrians from remaining outdoors for about half the year. With a serious lack of shade – even in parks and plazas – as a result of very limited tree cover. The city’s major tourist attraction, The Gateway Arch, is set off from the downtown by an at-grade highway, and the classic Dan Kiley landscape around it (which has recently been extensively restored), tends to preference design over people and is generally forbidding. Finally, St. Louis may continue to be the most racially segregated big city in America. Continue reading →