As with many industrial cities in America at the time, post-war St. Louis experienced a rapid decline of its inner city. Desperately seeking solutions before the decay could absorb downtown, local planners and politicians saw slum clearance as the best option.
Decades later, the results are nothing to celebrate. An aggressive demolition policy failed to create a better neighborhood. Instead, it led to a different kind of stigmatized inner city. The chaotic, dirty and declining urban condition of the mid-20th century gave way to the urban prairie of the 21st.
This section of St. Louis, just northeast of downtown, is an extreme but far from exclusive example of the impacts from public policy that heavily favors demolition in neglected areas.
During the 1950s, politicians, planners and architects consistently preached neighborhood clearance. A 1951 article from Architectural Forum titled “Slum Surgery in St. Louis” (pictured left) is accompanied by a map that categorizes almost all of St. Louis’ downtown and inner city as “blighted” or “obsolete.”
The city had two agencies to clear its slums. The St. Louis Land Clearance and Redevelopment Authority demolished targeted areas and sold them back to the private sector for less than market value. The St. Louis Housing Authority cleared land as well and constructed new public housing complexes for displaced residents.
A newly constructed Pruitt Igoe and its soon to be gone surroundings. Click here to see an enlarged version (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).
The Housing Authority constructed the infamous Pruitt-Igoe complex, but it also built more successful housing projects on smaller scales nearby.Those projects however, were still not enough to stabilize the neighborhood or slow down the clearance of this part of the city. For the Land Clearance and Redevelopment Authority, much of the land remained undeveloped, and in many cases, stuck in the city’s hands.
The physical legacy of that era is a neighborhood that hardly qualifies as such. Aided by demolition, nature has slowly taken over the grid with disappearing sidewalks, blocks with nary a building in sight and six-lane streets that drive through green space. Below are a series of aerial images from today that showcase some extreme examples of what comprises this section of inner city St. Louis.
‘Slum Surgery in St. Louis’ photo courtesy of Michael Allen
Thanks for that, Tom. we just got back from a trip to St Louis where we marveled at the great strides that have been made in preserving, rejuvenating and reclaiming many older neighborhoods and commercial districts. It’s sobering to know that they still have daunting problems to match our own.
Very interesting. These pictures remind me of many areas of Detroit.
Man “urban renewal” sure was a colossal failure. And the experts at the time were so sure of its success.
Anon-
Actually, the urban renewal to which I think you are referring- massive public housing blocks- was very controversial especially within the planning and design community. There were many who openly protested the demolition of existing neighborhoods in favor of mid and high rise construction and even predicted their eventual evolution into ghettos and gang controlled fiefdoms. Others openly criticized the lack of attention given to the related actions meant to accompany nearly every one of these projects: child care, resident/ workforce training and building maintenance. Some cities even chose to follow the alternatives proposed by some “experts” by helping citizens acquire low interest loans and o grants for individual home improvements, creating or renovating neighborhood playgrounds and rebuilding local streets. Federal aid proved too tempting for most communties though and now we have to deal with the results.
I agree with Mark, it does look a lot like Detroit. Pretty surreal stuff to see.
Much of the view actually looks like green fields.
St. Louis makes Memphis look really nice. The urban decay up in N. St. Louis is downright shocking. It looks like a war zone . Unreal stuff.
The age old problem of being able to create new housing without a long term economic development plan. Even our new housing projects lack “start up” space for businesses that could emerge from the development.
Aaron-
I agree per the correct course of action, but I am still left wondering how urban prairies can persist. Although downtown St. Louis has suffered its share of employment erosion to the benefit of suburban centers, it remains a prominent center for business and government. Let’s set some ground rules in order to eliminate a few variables (any one of which may be an incorrect assumption on my part):
1) Let’s assume that if suburban taxes are lower, the cost for residents to commute daily between downtown and their homes offsets any decrease in their tax bill as a result.
2) That suburban sprawl is driven in part by the desire for newer homes with large yards.
3) That a significant percentage of these suburban commuter’s children are in private school, thus the state of public schools are a non-issue.
4) That the now vacant inner city neighborhoods cannot be the scene of anything beyond misdemeanor crimes (dumping, vandalism, etc…) simply because no one is left to be the perpetrator of the victim.
With that in mind, I am left wondering why these neighborhoods are vacant. They are open green fields no different than their suburban counterparts except these fields are accompanied by all the infrastructure necessary to build a neighborhood and where urban services (fire protection, street lights, garbage and recycling services) are already present. The market dictates there should be demand there if not for the urban neighborhoods that once existed in the area, than for more suburban like lots and estates.