A New Millennium | Snapshot | Demographics | Economy | Housing
Infrastructure | Public/Social Services | Public Facilities | Quality of Life | Conclusion

QUALITY OF LIFE

St. Louis' quality of life is characterized by the historic charm of its architecture, the friendliness of its people, the range of leisure time activities available to residents, the large number of parks and green spaces, and the quality of its major business, health care, and cultural institutions. For many residents of St. Louis, this is the ideal place to live - big enough to include most of the amenities of a larger city, yet small enough to maintain a small town, neighborly atmosphere.

But St. Louis' quality of life is also threatened by several underlying and persistent issues that frequently derail positive initiatives and cast an aura of distrust and/or competitiveness that wears away at those seeking to ensure progress for the region. Chief among these issues is racial polarization and government fragmentation.

Some examples help paint the picture more clearly. One of the region's biggest success stories, as described earlier in this section, has been its light rail system, MetroLink, which has exceeded all expectations for passenger usage and demand. Yet, when a proposal was made to extend MetroLink into St. Charles County to accommodate the thousands of commuters who work in St. Louis City and County, the voters there rejected it out of fear that it would make it easier for "criminal elements" to reach them from the City.

Another example relates to the construction of the Trans World Dome in Downtown St. Louis. When it was first proposed that the Dome be financed through a collaborative effort among the City, St. Louis County, and the State of Missouri, people laughed. Why would County taxpayers want to support a building downtown, they asked? Only after much debate on the benefits of "regional assets" was the financing package worked out, marking a landmark date in regional progress.

Yet another example has to do with the region's unique and successful Zoo Museum Tax District. Established in 1968, this District taxes property owners in the City and County to support the region's major cultural institutions: the Zoo, Art Museum, Science Center, History Museum, and Botanical Garden. As a result of this funding, these institutions - all of which are located in the City - have been well maintained and worthy of their "world famous" status in many areas. Yet, because of the fragmented nature of the region's government structure, nearly 40% of the region's citizens get a free ride, enjoying the advantages of great, quality institutions, low or free admission, and no tax burden. Expansion of the Zoo Museum District taxing authority into other counties in the MSA would help ensure this aspect of the region's quality of life remains strong, yet prospects for support in outlying areas is uneven.

Despite these concerns, St. Louis does have a strong base of assets, which support a good quality of life for the majority of citizens. A few of these assets are described below.

• Saint Louis University, both at its north campus and Medical Center locations, is an excellent example of an emerging institutional asset. The recent design and landscaping improvements have represented a real Jesuit blessing to midtown St. Louis - an authoritative institutional presence where previously there were disparate city streets, university school buildings, abandonment, and the remains of Laclede Town. The Medical School, in selling its hospital to Tenet, has secured a future for itself and for its contribution to medical education.
• Washington University Medical School, a long-standing community asset, has been equally aggressive in its own role in an integrated delivery system with BJC. Institutionally they together dominate the Central West End, expanding east toward Saint Louis University in a current version of the "Technopolis" plans of the Community Development Administration. They have built parking lots and are redesigning space to the north while sponsoring competition with existing merchants by installing ventures like retail book superstores (Barnes and Noble). Finally, the Medical Center Redevelopment Corporation has been accumulating federal grants to undertake more concerted efforts to the south in the dramatically undernourished Forest Park Southeast neighborhood.
• BJC (Barnes-Jewish) Hospital, with its goal of providing medical care to a million patients by the year 2000, is a long-standing institutional asset for St. Louis that is swelling in scope. Its merger history is a national case study of the birth of an integrated delivery system. BJC has also assumed responsibility (and financial losses) for ConnectCare, the voucher-like successor to direct city provision of acute care.
• Three corporations that have been long-standing resilient institutions and also physically dominate the city's landscape are:
  
  • Anheuser-Busch, with both an employment base and logos and symbols that exemplify St. Louis traditions.
  • Ralston Purina at Checkerboard Square, with its tradition of Danforths and a new generation of corporate managers who have tried to convince the city to retreat on its earnings tax in order to keep them in the city.
  • A. G. Edwards, for so long the only non-Wall Street-located member of the Securities Industry Association, perched on Jefferson and playing a lead role in the continuing evolution of the Laclede Town and midtown space.
• The St. Louis Symphony is a long-standing St. Louis asset whose stock rose internationally during Leonard Slatkin's term as conductor.
• Last but not least, the Gateway Arch, the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, remains the symbol of St. Louis and a major tourist attraction for the region.

THE QUALITY OF LIFE FOR CHILDREN

St. Louis, for the past seven years, has benefited from a national model of a children's advocacy collaborative called Vision for Children at Risk (VCR). VCR's research component, Project Respond, has been the region's primary source in pinpointing the prevalence and targeting the location of any negative social indicators involving children.

Twice, VCR hosted regional Children's Summits to secure commitments from public, private, and nonprofit institutions to support a Children's Agenda addressing those indicators. VCR additionally had the principal local role in coordinating the implementation of the U.S. Department of Justice's anti-juvenile delinquency program, Safe Futures.

However, in August, 1999, St. Louisans learned that even excellent processes like VCR were no substitute for major social action when Zero Population Growth issued its national Kid Friendly Cities Report Card. With a grade of "F," St. Louis was second to last (Baltimore) on ZPG's list of 25 major cities.

VCR's Project Respond Search Director Nate Thompson had said in 1997: "We've got certain zipcodes where it's almost like living in a third world country." And Neonatalogist Corinne Walentik had commented, "We can't get school-based clinics in the schools. You can't talk about contraceptives. We don't do a good job of letting our patients know what services they're entitled to."

The August 29, 1999 Post-Dispatch editorialized that "St. Louisans take great pride in the region as a terrific place to raise a family.... in a sense (the city of) St. Louis' kids are the canaries in the mineshaft...The slow statistical decline (in some indicators) means little to a poor, young mother whose scrawny infant has just died in a neonatal intensive care unit, or to a middle class family tired of living in a city with crummy services."

ST. LOUIS' PSYCHE

The 1997 Peirce Report marked a significant milestone in St. Louis' self-study. That report examined the best and worst of the region and painted a picture tinted with rays of hope amid pages of gloom.

Perhaps most significant, Peirce pinpointed "a timid civic psyche" preoccupied with 1904 (perhaps when the city peaked), characterized by suspicion between the races, and, given (in their view) the stalemate between so much government, much deference toward Civic Progress, the corporate leadership often expected to make key St. Louis public decisions (and they quote a Civic Progress member: "We're expected to solve all the community's problems. Expectations are much higher than we can produce)."

Peirce and Johnson, on a more micro level, blamed the low levels of production of new and rehabilitated housing units in the city not to the market (and the attractiveness of inexpensive suburban single family homes), but to the relative absence in St. Louis of neighborhood community development corporations. They noted how national intermediary organizations (Local Initiatives Support Corporation, Enterprise Foundation) which might have helped these organizations were run off in the 1980's, when they expressed interest in playing a role in St. Louis. They quoted an expert who had been assessing St. Louis: "St. Louis is a deeply flawed region with massive assets. The challenge is to fix the structure to use the assets before St. Louis disappears."

If the city has its assets, it also might be said to have virtues to help support its next five years. These include entrepreneurialism, innovation, generosity, and public and private leadership. Examples of these virtues in action include:

• Entrepreneur magazine in 1997 voted St. Louis as the second best metropolitan area for entrepreneurs and small businesses (behind Portland).
• In the 1998 rankings of utility patent grants (patents) issued by metropolitan area, St. Louis ranked 29th, with 743 patents.
• Hennen's American Public Library Rating Index, in its second edition using 1997 data, rated St. Louis' Public Library as the 36th best of 90 libraries serving populations of a similar size.
• The United Way's goal for 1999 was $60 million, up from $51.7 million in 1995, $53.8 million in 1996, $55.7 million in 1997, and $57.3 million in 1998.
• The Chronicle of Philanthropy (February 22, 1994) placed St. Louis charitable giving in a national perspective based upon early 1990's comparative metropolitan area donations (per capita) to ten big national charities, and by four different foundation sources. Within The Chronicle's system, St. Louis ranked 14th of the 50 largest metropolitan areas.
• St. Louis developer Richard Baron, on the other hand, decided that a necessary supplement to housing he was building in St. Louis's Murphy neighborhood would be an excellent neighborhood school, so he and the city public schools have partnered in the development of the Jefferson School.
• A more familiar example of regional generosity has been college scholarship assistance, such as the Scholarship Foundation has administered since 1920 on behalf of corporate and Jewish community donors, and partially raised through an upmarket rummage store. Last year, seven hundred students received $1.6 million in loans, and $250,000 in grants. The loans have had a 98% rate of repayment.
• In 1998 and 1999, FOCUS St. Louis, the region's citizens' league, honored more than 40 City individuals and institutions for their innovative approaches to solving local issues.
• An extraordinary innovation in its own right has been the Forest Park restoration process, and particularly Forest Park Forever's work in mobilizing corporate and volunteer support for the 1293 acre Park with its 12 million annual visitors. A public-private partnership between the City and Forest Park Forever, a nonprofit booster group, is raising $86 million to fund major renovation of the park and ensure its ongoing vitality as the heart of the region.
• The reorganization of Civic Progress, an organization of the CEO's of St. Louis' largest companies, to include more companies and to focus its energies on regional issues of greatest importance.
• The ascension of African-American political leaders to elected offices at City Hall.

Another leading indicator of the quality of life in St. Louis over the coming five years can be found in the recent formation of St. Louis 2004. This is a region-wide effort, led by Civic Progress leaders, to assure St. Louis of world class city status in time for the 100th anniversary of the 1904 World's Fair. Since 1996, 2004 has worked to engage citizens in "vision" sessions about the future of the region, and has identified 11 initiatives it hopes to achieve by 2004. These include downtown revitalization, a 26-mile Confluence Greenway covering trails on both sides of the Mississippi River, sustainable neighborhoods, improved health care for St. Louisans, and increased recreational opportunities and support services for children and youth, among others.

At the start of his administration, Mayor Harmon developed a "Shared Vision" for the city government, describing its mission as: "...(to) improve the integrity and effectiveness of city government to restore public trust. In order to do that we must focus on those 'vital few' priorities that will drive the most significant positive impact on the quality of life of St. Louisans and the financial health of the city."

The "vital few" priorities were neighborhood and economic development, educational excellence, racial harmony, and government effectiveness.

The Mayor's position paper on education was designed to provide guidance on how he might act in accordance with his view that "all attempts to revitalize the city, all attempts to elevate our region's national standing, are fruitless unless we address the fundamental issue of education." This issue affects the city's ability to attract and retain residents, field a quality workforce, and succeed in neighborhood and economic development.

Unfortunately the St. Louis mayor's office has little responsibility for the entirely independent and separately elected governance system of the public schools. The position paper recommended that the Mayor monitor "educational opportunities for all ages" in the city, support all (public, parochial, private, charter) such opportunities, make certain that city services successfully assist the schools, and promote and recognize collaboration, dialogue, volunteering, mentoring and parental involvement.

"Racial Harmony" also was studied in a July 1999 position paper. This is appropriate in a city that can trace its racial problems all the back to pre-Civil War days. Racial polarization pervades virtually every aspect of life in St. Louis, yet many local residents, especially those that are white, prefer to ignore the problem rather than deal with it. As a result, the City faces an unusual situation where those who are new to the community can immediately feel the racial tension (and often avoid moving here as a result) and those who are native who fail to recognize (or acknowledge) that problems exist.

In recent years, this issue has become somewhat of a rallying cry for local leaders and community groups. FOCUS St. Louis, for example, has launched a program called Bridges, which brings people of different races together in social settings to try to break down some of the barriers that separate them. Civic Progress companies pledged action in regard to job creation, recruitment, capital formation, and technical assistance to and increased purchasing from minority businesses, through its new Committee on Racial Economic Progress. The region's largest nonprofits promised to hire minority executives and to train minority volunteers. Government leaders committed themselves to the appointment of minority members of regional boards and commissions. Five universities promised to expand their utilization of minority vendors.

Whether these initiatives will have any lasting impact remains unclear. But the fact that the issue of race is beginning to be discussed openly and directly in many circles bodes well for the community as it looks to the future.

ARTS AND CULTURE

In Where We Stand, the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council ranks St. Louis 23rd among 35 metropolitan areas in its "Culture and Recreation Index" (at a 7.39 index, compared to an average 6.75 index). The last Places Rated Almanac (David Savageau and Geoffrey Longest, 1997, Macmillan), an important source for EWGCC, rates St. Louis 18th among American cities, employing five libraries, three museums, and five lively arts (theater, opera, ballet, traveling performers, symphony) criteria.

Much of the current performing arts debate has been centered on the questions of available venues.

For example, the then-Kiel Partners, Civic Progress companies, committed themselves to the restoration of the Kiel Opera House when they built the Kiel Center after demolishing the previous facility, attached to the Opera House. But after spending $2.5 million on the Opera House roof and mechanical systems, the Kiel Partners chose to interpret this expenditure as the fulfillment of their legal commitment. This left the Opera House without water on its top three floors, no air conditioning, only 40% of its steam heat capacity, code-violating elevators, and ADA-violating restrooms.

Reopening the Opera House might result in traffic problems for Kiel Center customers on nights when events simultaneously are being held in both facilities. More politically sensitive is the competition the 3,500-seat Opera House would represent for the 4,500-seat Fox Theater at Grand Center not far away. St. Louis civic leaders are also concerned about the viability of the University of Missouri - St. Louis's new 1,600-seat performing arts center, which will compete with the Fox, the 1,000-seat Westport Playhouse, the 1,800-seat American Theater, and the 600-seat Sheldon Theater.

Dedicated preservationists are fighting for Kiel, but they must contend with the vagueness of the goals of a performing arts venue without specific bookings, or the ability to project revenue streams. They talk of enormous, elegant turn-of-the-century-style dinner theater (as Baltimore has), but a consultant hired by 2004 recommended not to save the Opera House, but instead to build a new 1,800-seat venue at Grand Center (since the Opera House renovation would be costly and then unnecessary competition for the Fox Theater). The St. Louis Cultural Assessment Study itself phrased it this way: "The Kiel is too large to be renovated in its current configuration and is too cumbersome to be downsized to create a smaller venue." Additionally, there are operational logistical problems because it adjoins the Center, and, further, it is not located in Grand Center.

SPORTS

During the 1990s, the people of St. Louis - or at least their leaders - made a clear decision on what constitutes "quality of life" when they launched an all-out and highly expensive effort to lure a National Football league team here from Los Angeles. The rationale was that the City would not be seen as "major league" in the eyes of the rest of the country unless it had a professional sports franchise in the NFL. The debate over this decision, triggered primarily be the high cost of bringing the Rams to St. Louis, continues to this day. With the Rams starting the 1999 seasons with a 6-2 record, many feel the debate will ultimately swing in favor of those who supported bringing football, and all of its national publicity and hype, to St. Louis.

St. Louis' other professional sports teams continue to experience modest financial success, playing to largely sold-out stadia and reaping benefits from the sale of merchandise bearing the names and numbers of stars like Mark McGwire. The recent sale of the hockey Blues to a "local" owner has fueled new hopes of a winning franchise. That same owner may ultimately succeed in bringing a professional basketball team to play in the Kiel Center, which he now owns as part of the Blues purchase.

The importance of sports to the St. Louis psyche and to its quality of life has never been questioned. Just how important will likely be hotly debated again in the coming years as the baseball cardinals have already put out feelers about the need for a new baseball stadium that is at least partially financed with public funds. How local taxpayers will react on the heels of the payout for the Rams may be one of the most interesting and telling aspects of St. Louis life in the coming decade.

As professional teams continue to ratchet up prices, minor league franchises have also begun to flourish in the area. These include the River Otters hockey team, the indoor soccer Steamers, and the basketball Swarm in St. Charles, and independent baseball Frontier League Rascals in nearby O'Fallon, MO (who drew the all time League-leading attendance figure of 152,000 ticket sales in the Rascals' first year in 1999). The success of these teams in competing for regional entertainment dollars could have an impact on St. Louis tax receipts and the need to finance bigger and more appealing venues in the City if it is to maintain its competitive advantages.