It’s blue skies over the Midwest as I travel to work with clients here in St Louis. Driving into the orderly, clean, rapidly-revitalizing downtown district, I cannot help but make a comparison in how different this city’s economic development has been compared with Baltimore.
Both cities had thriving manufacturing sectors early in 20th Century. Both cities hollowed out in the 1970s, expanding in endlessly-sprawling suburbs in all directions. Both cities left the infrastructure of their downtowns to rot. And both began projects of revitalization in the 1990s, hoping to heal the scars of gross economic inequity and re-center their civic life.
Baltimore launched a massive redevelopment centering around national big-box retail and major attractions. It is bankrupt.
St Louis redeveloped slowly, around local retailers, local investors, small projects. Block by block, it has gotten a little better each year, improving real estate, increasing access to services, getting a bit cleaner, a bit prettier. Nothing too drastic.
The value in slow growth seems to be showing itself…slowly.
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