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st. louis

A Highway Runs Through It

December 1, 2011 by Next American City
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A way to rethink I-70 and the arch Credit: Vanishing STLAs the St. Louis Arch itself neared completion in 1964, before the surrounding park became anything more than a parking lot and construction site, the area was amputated from the city by what would come to be referred to as a “crushing maze of infrastructure”. Interstate 70 was... [read more]

McKee Receives $19.6M in State Tax Credits for NorthSide, Next Step: $400M TIF Request

January 5, 2010 by Alex Ihnen
with 168 views
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Paul McKee received possibly the best Christmas present of any of us: $19.6M from the State of Missouri in the form of tax credits that in effect pay him back for purchasing a significant portion of North St. Louis. Awarding tax credits was the next crucial step to move the $8.1B NorthSide project forward and will free up resources to... [read more]

Food stamps at Farmer's Markets: Supporting the Local Economy and Helping Residents Eat Healthy

December 6, 2009 by Alex Ihnen
with 189 views
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If you haven't been keeping up and do not use food stamps, you may not know that the once colorful slips of paper have been replaced by electronic cards, similar to credit cards. In theory, these cards could be used anywhere. Why not local neighborhood farmer's markets?In New York City the use of food stamps at local markets has doubled... [read more]

Get Involved and Make Your Voice Heard: A Too-Simple Recipe to Stop Interstate Highway Expansion

December 5, 2009 by Alex Ihnen
with 169 views
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{the Major Deegan in 1939}The Major Deegan Expressway in New York shares a number of similarities with the Daniel Boone Expressway (I-64/Highway 40) here in St. Louis. Both are legacies of a bygone era and were built for slower traffic and at least not envisioned initially as Interstate highways. St. Louis now has itself a "New I-64"... [read more]

St. Louis leads with model project for smart, green streets

October 19, 2009 by Kaid Benfield
with 389 views
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    A month-long test of a redesigned "complete street" on one of St. Louis's neighborhood thoroughfares has proven immensely popular with residents, prompting the city to go forward with full construction of the first of four planned demonstration projects for community-friendly streetscapes.  According to a press... [read more]

St. Louis Needs More Traffic Jams to Support Improved Public Transit and Sustainability

October 13, 2009 by Alex Ihnen
with 249 views
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St. Louis needs more traffic jams to support public transit and sustainability. At least that's the conclusion one would reach by reading last Friday's Wall Street Journal. The common perception is that idling traffic is bad for the environment, but the author makes a convincing case that a certain amount of inconvenience is needed if... [read more]

Will Parasite Pre-fab Infect Your City Soon?

September 30, 2009 by Alex Ihnen
with 1,106 views
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{prefab parasitic architecture by Lara Calder Architects}So it may be unlikely to extremely unlikely that we'll see something like this in St. Louis or any city less dense than say Boston or San Francisco. Prefab parasitic architecture aims to take advantage of unused and nearly unusable urban sites. The premise is that with the... [read more]

Carmaggeddon (Lack of): the Counterintuitive Nature of Traffic and Why St. Louis Has Nothing to Fear

September 13, 2009 by Alex Ihnen
with 90 views
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There are very encouraging signs that at least St. Louis City is choosing to accommodate pedestrians on at least equal footing as cars along some major streets, South Grand south of Arsenal and Manchester Avenue in The Grove are two such examples. Traffic lanes and car-prioritization is a policy choice and not a traffic study. For too... [read more]

Time to Celebrate Old School St. Louis Urbanism (c.1250)

August 22, 2009 by Alex Ihnen
with 110 views
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{an aerial rendering of urban Cahokia}The first time I drove to St. Louis knowing that it would be my new home I had a keener eye than previous pass-throughs on my way to Colorado or Arkansas from Indiana. Specifically, I wanted to glimpse Cahokia Mounds, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I was told that I could see at least the largest... [read more]

Washington University, Barnes-Jewish Hospital Spending Big to Light Up the Streets

July 21, 2009 by Alex Ihnen
with 152 views
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{a snapshot of the variety of lights to be found in just one block within the WU/BJC campus}There are a lot of lights on the WU/BJC medical campus, or at least there are a wide variety of lights. On just one block of Taylor Avenue no fewer than 10 varieties of street, pedestrian and parking lighting can be seen. Now it appears that the... [read more]

St. Louis In Desperate Need of Simple Streetscape Solutions

July 15, 2009 by Alex Ihnen
with 136 views
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{5th Avenue in Seattle, WA}It's fun to think big: BIG street art, BIG lights, BIG streetscape projects. But what's makes for an appealing streetscape? According to hugeasscity it's simple:a) small-scale storefrontsb) a wide sidewalkc) mid-block pedestrian crossingsd) street treese) human-scale lightingThroughout St. Louis we have broken... [read more]

Blogger of the Week - Alex Ihnen of the St. Louis Urban Workshop

July 13, 2009 by Ari Herzog
with 639 views
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"Having long contributed comments to other blogs and forums, I established my own blog, the St. Louis Urban Workshop, in March of this year. It’s been a great way to connect to others with similar interests, and along with a Twitter account (@stlurbanworkshp), has introduced me to professionals within development, urban planning, and... [read more]