Colin Gordon has put together an excellent reference for those interested in the economic history of St. Louis over the last 80 years, but with lessons that could easily apply to any other central city in the United States. We've all seen anecdotal evidence of these problems in run-down inner city neighborhoods, empty buildings in inner suburbs, and gleaming new parking lots in the outer suburbs, but Gordon uses data to back up these assumptions.
The book is roughly 1/2 maps and 1/2 text - and strikes the right balance at that. The maps serve to illustrate visually the scope and scale of "white flight," poor planning decisions, and the lunacy of a fractured metro government. While the city atrophies, suburbs further and further away compete for the same employers, the same stores, and the same residents.
While Gordon shies from making many overall conclusions based on the data and focuses more on presenting the history of what happened - this book provides a model blueprint for civic, business, and academic leaders to understand what to avoid in promoting "growth." Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the Fate of the American City (Politics and Culture in Modern America)
This book, though well-written and quite interesting, is as difficult and disturbing to read as your best friend's obituary, if, like me, you grew up in Saint Louis during the '40's and '50's, that city's last two decades of greatness - "First in booze, first in shoes, last in the American League" - before its decline into its current level of inconsequentiality. The population loss has been so great that, the last time that I was in my old neighborhood, the few houses still standing on my old block, though long-abandoned, still had the glass in their windows. The neighborhood is so deserted and empty that it lacks even vandals. I was surprised that I could see the Arch from in front of my former house. Then it struck me: there was not a single tree left standing anywhere, where once there was a virtual forest of London plane trees, spaced so tightly that nearly every house was shaded by its own tree.
The book tells how now-clearly-stupid decisions, some made back in the 19th C., almost inevitably led to to the death of the modern city. The decision to stick with the steamboat and block easy access to the city by railroads, the decision to make the city into a political entity separate from St. Louis County, yet forcing it to maintain the usual political entities needed by a county, but of no consequence to a city, e.g. there is a Sheriff of St. Louis County and a Sheriff of the City of Saint Louis, in addition to the expected Chief of Police usual in cities.
The book is centered around the history of a single house, located in my former neighborhood and once occupied by a family with whom I was personally acquainted.
Anyone interested in the history of a city and the social, political, and real-estate manipulations that brought it to its metaphorical knees and then killed it will find this book unputdownable.
Mapping Decline does that and much more, following and explaining how St. Louis fell from the fourth largest U.S. city in 1910 to the 48th largest in 2000 and how the population fell from a high of over 800,000 in the 1940s to about 350,000 in 2000. Gordon's history rings true. His tale of racism, lack of leadership, suburban distrust of the city, political fragmentation, and mis-use of federal and state policies led policy makers across metroploitan St. Louis to ignore deteriorating residential neighborhoods to chase after high income residents and commercial development, assist developers rather than residents, and become more concerned with capturing taxes and jobs from neighboring municipalities than the good of the metropolitan area or its less-than-upper-middle class residents.
I am a native of St. Louis and an urban economist. I knew much of what Gordon writes, but it was great to have it all in one place and nicely tied together. Except for the chapter on the ever-evolving post-WWII urban renewal programs, the book reads easily, though the message is painful. His maps are useful, though those not familar with St. Louis geography will probably want to have a road atlas or GIS website handy. The message is important to anyone interested in the modern American city.
but oh, so depressing. I grew up in St. Louis and moved to nearby Illinois 40 years ago, still working downtown and I've seen it all. The author put in graphic/data terms everything I've seen, especially the racism fed by real estate and development interests and exacerbated by a vacuum of political leadership. I'll admit, too, that I didn't finish it and grabbed at the opportunity to pass it on to a colleague whose library version was overdue, believing that she could use the information (she's a data-driven planner). Maybe someday I'll borrow it back when she tells me there's hope at the end of the book...I was afraid to finish it for fear there isn't.
As someone who has pursued a career in urban public policy, and a native St. Louisan, this book is almost physically painful to read. I have read widely about the reasons for the decline of older American cities in general and St. Louis in particular, but nothing prepared me for the powerful impact that Professor Gordon's research, and his graphic depictions of his findings, would have. The fact that St. Louis went from a population of 800,000 people in 1950 to 350,000 in 2000 is bad enough. The fact that 'white flight' to the St. Louis suburbs occurred in part to avoid racial integration is common knowledge. But to see the GIS maps showing the extent and pace of these changes is just devastating.
While Professor Gordon argues that St. Louis is not unique among American cities, I find it hard to believe that other Northern cities experienced such overt racism, prolonged for so long a period of time. I cannot help but wonder whether this degree of racism, which seemed to pervade all levels of the public and private sectors into the 1970s, and distorted the city's federally funded programs intended to ease its problems, is a significant factor in the city's precipitous decline. - Racism'
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