By  stlmark, at 4:17 PM

A good start would be to poll the current residents on what they think would best suit the area. The folks that toughed it out as the neighborhood was clearcut and abandoned should be heard first IMHO.

By  KBO, at 12:34 PM

Totally agree with stlmark. Building subdivisions to gentrify the neighborhood is not the answer, because you're just pushing out the low-income families (and any crime that comes in dilapidated neighborhoods) elsewhere. I'd love to see positive community development focusing on affordable housing and mixed income neighborhoods. Check out what this group has done for a previously crime-riddled neighborhood just south of downtown Minneapolis

www.hopecommunity.org

By  garricks, at 12:35 PM

I have to agree with stlmark. The current residents should have a say.

I also think the 80's idea of creating infill no longer works. I don't see a problem with creating modern townhomes next to existing housing stock. We have to let go of The Fair. Just because it was built then doesn't mean it should be rebuilt today. JMHO.

By  prlanning, at 7:27 PM

Yes, ask the current residents.
Please no more New Vinyl)Town's!

By  Anonymous, at 8:50 AM

Where is that?

By  Anonymous, at 10:25 PM

what a glorious opportunity that we all know will be wasted. Leon Strauss, I miss you.

By  Anonymous, at 10:33 PM

can't someone interest people like McCormackBarron in these places?ened

it does come down to ROI, but with time there's gotta be a return.

in '85 I was saying "buy on Washington East of Tucker"...

nobody listened

By  Remiss63, at 7:51 PM

Of the three alternatives you've laid out, I would answer, "No, no, and no."

Bringing in a developer to wipe a clean slate (bulldoze history, culture, and people) might be economically viable, but it displaces the existing residents literally and figuratively. This is wrong. Not merely in a moral sense, but with respect to the overall costs to society and the environment. Displacing people and communities simply pushes problems around and creates a defensive, separatist attitude.

Building suburban style housing on the existing street grid would be disastrous. The street itself would be destroyed except for the use of the automobile. If you're going to go suburban, you might as well rip up the sidewalks. It won't really matter all that much if you maintain the street grid or modify it. The suburban house is a poor model to follow in general and in an urban setting, it is positively destructive and deadening. It results in people being alienated from their environments and from each other.

Restoring the existing homes should absolutely be considered. Even if the cost is greater than the cost of demolishing and rebuilding, there is a sense of history and place inherent in these structures that can help to guide new construction in the area. A completely clean slate is a bad way to start. Why? Because it allows developers / builders / designers to effectively ignore the context and the site's history. Doing so paves the way for anonymous, lowest common denominator, completely "non-offensive" real estate driven investment (i.e. profiteering).

What should we do? Let me think of this a little, although I believe there is a suggestion in my above comments of the appropriate course of action which mediates between complete obliteration of the existing fabric and an attempt at historical replication.

An outline: Rebuild using the principles established by the urban design as it existed. That is, replicate the conceptual fabric for creating a new community that is based directly upon the pre-existing situation. Then, build structures that are honest, direct expressions of the needs, functions, materials, and construction methods used in creating the new homes.

So the figure-ground image of the fully developed neighborhood might resemble the pre-existing figure ground (but not replicate it). The homes would varying in style and type. The homes would not need to necessarily be brick or follow the typology of the existing buildings. Consideration for the existing buildings should be a factor in the design of the new structures, but not the primary determinant of the exterior form.

Otherwise, the exteriors become false masks over suburban crap without character or meaning.


Does that help at all?

By  john w., at 10:36 PM

The photo appears to depict the blocks to the north of the old Pruitt Igoe site in the 5th ward, in the St. Louis Place neighborhood. Area residents should always be included in any effort to redevelop the neighborhoods in which they live, but those with experience in planning and design who are sympathetic to urban issues should clearly be involved in the shaping of space. The neighborhoods of north St. Louis should ABSOLUTELY be redeveloped in a mixed-use, mixed income form, and of medium density infill intensity. Some light industrial occupancies (trucking warehouses, for instance) could be comingled responsibly within the mixed-use neighborhood fabric, which would allow for a more diverse economic makeup. Gentrification is not bad until the cash infusion of wealthier and adventurous empty-nesters and yuppies is proscribed by a defensive gate. Unfortunately most gentrification of recent years amounts to insular gated ‘communities’ that become less interested in participating in the economic activities of the immediate neighborhood and more interested in protecting their property. Though the extant residents of these struggling neighborhoods should be built into the future revitalization, they alone are incapable of sustaining their neighborhoods against the suburban developers who are eyeing the vacancy with selfish intent. A rich demographic range will be necessary to populate any credible redevelopment in these old neighborhoods, and will be reflected in interest from the metropolitan area at large. Attempts to replicate historic appearance through extrapolation (from archives and photos) for no other reason than nostalgia are not necessary. The urban form of the redeveloped neighborhoods should only replicate the patterns and density of these neighborhoods as they thrived 80 to 100 years ago. Form-based zoning could give the legislative foundation needed to infill on the grand scale needed to establish the urban vitality long ago lost, and inventive approaches to construction such as prefabrication could provide means of affordable housing to those out of traditional market range. There was a design charette yesterday (1/19) to generate ideas for the open spaces associated with the 14th Street Mall, and it’s events such as this that should happen frequently and be attended by both the resident neighbors and the talented.

By  Doug Duckworth, at 1:52 PM

Andrew and John are correct. Mixed use urban infill, along with rehab of existing structures, is the way to go.