最新杏吧原创

People living here. Lots of them.

Not just Cardinals fans dropping in for a ballgame.听Not just conventioneers visiting from Memphis or Indianapolis. Not just office workers, a group that is much smaller since COVID and not likely to grow in the near future.

In a horse-and-cart kind of way, virtually every problem the city鈥檚 core faces today 鈥� vacant storefronts, aging infrastructure, empty streets, the chaotic behavior it all attracts 鈥� sits behind the problem of not enough people living here.

So how do you get people to move to a downtown that, as it stands now, lacks the kind of vibrancy that those inclined toward an urban lifestyle want?

One idea: Pay them to move here.

Hear us out.

The Post-Dispatch Editorial Board for the past week has published a series of editorials exploring how 最新杏吧原创 might revive its downtown/Downtown West corridor. That鈥檚 the more than two-square-mile stretch from the Arch grounds on the east, Jefferson Avenue on the west, Chouteau Avenue on the south and just beyond Washington Avenue on the north. We are keeping all the editorials in the series outside our paywall, free to everyone, to include as many community members in the conversation as possible.

People who want lively amenities downtown don鈥檛 see enough of them today. But getting entrepreneurs to provide those amenities is difficult because of the neighborhood鈥檚 lack of population density.

Could cash interrupt that cycle?

In late 2018, Tulsa, Oklahoma, launched its 鈥溾�� program, offering $10,000 grants from the George Kaiser Family Foundation to remote workers from outside the state to relocate into the city. Those who apply must meet specific conditions and agree to remain in Tulsa for at least a year.

How has it worked out? As of this year, the program has drawn more than 4,000 new residents into Tulsa. The $50 million investment to date has generated $878 million in direct employment income, according to data from the program鈥檚 . That income that spins off into local tax revenue, support for local businesses and everything else that comes with an increased working population.

Could something like that 鈥� cash incentives 鈥� be leveraged to draw new residents to 最新杏吧原创' downtown? The idea should be on the table.

Settling the details would be daunting. What would be the amount of the incentives? Would they apply only to remote workers, or to a wider range of employment? How far outside the neighborhood would applicants have to be moving in from?

But if it works, a new cycle could emerge. More population density would incentivize entrepreneurs to establish more restaurants, storefronts and other amenities. The new amenities become their own draw, keeping the new residents here and luring in others.

We can begin to answer one key question: Where would the money come from?

The city is sitting on $250 million from the legal settlement over the loss of the NFL Rams. We have argued for years that it should be used only for a moonshot of an idea 鈥� one that can be leveraged for the long-term good of the city.

The revival of downtown is that moonshot. And there鈥檚 already a template for how it could work.

We鈥檙e not suggesting the entire quarter-billion dollars be poured into the effort. That would be unconscionable, especially given the devastation in tornado-ravaged north city.

We don't disagree with residents who have advocated for Rams money to help with tornado recovery. But the goals are not mutually exclusive 鈥� the city can both revive its downtown and address other needs.

It was just two years ago that Greater 最新杏吧原创 Inc. and others in the business community stepped up with a proposal that should have been accepted: Spend $100 million of the Rams money on downtown rejuvenation, and the business community would more than double it.

City leaders back then dropped that ball amid provincial squabbling. It鈥檚 time for current leaders to get that offer back on the table 鈥� as well as looking for other ways to leverage private funding. The resources and enthusiasm are there, just waiting for political leadership.

Here are other potential tools for downtown revival.

More cops, more policing

We need more 鈥� and more visible 鈥� police presence downtown.

The problem of police understaffing, downtown as across the city, is primarily budgetary. The city pays its police officers less than those of many surrounding communities, making recruitment and retention difficult. It's a key reason why the city has hundreds of police jobs it can't fill.

The state-run Police Board鈥檚 demand that the city just produce money it doesn鈥檛 have for the department, other city services be damned, isn鈥檛 realistic. But since that demand is effectively an unfunded state mandate on the city 鈥� something the Missouri Constitution prohibits 鈥� it would be appropriate for the state to kick in some of that funding.

Getting more police downtown must be paired with more policing of even minor infractions that feed a narrative of downtown chaos. Speeders, vandals, unruly nighttime crowds, and aggressive panhandlers all听drive the perceptions of an out-of-control downtown environment.

Cops who are around, visible and active, would help tamp down the chaos, and the perceptions.听Here, too, the business community can help by continuing to fund private security in the neighborhood.听

Taxes and other incentives听

We know from the downtown core鈥檚 revival in the early 2000s that economic incentives can work to bring businesses downtown.

Pending state legislation to incentivize developers to re-purpose downtown office space into homes is crucial. At this writing, has passed the Missouri House and is pending in the Senate. Its approval is imperative for the conversion of the AT&T Tower from vacant offices to apartments, among other projects.

Myriad smaller incentive programs already exist that should be more aggressively publicized. Greater 最新杏吧原创 has , offering grants to spur everything from sidewalk cafes to signage to pop-up retail shops in vacant storefronts.听The 最新杏吧原创 Development Corp., the city鈥檚 nonprofit economic development agency, offers commercial loans, gap financing and other tools to help businesses locate or expand downtown.

Incentives should be aimed not just at attracting businesses, but also at keeping current downtown residents. How about a fund that pays downtown restaurants and other businesses to offer discounts to customers who live in the neighborhood? Show a driver鈥檚 license with a downtown address, get 20% off your dinner.

Overhaul streets, clean up blight

The artful brick surface of Washington Avenue has been allowed to deteriorate over the past decade. Other streets throughout the neighborhood (like those in many other parts of town) are a dingy, pot-holed, steel-plate-covered mess.

The city has a tornado-battered north side to deal with, as well as more typical budget problems. We get it. But there鈥檚 no way to convince the 最新杏吧原创 region and the world that downtown is on its way back while the streets and other infrastructure look like this.

One idea: How about a broader version of what Alderman Rasheen Aldridge and Alderwoman Jami Cox Antwi听did in creating the new ? That program, passed in March, will leverage bonds and state money to听provide infrastructure improvements and added security around stadiums.

Meanwhile, nothing says urban decay like vacant, derelict buildings left to rot in plain sight.

Yes, eminent domain litigation and building remediation are expensive and time-consuming processes听鈥� but they must be moved along more quickly.

For the city to allow, for example, drivers on a main thoroughfare like Tucker Boulevard to look up, year after year, at the graffiti-covered city-owned garage at Locust sends a message: We don鈥檛 care.听That affects a lot more than just the view.

The city and its partners, including听downtown businesses and civic groups,听should launch a program to scrub or paint over the graffiti, sweep away the rubble and otherwise clean up the physical appearance of crumbling structures and their surrounding streets.

Find a quarterback

Greater 最新杏吧原创. Explore 最新杏吧原创. Downtown Forward. Citizens for a Greater Downtown 最新杏吧原创. The Downtown Neighborhood Association. The Downtown 最新杏吧原创 Foundation. The Regional Business Council. Numerous downtown Community Improvement Districts.

If there鈥檚 one thing the downtown corridor has plenty of, it鈥檚 supportive governmental, nonprofit, business and civic organizations. Which, ironically, may explain why it听doesn鈥檛听have a comprehensive plan for revival.

Some of these groups already work in conjunction with each other, but most don鈥檛. Without a common agenda, they鈥檙e not pulling in the same direction.

That was a top conclusion from recent round-table talks involving many of those groups. The talks were facilitated by the Regional Business Council, comprised of CEOs from major local companies.

鈥淧articipants want shared priorities, a quarterbacking function, and an end to duplicated or competing efforts,鈥� states a summary that was shared with us by RBC President Karen Branding. 鈥淣o existing entity currently fills that role, and room acknowledged that building one raises its own challenges.鈥�

There are plenty of well-intentioned players in the downtown arena. It's time for one of them to, as the RBC summary suggests, become the starting quarterback.

Stop the bashing听

最新杏吧原创ans in both the suburbs and the city have a habit of talking down about downtown. Turning those detractors into supporters is among the most daunting challenges to neighborhood revival.

How about a concerted public relations campaign to counter the myth of rampant violent crime, while highlighting what's being done about the rest?

Part of that should be to show our region that there actually are听things to do downtown. We love the idea that emerged from the recent stakeholders鈥� roundtable of the Regional Business Council: a 鈥渟taycation鈥� program that works with downtown hotels to offer cut-rate rooms to lure in regional residents for a visit.

It should be promoted alongside specific things to do, beyond the obvious like pro sports and the Arch: The restaurants, the , , the live music (, , ), the architecturally focused .

We pledge to do our part. The Editorial Board will continue highlighting these and other downtown issues in editorials, zeroing in on problems and possible solutions 鈥斕齜ut also putting a spotlight on the positive things happening. Downtown needs some good buzz. We'll look for opportunities to provide it.

About those street vendors

We鈥檒l end this series on the unlikely subject with which it began: Hot dogs.

That is, the neighborhood conflict between sidewalk food vendors on Washington Avenue who have been open as late as 3 a.m., and some local residents who want to restrict the vendors to earlier hours to foster a quieter atmosphere. The city has long failed to enforce an ordinance that limits the vendors to an 11 p.m. curfew.

We鈥檙e with the vendors.

That鈥檚 not a criticism of those who disagree. Like all the downtown interests we鈥檝e interacted with during this series, they have a sincere desire to revive their struggling neighborhood.

But their stance mistakenly conflates downtown activity with downtown chaos. The vendors encourage the former, which the neighborhood needs. We鈥檝e seen zero evidence that they invite the latter. Troublemakers make trouble, they don鈥檛 stand in line for a dog and chips.

That said, the听critics are right to want the city to enforce its own ordinances. So the Board of Aldermen should change the ordinance to officially allow late-night sidewalk vending to continue.

It鈥檚 part of a great downtown vibe.

This series was conceived, and its subjects interviewed, by the Post-Dispatch Editorial Board: Editorial Page Editor Kevin McDermott, Post-Dispatch Publisher Ian Caso, and community board members Antonio French, Janet Y. Jackson and Lynn Schmidt. It was researched and written by McDermott.