PERSPECTIVE: Let’s “Make Everyday Life Better”
Date Posted: October 14, 2024
Posted In: Discussion, Ideas, Regionalism,
by Tom Finan, Executive Director, Construction Forum
“You make everyday life better and that gets people to stay in the city. If people stay, then you can start to bring businesses back.”
That quotation could have come from any number of leaders in the St. Louis Region… except it didn’t.
Instead, it was Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan who was quoted in an article that ran on the front page and two full inside pages of the business section of this past Sunday’s New York Times. The point of the times article was that Detroit – which 11 years ago declared bankruptcy – is on a roll.
- Its population grew last year. Admittedly the growth was 2,000 people, but it represented the first uptick since 1967.
- Young urban pioneers are moving to Detroit, attracted by the energy there, and natives are returning to live and start businesses.
- More than 35,000 vacant and dilapidated houses in depressed neighborhoods have been renovated.
- The City has provided grants that have started more than 170 small businesses.
- The City’s Beaux-Arts train station has been renovated at a cost of $950M, not as a tourist attraction but as offices for Ford Motor Company.
- Ford also bought a former book depository designed by Albert Kahn adjacent to the station and renovated it into “Newlab,” a 270,000-square-foot mobility-focused incubator (e.g. an electric ATV, a fire blanket for EVs, a beyond-visual-line-of-sight drone-tracking) drone tracking system.
Detroit is still struggling with crime (but murders are fewest since 1966) and schools. But Duggan’s approach has made a difference by, the Times said, “fixing the streetlights; improving trash collection; shortening response times by policy and other emergency services; opening parks and rebuilding recreation systems.” Cameras and gunshot detection devices have reduced violent crime.
If Detroit can recover from being the worst in the nation to being a contender that’s attracting young people in a decade, so can we. Part of what’s needed is a focus on the basics.
“Potential to Be Transformational”
Last week AIA St. Louis hosted a continuing education session at Carpenters Hall that touched on Gateway South advanced building collaboration district, the Gateway Decathlon sustainable housing competition, and the need for a uniform offsite construction code.
Following the discussion, which I moderated with offsite expert Bobby Vance, competition manager of the Gateway Decathlon and offsite code expert Matt Belcher, principal of Verdatek Solutions, the architects in the room expressed enthusiasm for the ways in which Gateway South can capitalize on our industry’s expertise in the built environment to focus a light on the St. Louis Region’s assets, create jobs and build a better future, a little bit at a time.
We heard the same kinds of comments on Sept. 26th when the Forum hosted an event on, “The Future of Construction” at Gateway South.
In an interview in the St. Louis Business Journal last week, Kyle Anderson, executive director of the Leadership Council of Southwestern Illinois was asked about his organization’s concern about the impact of Downtown St. Louis on development in Metro East.
Anderson replied: “For us, it’s vital. Because if that continues to move west, it hurts Illinois. I think we need the Gateway South development. That has the potential to be transformational.
“If you go to other downtown core areas, like Louisville, other places have a place where everyone goes. Ballpark Village is a great start during (the) Cardinals season. But I feel like we need that permanent draw, that unique thing that businesses are going to be like, you know what, I can’t leave downtown, because we’ll be too far away from that. We need that one big anchor. I think that anchor should be designed towards whatever’s happening to Gateway South,” Anderson said.
“Whatever’s happening” in Gateway South is taking the things that St. Louis is great at – construction knowledge, transportation, great architecture, wonderful neighborhoods – and bringing it all together in one place.
A Thousand Little Things
It’s not one huge influx of cash or energy – we see how that’s been working out with ARPA and Rams money – but rather a thousand little things that can get us to stop abandoning our core and start working on our future.
The leadership of our Region – Greater St. Louis Inc. and others – have been trying to turn the tide on the basics that have made a difference in Detroit. We as members of the built environment have a role to play. That role is embodied in the concept behind Gateway South.
We can help make everyday life here better.