St. Louis Doomed to “Doom Loop”?

Meet me anywhere but in St. Louis? The WSJ noted The Mound’s “doom loop” as its “office district is empty, with boarded up towers … & failing retail.” Efforts to revitalize on horizon? History says they’re doomed too.

History lesson: Fact is, St. Louis’ city limits are uncommonly strict & ensure an inability to grow like other metropolises. As the city’s once Civil War era structural gems became surrounded by eye sores & polluting enterprises, more & more “respectable” businesses after the turn of the century headed to the more comely burbs & started taking with them, the wealthier folks. A sharp population decline ensued & never seemed to ease. Back in the Roaring Twenties, then, after WWII, St. Louis made many civic improvements & enacted pollution controls to counter the foul surrounding water ways & their foul smells. Yet the city population fell even more dramatically as crime not only soared but regularly put the city in the nation’s “Murder Inc” list. New sports stadiums downtown only seemed to draw attention to how abandoned the streets were whenever the Cardinals were out of town or season.

By the 1980s, even the century-old St. Louis Globe Democrat newspaper was tottering because its city subscriber base had shrunk so much due to black as well as white flight. In 1985, it filed for bankruptcy & closed as if a metaphor of a “doom loop” for the entire city. I know the delusional feeling everyone in the Globe’s newsroom felt that Hot August Afternoon – “we’re down, but not out.” Don’t ask how or why I was there. Fact is, if we fast forward to today, the WSJ is still reporting, “The city is desperately trying to reverse the ‘doom loop.’” Sad to say, take it from a one-time temporary St. Louis resident: Don’t hold your breath let alone your nose.

Davd Soul