The
editor(s) for The St. Louis American’s Political
Eye section, wrote a response ( “Post floats city/county merger trial
balloons” (http://www.stlamerican.com/news/political_eye/article_55f164c6-15de-11e3-8516-0019bb2963f4.html
) to The Post’s article (“Editorial:
Time to go public on mediation talks for the Great Reconciliation” http://www.stlamerican.com/news/political_eye/article_55f164c6-15de-11e3-8516-0019bb2963f4.html
) that outted officials
clandestine talks about merging St. Louis City and County resources. Without delving into the political
motives of any of the writers, I instead would like to focus attention on the
city-county merge controversy.
The Eye alludes to St. Louis’ divisive
history of being heavily segregated by race, class, and socioeconomics. It states that marginalized groups
would be negatively affected by a merge in at least two ways. Firstly, merging may ‘dilute city
crime statistics’ which would improve St. Louis City’s image nationally while
simultaneously disenfranchising and silencing black city dwellers who occupy
many of the high crime areas.
Secondly, merging would lead to taxation redistribution (i.e. potential
elimination of the city tax credits thereby increasing sales taxes) leaving
city dwellers more financially burdened. Colin Gordan’s St. Louis and the Fate of the
American City (we referred
to this book day one of class), historicizes the origins of institutionalized
racism infiltrating public policy to create the St. Louis that we see
today. (Here’s a link that
summarizes his thesis and his findings: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfVgXcstukA.)
Controversy
aroused in unification attempts as early as the 1920s and still lingers to this
day. Today, if brought to the
ballot, a city-county merge could appear in many forms, according to the
article. For instance, the city
could rejoin the county as the 91st municipality or a single
cohesive government could dictate, nullifying the city-county boundary. Unification may reduce redundancies,
which may lead to efficiencies; unification also leads to mass layoffs, which
would likely include key stakeholders who are highly knowledgeable about the
inner workings of each neighborhood/municipality. St. Louis communities have various personalities that are
convergent or divergent. Many can
thrive successfully with minimal support from others (i.e. Ladue, Town and
County) while other, especially within much of St. Louis City, need the support
of its surrounding communities to subsist.
For example,
Beyond Housing’s Initiative Vision 24:1
unities the 24 municipalities affected by the poor performing Normandy School
district to provide a comprehensive strategy towards improving education,
housing, and community finances.
(For more information, go to http://www.beyondhousing.org/programs/241-community-building-initiative/.) Could this sort of initiative be
brought forward to city/county divisions that are even more disparate? What commonalities do the city and
county share that would facilitate identifying common goals in the unification
process? Do you feel if a merger
occurred that it would be equitable or would there be a power struggle?
St. Louis city definitely needs some sort of boost, but I see more drawbacks to the merger than positives. First off, you address the financial burden to city dwellers (losing the city tax), as well as finally addressing the oddities of our crime statistics. Maybe changing the city's image could boost tourism. Tourism is always an excellent source of revenue.
ReplyDeleteHowever, in the immediate future, a boost in sales tax might be crippling to people struggling with genuine poverty. While revenue might be increased through boosted tourism and the tax, what happens to the people who are barely getting by now? Would they finally, with county resources, be able to access the help they need?
Also, would that really fix the segregation? There are strong biases in the county towards the city (and vice versa). I have family members who come up to the city for the ballgame and that is IT. They think I'm going to shot at one day (which has actually happened, now that I think about it). Anyway, I think county people will stay in the county and city people will stay in the city.
I know St. Louis is known as one of the country's biggest segregated cities. I agree with what Rachel said about the segregation issue. There are still a lot of biases between the city and county. I live in South County and I know of many people in my area who stay away from the city unless they absolutely need to go there. I can see the taxation redistribution being a huge problem and potentially even more crippling for those living in the city.
ReplyDeleteI'm always looking through my rose-colored glasses, (but hey, at least I realize it!) but I would hope that the increased tourism would help the entire area and that maybe with county resources, city people could get more assistance.
ReplyDeleteI do see the fears that it won't come fast enough, though, and don't have any answers for that.
It is interesting that there have been attempts for unification since the 1920's. That makes me think if this happens, it could be a long time from now. I hear about biases between city and county quite often in the past few years since I have moved to the St. Louis area. I live in O'Fallon, Missouri, and many people from here that I know rarely go into the city. They don't understand why I would want to work there.
ReplyDeleteI do not ever see the city / county merging. There are to many politicians who have to many personal interest involved to allow this to happen. I also think that many of the under represented citizens of St. Louis would be negatively impacted by this.
ReplyDelete