Downtown St. Louis / Downtown Hartford

In the 1960s, Hartford, Conneticut looked like this,

Now it looks like this,

Interstate highways were added and parking lots grew like a cancer.

St. Louis used to be quite dense, full of low-rise buildings throughout downtown.  Here it is in 1958,

then in 1971,

Who set off the parking bomb?

St. Louis does not need an interstate cutting off its downtown from the river that created it.  It doesn't need surface parking lots either.

Support City to River and let's get I-70 out of downtown.

Edward Jones Dome / Seoul World Cup Stadium

There's a problem with the Edward Jones Dome.  All the action is on the inside.  What's happening outside?  The whole structure taken together with the America's Center presents a blank face to the city and an obstacle to foot and bike traffic that wants to get to the other side of it.  The areas next to it have been deemed unsuitable for a "Football Village" Bottle Works District because of the noise and unsightliness that is the raised portion of I-70.

Obviously, I-70 should be removed as suggested by City to River, but let's jump to the other side of the world first.

This is the World Cub Soccer Stadium in Seoul, South Korea.  It isn't downtown, but set off in a park on the outskirts of the city.  There's not street life nearby to speak of, but it is a more flexible space.

Though it lacks a city grid, it does have its own subway station.  It is also bizarrely accessible.  It has a sunken urban stream running by that functions as a major bikeway connecting it to the rest of the city's trail network.  It also integrates inself into the park and the surrounding highrise district with its own multi-faceted structure.

You can see in this image that the park is next to the river and the stream connects directly to the Han River Park.

Like the Edward Jones Dome connecting to the America's Center, Seoul's World Cup Stadium connects to a multi-storey mall.  More correctly stated, the stadium is on the roof of a very large mall.

When the World Cup ended in Korea and the government realised the building wasn't turning a profit, they filled it with shops. 
We all realise that the Edward Jones Dome is not turning a profit on its adjacent blocks.  Perhaps it too could benefit from some a retail presence.  Why is there no Rams Village?

Why is there no Ballpark Village?

The Ballpark Village concept, even if it never happened, is sound.  Why wouldn't it be?  It is ripped from the existing and fuctioning area around Wrigley Field in Chicago where adjacent property holders allow people on their roofs to view the games.  Real estate developments owned by the Cardinals would have provided diversified income for the team and put more life into the area when games are not being played.  The shops and stadium would both profit from the presence of the other.  Everyone would be a winner, especially the city the team claims to represent.

Back to the Bottle Works District, which could fit between the Dome, Laclede's Landing, the Arch Grounds, and one of the NorthSide job centers.  It would be mere blocks from the entrance to the North Riverfront Trail and several metrolink stations.

The Dome does not need a mall, but it does need to better connect to the park space nearby and the city's trail network.  It does need adjacent retail developments.  It must address the dead space around it.

City to River's highway removal plan is the best idea out there right now to do it.

Busch Stadium will be connected to the riverfront and the arch grounds.
The raised section of I-70 closer to the Dome will not longer be a great wall going though the middle of the city.   Downtown would be healed and our sports facilities would be better connected.

View the City to River presentation here.
View Vanishing STL's picnic and baseball downtown trip here.

Coal Town / Gas Town

St. Louis is home to three of the largest coal companies in the world.  It is the capital of coal in the US and maybe the world.  And...

* Peabody profit falls 69% in Q4
* Arch Coal Profit Plummets 98% in Q4
* Patriot profit plummets 83% but still surpasses estimates

It doesn't look like coal is doing well.  St. Louis also has a gas company.  If we read financial statements made by Laclede Gas for the same period it seems their profit fell a little too, but not at all at the same level of severity.

We're living in a world that is slowly coming around to the understanding that fossil fuels are bad.  Dependency, climate change, and smog are not nice things.  Obama's new budget wants to remove 34 billion dollars in subsidies from the oil and coal industries.  This will make energy from these two fossil fuels a little more expensive, and push the market to purchasing other sources:  solar, wind, and natural gas.  Methane is a fossil fuel, a greenhouse gas, and can even be collected in a semi-green way:  from wastewater treatment plants.  Yes indeed, what we flush down our toilets could power homes.  We can also collect natural gas from landfills, compost dumps, and various other natural places.  Collecting and burning methane does produce CO2, but we must keep in mind that CO2 is less harmful than CH4.

Houston, the oil town, and St. Louis, the coal town, will fall from their perches.  The rising stars are the cities that can put together good green energy companies.  In the mean time, the city that controls the countries natural gas will be the winner.

If the US is the Saudi Arabia of natural gas, then Oklahoma City is the Riyadh. Three of the biggest gas companies around, Chesapeake, Devon, and Sandridge, are headquartered there.  They're changing the skyline.

Looking at the gas pipelines around America, Oklahoma City does stand out, but so does Houston.  If coal goes, St. Louis goes.  If oil goes, Houston can fall back on its gas.  If oil and coal both go, then Oklahoma City will have a brief surge.

I'm curious to know though who the green leaders will be.  Desert cities will probably pull ahead with solar.  Wind seems up in the air.  There's good wind at sea, and there's good wind on the plains. 
I personally don't believe biofuels are sensible, but algae might change my mind.  Supposedly St. Louis is the King of Algae.  If biofuels from algae become big, maybe St. Louis will be on top.  Maybe San Francisco.  I don't know.

Obama did mention clean coal in his state of the union speech.  Maybe Peabody isn't out of the fight yet.
Regardless, I'm going to be watching Oklahoma City.