When the Barnes-Jewish Hospital lease deal for an isolated section of Forest Park east of Kingshighway was crafted to include guaranteed benefits for the city’s North Side, several South Side aldermen were less than enthused.
In fact, one used the term “extortion” in criticizing the negotiation of the amended lease deal.
Using that term is not only divisive, it is ludicrous. Aldermen have sought to advance the interests of their constituents since the political body was created. The South Side and Central Corridor have long benefited from the political power their aldermen have leveraged to create and enhance growth and opportunity in their respective wards.
With two African Americans – future Board of Aldermen President Lewis Reed and Comptroller Darlene Green – now comprising two-thirds of the city’s all-powerful Board of Estimate and Apportionment, the long-neglected North Side of St. Louis finally stands to benefit from political leverage in powerful places. Both officials, rightly, have said they are committed to furthering that goal.
As Reed says in an article in today’s St. Louis American, he will work with Green and Mayor Francis G. Slay to bring development and growth to the areas that need it most in the city. This is not playing favorites or siding with black residents against the rest of the city. This simply reflects an attempt to improve parts of the city that have been ignored for many, many years.
Some of the North Side’s decay, to be sure, is the fault of past and present aldermen and state and federal officials that represent these neighborhoods. But a major fault lies in the fact that many of the powers-that-be in the City of St. Louis have chosen to take an out-of-sight, out-of-mind policy with respect to North St. Louis.
To say that Reed and Green will bring a “keen interest” to North Side needs is not saying they are beholden only to black voters who overwhelmingly supported Reed. He generated enthusiasm all over the city and would not have won without white votes from every ward. But neither Reed nor Green should fear the hyperbole that will follow from the mouths of some aldermen and citizens when they vote together to advance economic development, jobs and housing in some of the city’s poorest and most neglected neighborhoods.
The city finds (often expensive and risky) ways to back Downtown projects without much fuss. The Board of E&A should work to find effective ways to stimulate quick, sustainable growth on the city’s North Side. If it takes a two-to-one vote margin to make some things happen, it should be acceptable to all involved at City Hall. And anyone who doesn’t think it is urgent to develop the city’s North Side should ask themselves if they want the despair and violence in our poorest neighborhoods compounded to hobble the city’s overall economic progress and keep St. Louis at the top of national crime statistics.