ST. LOUIS (NewsNation) — A lot comes to mind when you think of St. Louis, Missouri: The Gateway Arch, Cardinals baseball — and for many — crime.
The city is known for having one of the highest homicide rates in the U.S. These days, when the Cards aren’t playing at home, downtown looks and feels empty.
It’s a problem facing many U.S. cities with large downtown areas.
“We all know that downtowns have had a difficult time coming out of the pandemic, the ones that have had a larger residential base have tended to do better,” said Kurt Weigle, chief downtown officer for Greater St. Louis, Inc.
Weigle is bullish on St. Louis and he’s been tasked with breathing new life into downtown. While the pandemic certainly contributed, major corporations have been fleeing this midwestern metropolis for decades, leaving behind the scars of an American downtown that has seen better days.
In a statement to NewsNation, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department addressed its staffing issues.
“The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department has publicly acknowledged our current staffing challenges. These staffing challenges are not unique to our agency, as law enforcement agencies in the surrounding area and across the country are experiencing similar challenges related to staffing,” the statement read in part.
The same downtown struggles can be found in another Midwestern city to the east: Indianapolis.
Greg Harris pulled his business, Backhaul Direct, from downtown Indianapolis and moved to a nearby suburb. He said the crime and homelessness became too much.
“I love Indianapolis. I’m an Indy guy. I love it. It broke my heart to have to leave,” Harris said. “If you were to walk in downtown Indy right now, depending on the time of day, it could look like a ghost town.”
As migration patterns show Americans are flocking to the sunbelt, Midwestern downtowns have suffered due to the lack of traffic. Abandoned buildings and vacant storefronts abound. Harris believes some people just don’t want to be there.
“I’m a father, I’ve got kids. I would not let my young teenage daughter work or visit downtown Indianapolis,” Harris said.
But one city to the north has bucked the trend and seen regrowth: Calgary, Canada. The city was over 30% vacant when oil prices crashed and the pandemic hit.
The key to their success: Rethinking what a downtown should be: A place to live, not just a place to work.
“The reason we focused on residential was because residential is one of the main drivers in any downtown recovery globally,” said Thom Mahler, director of downtown strategy for Calgary.
Basically, cities need people and they need something to drive people downtown. If it’s not going to be offices, it has to be something else.
“That involves investment in performing arts, open spaces, redeveloping streets to support greener environments that are more conducive to residential living than simply the office worker commuting in and out during the day,” Mahler said.
It’s an idea that St. Louis is hinging its renaissance upon.
New apartments and entertainment districts are going up with more on the way. But to bring the regrowth all the way home, it starts and ends with getting young people to stay long term.