Projects

Development is a Distraction

An op-ed Dan wrote about how development in the city of St. Louis is looked at differently than most places. It's also to our detriment.

Development Is a Distraction

Development holds a special place in the minds of St. Louisans—a place more important than in most American cities. It’s strange when you look closer. Even people struggling for basic survival after decades of intentional neglect want this undefined thing called “development.” The truth is, we’ve been conned. We don’t actually want development—we want what we think development will bring us: the basics of city living. Trash picked up. Potholes filled. 911 calls answered in seconds, not minutes. Decent public schools. Streets and sidewalks that won’t kill us.

These are the operations our taxes already pay for. Yet, instead of fixing them, city leaders keep promising that if we just build enough new stuff, everything else will follow. That’s wrong. The way to attract new residents isn’t to bribe developers—it’s to make St. Louis a place where people already living here want to stay.

This “development at all costs” mindset has failed. While we keep approving incentives for every project that crosses St. Louis Development Corporation’s desk, our population keeps falling. Living here takes effort. Staying takes even more. Instead of selling outsiders a fantasy, we should make this city livable for the people already here.

The last general plan St. Louis adopted by ordinance was written in 1947—a time when only rich, white landowners had real power. That plan was built on keeping Black residents out and maintaining segregation through zoning, deed restrictions, and land-clearance laws. Those policies may look different today, but the outcomes haven’t changed. They still decide who gets investment and who gets ignored.

For decades, city government has delivered less and less. Since the 1970s, leaders have chosen which neighborhoods to save and which to sacrifice—maybe thinking things would “get better” later. It’s been fifty years. They haven’t. We don’t need development to attract people; we need a government that works. But development is the perfect distraction—from accountability and from despair. Every new tower is a photo-op dressed as progress. We’ve swallowed the cruelest lie of all: keep doing this and it’ll finally work. Instead, we just have fewer people and more broken promises.

When city officials talk about “certainty” and a “clear process,” they don’t mean for us. They mean for developers. In practice, that kind of “clarity” means fewer questions, fewer hearings, and fewer chances for residents to intervene before the deal is done. Public engagement becomes the enemy of efficiency. Certainty for them is silence for us.

They say certainty what we need is accountability.

Every deal looks the same: a developer swoops in to “revitalize” a neighborhood that City Hall let crumble in the first place. The neglect creates the crisis, and the crisis justifies the giveaway. We could fix streetlights, pave roads, stop illegal dumping—tomorrow—without a single dollar of private investment. But that would require patience, equity, and long-term political courage.

Instead, our leaders prefer the quick hit of private capital—money that comes with ropes attached. The public pays the cost through displacement and higher taxes, while the politicians get the ribbon-cutting photos.

We can’t fix a century of harm in one term, but we can stop pretending development will save us. It won’t. We don’t need new towers; we need working services. St. Louis doesn’t need another rebirth. It needs repair. If our leaders want growth, start by growing trust. Pick up the trash, pave the streets, teach the kids—and stop telling us we need something we already have—people.

It’s not “If you build it, they will come.” It’s already built—dammit, just fix what’s here.

We need reform. Now. Here’s where to start:
- Scrap the opaque three-member E & A.
- Replace Ward Capital with participatory budgeting.
- Fix the LRA—12,000 publicly owned parcels collecting dust and costing taxpayers’ money. - Make its data transparent and accountable.
- Hold all public meetings outside work hours, post agendas four days prior, and provide childcare.

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