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Let me give you two examples that show different things about preservation review. First, the idea that significant buildings usually survive, anyway, is emphat

Let me give you two examples that show different things about preservation review. First, the idea that significant buildings usually survive, anyway, is emphatically not the experience here: 1. http://www.stlmag.com/arts/history/why-is-st-louis-destroying-the-last-remnants-of-its-irish-history/ http://www.stlmag.com/arts/history/why-is-st-louis-destroyin... Secondly, preservation review is about more than saving beautiful or historically important buildings. It's also about maintaining an urban form -- about preferencing the existing built environment over modern, car-centric, suburban-style developments. See this example: 2. https://nextstl.com/2015/01/do-the-math-qt/ https://nextstl.com/2015/01/do-the-math-qt/ This second point is tricky, because lots of people prefer the gas station to some old, simple, under-utilized structures. But not the type of young people who want to work at a startup. Cities need to decide which kind of constituent they want to support.

jessaustin 11y ago
Wow, gas stations like that in an urban setting really are awful. But then again St. Louis has long sacrificed its neighborhoods for the ill-conceived benefit of automobiles.
- Kerrick 11y ago
  I live less than half a mile from the new QuikTrip mentioned above. This part of the city isn't really what I'd call an urban setting. It has a sprawling Sheet Metal Worker's Union building a block wide, a Mack Truck dealership, and a 4-lane-wide street. http://i.imgur.com/QTHKGdu.jpg http://i.imgur.com/QTHKGdu.jpg
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    OK, probably less objectionable in that context. [EDIT:] The existence of those two many-lane streets you mention probably explains the vacant lots so close to popular St. Louis destinations. Then again, it's kind of a wonder that any public-serving business could survive in the no man's land between I-64 and I-44. Whoever decided that either of those highways, let alone both, should be routed as they are was a demented bastard.
  - dionidium 11y ago
    That's right, of course, which is why the more interesting question is how could we let that corner get so bad that the best argument that can be made against a terrible development is that what's there is already terrible

jessaustin 11y ago

Wow, gas stations like that in an urban setting really are awful. But then again St. Louis has long sacrificed its neighborhoods for the ill-conceived benefit of automobiles.

Kerrick 11y ago
I live less than half a mile from the new QuikTrip mentioned above. This part of the city isn't really what I'd call an urban setting. It has a sprawling Sheet Metal Worker's Union building a block wide, a Mack Truck dealership, and a 4-lane-wide street. http://i.imgur.com/QTHKGdu.jpg http://i.imgur.com/QTHKGdu.jpg
- jessaustin 11y ago
  OK, probably less objectionable in that context. [EDIT:] The existence of those two many-lane streets you mention probably explains the vacant lots so close to popular St. Louis destinations. Then again, it's kind of a wonder that any public-serving business could survive in the no man's land between I-64 and I-44. Whoever decided that either of those highways, let alone both, should be routed as they are was a demented bastard.
- dionidium 11y ago
  That's right, of course, which is why the more interesting question is how could we let that corner get so bad that the best argument that can be made against a terrible development is that what's there is already terrible