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Background Saint Louis is in the midst of the most devastating wholesale land clearance project since the Mill Creek Valley demolition. The Missouri Botanical Garden has lead a coalition called the Garden District Commission in a successful effort to level much of the city's downtrodden McRee City (later McRee Town) neighborhood for construction of a new, lower-density, more-expensive housing development called "Botanical Heights." (McRee City is located west of 39th Street, north of I-44, east of Vandeventer and south of Chouteau.) Around 240 buildings on six blocks in the blighted McRee Town neighborhood have been or will be demolished by the end of 2005. This dramatic process went ahead despite passionate opposition from people who advocated a holistic, urban redevelopment plan of the neighborhood that would have retained many existing structures and ensured that the neighborhood' housing would stay affordable. The McRee City story portends a bleak future for city redevelopment. Wholesale clearance is once again an acceptable development tool, and nonprofit groups are leading the charge for its implementation. Watch out, Saint Louis. The landscape is going to break open, one way or another. More information The City of St. Louis has posted a detailed and surprisingly balanced history of the neighborhood up to 1999: Five-Year Consolidated Plan Strategy: McRee Town. St. Louis Commerce published an article in its November 2004 issue about the new Botanical Heights subdivision: Botanical Heights: McRee Town Lifts Itself to Higher Ground A good overview of the story can be found in Shelly Smithson's Riverfront Times article, The Greening of McRee Town. Built St. Louis features more photos of the demolition. West End Word reporter Tim Woodcock recounts his attempts to interview McRee Town residents in his article When News Breaks. The Department of Housing and Urban Development is happy for the Botanical Heights project, as their press release says. Also, McRee Town has an official neighborhood page. A larger plan? Sure, the Missouri Botanical Garden wants to clean up its neighborhood (although it has largely neglected providing housing in its more immediate neighborhood of Shaw), and McBride & Sons Homes wants to try out city building. But their plans seem to be mere instances of a larger political plan for decayed parts of the city. After all, of the $12 million in funds that the Garden District Commission report having raised, $5.85 million came directly or indirectly from HUD. Read Spatial Deconcentration by Yolanda Ward to learn more about HUD's long-time strategy of displacing minority populations for older city neighborhoods. ~ Michael R. Allen & Claire Nowak-Boyd |
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