As much as I would like to see and urban growth boundary, I know all it will serve to do is cause increased housing prices and cause people to move to areas outside the UGB to find housing. The problem with this situation is that the St. Louis area has no functional regional government - there can be no coordinated planning because of this. Also, because the metro area is across two states, it would require Illinois to have a role as well, which they’re incapable of doing.

The only way to functionally do it is to require developers to pay for the full cost of their development - including all forms of infrastructure (schools, roads, transit, sewerage, etc). Only then will people pay the full cost of their housing, and people can make informed decisions about their housing.

People will continue to move to where the costs of housing fits into their budget. I bought my house for $145k 6 years ago in LSL but it would have cost me $300k if I would have bought the same house on the other side of the Missouri River. In retrospect, I would have done the exact same thing if I had to go back and do it over. I have a job in Chesterfield so the drive isn’t bad and I won’t have to deal with that hell which will be the hwy 64 overhaul. I also have my little slice of heaven in the form of a dozen acres far enough out west that I won’t have to worry too much about the expansion yet if I should decide to sell it, it’s close enough that it will be in demand enough to make me some nice cash.

People want to keep moving further west - look at what St. Peters was like in the 80’s. Then O’Fallon. Now, Wentzville. The population keeps growing, and people will need somewhere to move in order to maintain the suburban lifestyle so many desire. There just needs to be more regulation in Troy and Lincoln County in the form of zoning and planning.

I don’t see how you can establish a practical boundary. I think people just have to weigh the cost of gas and their drive time if they have to commute into the city to work. If it is worth it to them personally to save a few grand on a cheap house, they will do it.

I always considered the river the boundary, but we are way past that now. You can’t make people live in St. Louis city or County. It would be nice if more people embraced an urban lifestyle. Maybe if the conditions improve in the City more will consider living there.

Some people just like living far away from the urban center. You can’t change that.

As if you could stop it?
What an inane question. Is Rob Smyth running the show today?

westward expansion has been going on for two centuries

Dan (above) is absolutely right that we need a functional regional government to plan for orderly, carefully-planned growth. Although the voters of the area are not likely to be in favor of this idea, now would seem to be a perfect time to raise the issue - perhaps the inconvenience of the 64/40 project will make people think critically about the length of their commute and what traffic will be like when more people move west. Perhaps the state line will serve as a psychological barrier (maybe long-time Missourians will want to stay in their state) that could make a Missouri side regional government possible.

The problem with this (and all) suburban expansion is that while it may be cheaper for an individual homeowner to purchase land a great distance from job centers, society bears the burden of the externalities created. You may have your “slice of heaven” but you just fed the demand for expensive infrastructure and vastly increased the amount of resources you consume, not to mention developed previously open space. Dan’s idea requiring developers to pay for infrastructure would be a huge help.

Although we can’t change this on a local level, the gas we use and the roads we drive on are heavily subsidized, so while it may seem like a good economic decision to move where land is cheaper, people aren’t making the decision with the right numbers. Area residents often complain that public transit is inadequate and infrequent, but by creating a low density sprawl environment, any possibility of a viable public transit system is dashed from the beginning. (As I stated above, roads don’t pay for themselves, either.) The longer we wait to address this, the worse it will become.

That being said, affordable housing is a problem. Sprawling suburban development isn’t the answer - there are other tactics that can be used.

Yes, clearly a giant concrete wall should be built, and to the west of it, none shall be allowed to pass.
Then we can start forcing people to move back into the city, preferably in neighborhoods where tons of traffic where will be cutting through and sitting bumper to bumper every day because of highway 40 being shut down for the next decade or so, and where they will have to have their children go through the lovely public school system.

So the same combination of city and county governments that can’t agree on such silly things as bridges, sensible interstate highway improvements, and public transport expansion is going to get together and set clear standards for, well, anything? Ha! You’ve got to be kidding.

Besides, why should we set a boundary? If someone really wants to live in Wentzville and work Downtown, that’s their prerogative. In theory at least, there’s a point at which expansion ceases to be practical, and we’re a lot more likely to see people find that point themselves than we are to see the regional governments come to anything even vaguely resembling a practical consensus.

This question, which is utterly ridiculous, is highly revealing. It’s nobody’s darn business whether development “should” occur.

Last time I checked, property owners still had the right to improve their property as they choose and to sell it to whom they choose. While there are certain limits (for example, one can not create a toxic waste site without regulatory oversight and approval), the idea that some sort of “development czar” should be empowered to decide where people will be allowed to live would be more at home in the former Soviet Union than in the United States.

When people choose to leave a community to live elsewhere, perhaps the community they are leaving should examine why.
– Are taxes too high?
– Are “services” provided by government inadequate or poorly delivered and managed?
– Are the schools below par?
– Is crime unacceptably high?
– Is the government unresponsive or even corrupt?
If any of the above are accurate (and, in the case of the City of St. Louis, all of them are), the anser is not to force people to live there, it is to fix the problems.

In this nation, and in this area, we are blessed with an abundance of open land. People should be free to choose to live where they want, not where some “authority” would force them to.