este hombre tengo un muy problema con the personas de st. louis.

gw bush lived in austin, texas, then he left.

Here is his email: info@brewstermccracken.com

Thanks JB. I had that link in the post, too, but it’s probably not very obvious. I think I’ll e-mail him now!

I really don’t see a problem with his ad. Let’s be honest, STL has not been a good model for forward-thinking urban development. I know it may hurt the pride of St. Louisans but we are a symbol of urban decline. We too, should be learning from our mistakes and not making petty attacks on those that point them out.

And, yes, entire sections (although this is a very ambiguous term) are vacant. Many parts of north STL, the industrial riverfront, and downtown west are vacant. I do feel that if STL city were grouped with the county, it would paint a somewhat brighter picture though. I thought his statement about the size of STL was misleading.

Amanda- Maybe a little clarification would be helpful before we burn down this guy’s house. Is there more to the ad? Does he somehow relate St. Louis’ downfall (which no one can argue- it happened) to something going on in Austin?

Did he work in STL government at some time? If so, is well within his rights to use his time here as an example of his experience. Not too smart if you talk about how poorly things are going, but that’s another conversation.

If we just turn around and attack him, we are no better than he. We should at least try to understand what message he was trying to convey.

Slay won, Brewster did not know? I am sure Austin voters are more interested in Austin than St. Louis. They deserve Brewster, the people in St. Louis do not. Please Brewster, stay in you own city limits and take your prescriptions before talking.

It sounds like Brewster is sticking to the old divert and distract tactic. Austin is facing serious problems (as all decent sized cities do) and since he completely lacks ideas, attacking another city seems like a good way to divert the focus from his lack of leadership.

For a city who’s slogan is “Keep Austin Weird” and that’s known as the “Live music capital of the World” can do better than this pretentious stick in the mud. To any Austinites who might read this – vote for someone else – anyone else.

RJS:
We have calls out to Brewster McCracken because we don’t know why he chose to slam St. Louis. The ad is linked in the post; you can watch it and try to suss out his motives, just as I did. But there are no obvious clues as to why he decided to single out St. Louis.
Thanks for the comment; this one just seemed to come out of nowhere….

Well, I watched the ad, isn’t it all true? By running a comparison campaign, he’s proving his backing of the ‘Austin Plan’ is the view that will keep that city vibrant. What’s wrong with that?
Instead of being outraged at his comments, let’s be outraged with ourselves and our government. How many of us in St. Louis have complained about the decline of our city; rung our hands for more than the last several decades, wondering what to do next as the population has moved further and further away from the core?
Yes, the St. Louis AREA has lot’s to offer. But what has happened to us, that we have allowed this once terrific CITY to decline so far? I don’t have the answer, do you? But don’t let fierce pride in the ‘idea’ of St. Louis, get in the way of solving some very real problems.

I don’t see anything wrong with what Brewster is saying….and I don’t see why the person who wrote this has a problem either. The freakin guy is 1000 miles away - big deal.

I’m sure Texans are crying themselves to sleep because they didn’t win a World Series….boo hoo…

Interacting with Native St. Louisans is somewhere between a mix of the movies New Jack City and Deliverance.

I e-mailed Mr. McCraken with an invitation to St Louis with an offer to show him around and a good time for a weekend.

Folks if you do e-mail him don’t be rude, hatefull, mean or cuss him out. You’ll just proove him right.

Really, I don’t feel like he’s truly slamming our town that hard just because he’s pointing out realities. And yes, we’ve clung to hosting the World’s Fair even 100+ years later, lets be honest…
It hurts to hear the truth, but it is the truth. There are whole sections of this town being left to rot. Did you know that St. Louis is a major hot spot for people all over North America that are into urban exploration because of the very reason?
Our music/art scene has barely been keeping afloat for at least the past decade, and so on and so forth.
Maybe all St. Louisians should watch his ad, bounce back from the hurt in pride, and then DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT instead of crying. At least St. Louis is good for complaining. But is that all we want to be?

I love my home town, missed it when I was gone and have always been happy to return but I have to admit that some of what he says is true.

St. Louis has always been the city that could–but didn’t.

1) St. louis did decline from the 1930’s till the 1990’s.

2) St louis does seem to be bouncing back (assuming the economy turns around and the state doesn’t kill the historic tax credit).

3)Austin is the state capitol of a state of 23 million people, and home to the University of Texas, which has 50 THOUSAND students! Those are two aspects st louis can never compete with.

4) Having said all this, the question should be asked: what was his motive? Austin and St. Louis do not compete and are in no way similar, so what gives? It would make more sense in Cinicnnati or Kansas City, but who the heck cares about st louis in Austin (or vice versa)?

I’m less offended than perplexed. If they want to keep Austin weird this certainly helps with that.

Think before you speak.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Austin. It’s a nice city, but not without its problems. Here are some ways that Austin “beats” St. Louis:
1. Far more street peddlers. Every corner–every intersection has been staked out and is constantly being worked by a beggar.
2. Far worse traffic. Austin has badly outgrown its infrastructure and the traffic is by far the worst in Texas–and far, far worse than St. Louis. You can now pay about $10 to drive around Austin on a north-south tollway.
3. No major league sports team representing Austin has ever lost a game–they are undefeated! Oh, wait, they don’t have any major league sports teams, not one–unless you count the recruits at the University of Texas. No baseball team, no football team, no hockey team.
4. And they are living up to their motto (Keep Austin Weird) quite well!
Seriously, it is a nice city, but so is St. Louis. Austin has advantages in some areas, St. Louis in others. Seems sort of classless for him to attack a city some 800 miles distant as he runs for mayor, though.

I sure don’t have the capital but I am sure if people and organizations in St Louis are roiled about McCraken’s dissing St. Louis, why not get together and place an ad in the Austin Newspaper…..that might diss the mayoral candidate?

Steers and… Well, you know the rest.

Looks like Texas has two village idiots.

Truth always hurt. I watched the ad: McCracken is only saying true things. Have you been to north City lately: It looks like a nuclear bomb had been dropped there and there are few survivors who are trying to make it…
All the people who left to go live West of 270 don’t realize that they hurt the entire St Louis community. When people come here on business trip, they don’t go to Chesterfield or Wildwood: What they see is Downtown, which is not really exciting….

ill drive around north st louis and mid town and take in all this civic pride. this town is pretty far from the wonderful town you want to defend. austin is an amazing city and one that i would love to live in some day. but st louis is home and allways will be. but lets be honest. larg4e sections of this town are a dump.

Well I think St. Louis has come a long way in recent years. Does anyone else remember what Washington Ave. downtown looked like 10 years ago? And the rest of downtown for that matter.

I could not care less.

Great topic, Mandy. Well done.

But it’s true and Austin is a far superior CITY. Our problem is the nasty anti-city mentality that exists in the county.

Look, I don’t think anyone doubts or denies that there are problems in our city that need to be addressed and soon but what this fundamentally boils down to is “he can’t do that to our pledges, only WE can do that to our pledges!” Austin is a great city and fun to visit but as an earlier poster pointed out it has many, many problems too. What’s unfair is this guy’s implication that if they don’t do something Austin will turn into a blighted town like the STL and that’s just not true. Problems? yes. a vast wasteland of irredeemable blight? no.

Look, yes over a 60 year span this place has had its ups and downs. I gre up here. You can blame the “city” all you want to. Bottom line is the people who live in the crap areas, allow it to be that, because they don’t take care of it. That goes for Black, White, Yellow, Brown, Purple…you name it. Some people are just lazy. It takes money to renevate buildings or turn some of the areas into something. Mayor slay has done an amazing job of bringing people back to downtown. The economy ahs alot to do with it the struggles right now. The housing that has gone up around the VA hospital, or the renevations of the housing by the old City Hospital on 14th. For all of the bad areas you want to locate, within city limits, you will also find some that have been renevated. All of the old building being turned into condos. There has been great strides in the last few years, and we have a ways to go, but quit finding excuses for laziness, and take responsibility for yourselves, or try to help the situation instead of complaining about it. There is alot of untruth about things he is saying about this city. And some of you are right, you can’t compare the two cities. I have been to Austin…I would much rather be here. Bigger city with less to offer.

To the people who are joining in on St. Louis bashing – the truth is, EVERY city has problems. You literally cannot please everybody, and no matter how nice the city is, if you look close enough there are things that aren’t flattering.

So why did a candidate for the Mayor of Austin Texas decide to trash a city 700 miles away? We have no ties to Austin. We haven’t done anything to Austin. We don’t even play sports against them (they don’t have teams like we do). So why the attack? The only reason I can come up with is he is trying to change the focus. He doesn’t want Austinites to look at his track record while he served as Mayor Pro tem and a city council member. No, he wants a straw man – a made up enemy or comparison to make him look better.

Very bad behavior, and very telling. I sincerely hope the Austinites see through his shtick and vote for a better candidate. Austin seems like a decent place to live, they deserve a better Mayor – one who doesn’t burn bridges just to distract from his own shortcomings.

While comparing and contrasting is a typical technique in political advertising, Mr. McCracken has obviously overstated how bad things are in St. Louis in order to make people in Austin feel good about themselves, yet also be afraid.

Furthermore, as a political move, this ad will certainly not have many ramifications for Brewster in his current campaign, but if he ever hopes to run for office outside of Texas he may have to answer for running an ad that doesn’t smear his opponent, but a neighboring city.

And yes, while it may be true that St. Louis is not the city it once was, what city is? Despite the struggling economy, this area of the country is doing well and continuing to prosper. As St. Louis residents we have many, many things to be proud of, and we have every right to be offended by the picture Mr. McCracken attempted to paint of our town.

Yes, Amanda, entire sections. Next time you leave your office, head north instead of south, and you’ll see several of them. Instead of making fun of the guy’s name, can we have a serious discussion about the issue he raises?

You criticize McCracken for failing to research something which is common knowledge. Yet your article is snarky, void of any research at all, incites people to bad behavior - and to top it all off, you did the email link wrong. Try clicking on it, you’ll see.

The guy’s name is Brewster McCracken? Wasn’t he a villain in a Smokey and the Bandit movie.
Why don’t we let Texas secede from the Union? They’ve given us the worst president in the history of this country, country music (and the awful fashion that comes with it), David Koresh, mega-churches (McGod), Anna Nicole Smith, Gary Busey, etc. The entire state is an embarrassment.

Dosen’t he know that stupid cow mascot “Bevo” at U of T is named after an old A-B product. They owe a source of their pride to STL.

In watching the ad, I’m thinking, “Why did he single out St. Louis?” I’m wondering why he didn’t do what all typical politicians do and remain ambiguous. If I were running the campaign, I would have said something like “Many formerly great industrial cities in our country…” rather than pinpointing St. Louis. He had to know this ad would pop up in our area somehow.

I know this city pretty well and have scoured North City several times on a Sunday afternoon out of curiosity, hope for signs of life, and glimmers of architecture from days past. But I don’t remember seeing the scenes he uses in this ad as his examples of our urban decay. I’ve never been to Austin, but I would suspect that it too has it’s share of questionable areas that need attention.

As an outsider who has lived here for over 11 years now, my experience tells me that life-long residents are St. Louis’ worst enemies. With few exceptions, it’s been outsiders coming in, marveling at what this city has to offer, pulling up their sleeves, and making pockets of it great again.

When I first moved here as a life-long Missourian from Joplin, I was amazed that I had lived in Missouri all my life, and St. Louis had somehow failed the past 28 years to make me want to come visit. Eleven years later at age 39, I still think St. Louis has failed to market itself properly to the outside world.

In the meantime, there are SO many simple things we can do to make our city more appealing to visitors and future residents. Things like picking up trash in your yard and on your curbs (better yet, instill a sense of pride so that people think before throwing it out on the street in the first place!), maintaining your lawns and planting a few flowers, maintaining the public median planters the city has already neglected.

I’m curious if this politician has actually visited St. Louis, or if he has based his campaign ad merely on the negative image that St. Louis can’t seem to shake?

The Truth Hurts.

If the city of Austin wants to elect a McCrackHead for mayor, why do we care? I thought Texas didn’t want to be part of the USA anymore, anyway.

Nick:
You were right that I had the email messed up, thanks for pointing that out. I see much of the city and the area on a regular basis. There are areas that are in dire need of help, indeed, but I daresay that most American cities have sections like that.

He made a great point. I wish he would have run for mayor of St. Louis!

It’s true. A century ago, this city and region had the opportunity to build an incredible city here in the midwest but greed, short sightedness and a sense of entitlement killed it. just killed it.
The revitalization that is happening now, though, is a good thing. But, St Louis will never be the City is could have been or has been.

…………Yes, and he probably is a tool, but then the city of St. Louis is a dump with a joke of a school district and murders every day that NO middle class family in their right mind would want to live in.

Talk all you want to of the frozen custard, toasted ravioli world series championships and scattered artsy-niche neighborhoods, but it won’t change the fact.

Perhaps this will bring more attention to the problems we have and spotlight how we can fix them. St. Louis once was a greater city than it is now. When we had the 1904 World’s Fair that most of the world still talks about and all of it’s inventions and had the 3rd modern day Olympics, these were amazing feats for St. Louis. We used to have street cars and electric rail lines a long time ago that went to different areas than now. St. Louis’ population has been in a decline and we are still off of our peak population which was probably in the 1970’s.

Many newer things the city has are not that impressive. We may lose the St. Louis Rams and the Ballpark Village may never be completed without further government subsidies. Can St. Louis ever do anything great without using government subsidies?

Get the tour busses out Metro. Hey Brewster, “ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK” was filmed here. Since then we’ve made great strides at improving our image. It’s called Attrition!

Go Brewster.

I love it here (StL) and I am not leaving but our fair city could use some aggressive urban renewal or urban retention.

He called the spade a spade. Like Humpty said: “yeah I called you fat, look at me I’m skinny, it doesn’t stop me from getting busy.”

High Crime rate,racially divisive politics,single Party domination,corrupt politicians and supporting cast,rotting infrastructure.I would say the guys comments were close to Reality.St.Louis is has a LONG way to go before it can call itself a desirable place to live.

This is a perfect example of what the world thinks of Saint Louis. We moved to Saint Louis from Chicago almost 4 years ago but have also lived in Miami and Washington DC at some point in the last decade (never Austin). I have to say the Saint Louis region needs to wake up!! Not correcting the 130 year old mistake when the city was separated from the county is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen. The region has been at a competitive disadvantage ever since and that disadvantage is becoming more significant every year. You bicker, fight and point fingers like children instead of realizing you are on the same team. We have friends all over the country and everyone of them thought we were crazy for taking a job here because of the city’s reputation (which is the same reputation for the entire region because the only people that have a distinction between the two are people from St. Louis). But from our personal experience Saint Louis is radically better than it is perceived by most of the country. It is unfortunate that everyone here is completely clueless to how damaging that fact is. We were shocked after moving here to find this beautiful historic city (that has enormous potential) and a region that is much larger than one would think based on a tiny city of 350,000. The rest of the world doesn’t want to visit Saint Louis and they definitely don’t want to move here (us included). But after living here for 4 years we have had almost nothing but good things to say about St. Louis. We live in the Central West End and I would compare it to our Lincoln Park neighborhood in Chicago or Georgetown in DC but at about 1/2 of the price. We really enjoy it. But the rest of the world will never know or care about any of the good qualities of Saint Louis because it they will always be overshadowed by the negative stigma as the crime capital of the U.S. People in your own region can’t get over it. Without question there are some bad parts of this city. But almost every major city has their own version of north Saint Louis. The difference is almost every other city is represented by a much bigger swatch of their region. The crime laden zones are diluted compared to here. And the comments I read from people that give their reasons for opposing the city joining the county again are so incredibly short sighted it makes me sick to read them. St. Louis has been used to this broken and destructive rivalry for so long that people will endlessly defend it to the point they are incapable of grasping the important larger picture. In this global economy there are thousands of places people can choose to move to or relocate or expand a business in. Nobody will even consider looking at this region until you change your image. Absorbing the city into the county would almost instantatously make Saint Louis significantly more competitive. You would be a top 10 city again and have statistics like crime (and others) that would no longer misrepresent Saint Louis. Government and public services could be streamlined and it would create a more unitied mentality. You would bascially be like the rest of the country again. My family presently plans on being here awhile and we would like to see this region succeed. We wish all you natives felt the same way.

Most of this state has an inferiority complex about St. Louis, but nobody here really notices because this city has such an inferiority complex about other cities. Austin’s claim to fame is that they’re the capitol of Texas and home to UT. That puts them right in league with the Columbia/Jeff City region. Whoopee. St. Louis has a unique place in America’s history and our expansion West, which includes hosting the ‘04 World’s Fair and Olympics. Nothing wrong with being proud of that. Try going to Austin and not having the Alamo shoved down your throat by a bunch of arrogant Texans. At least it’s something in a Texas city that’s over 30 years old. The “demise” of certain areas of city/county in St. Louis is a function of urban migration, which happens when a city has an actual history.

Well, for one thing, Austin wasn’t settled until the 1830’s. St. Louis was settled (by non-natives) in 1763, so it’s a much older city… or course parts of it are older and in need or repair or replacement.

Moreover St. Louis was intended to be a river town. It’s lifeblood was river traffic and, later, rail traffic. Industries built here because of the river trade. The river was EVERYTHING. When Air and Road Freight began replacing river and rail traffic after World War II, the city suffered as it struggled to shift its entire identity. It’s happened before and will happen again. For more recent examples, see Pittsburgh (steel) or Detroit (autos). Pittsburgh is recovering and is on the upswing, while Detroit is still struggling.

While Austin has twice as many people living within the city limits, there are 1.2 million more people living in the St. Louis metropolitan area. St. Louis also has more than double the population density within the city limits. (St. Louis city is only 66 sq. miles, compared to Austin’s 296 sq. miles.) St. Louis, being a river town, also has to deal with flooding and prevention, and being in the midwest has to deal with ice and snow removal. So there are more places St. Louis’s money has to go than Austin’s.

So yes, St. Louis has its problems but all things considered, the city has weathered exceptionally well over it’s nearly 250 year existence. It sounds like Mr McCracken can’t decide which city he wants to be mayor of.

If you actually compare the populations of the whole “urban area” St. Louis ranks 17, while austin is way down there at 40….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_urban_areas

Here’s what I emailed him last night. Hope you do the same:
Hey Brewster–where in the world do you get the cojones to trash my hometown? What exactly do you know about St. Louis? Have you ever been here? Come on up and we’ll show you what a fabulous place this is to live … on one condition… QUIT TRASHING MY HOME TOWN! For Shame!! Ask someone from St. Louis what a hoosier is and it won’t be a native of the great state of Indiana…and that’s exactly what you are, a hoosier.

I sent Mr. McCracken an email and invited him and his fmaily to my house for dinner with an offer to show him the many things that make St. Louis a good place to be.

He’s right.

There’s no doubt we transplants have a much different view of STL.
I was once labeled a “communist” for my views and told to go home.

The good thing is there’s more and more of us coming here. Things will change but it take will activism and not couch-potato-ism.

I guess he’s trying to prove a point that if you were doing well in the past you can fall? Don’t they have problems with Swine Flu and Mexican gang wars?

C’mon, we all know that Democrats destroyed the city of St. Louis. Isn’t it fun to hear the truth from another Democrat?

All that being said, criticizing another city is obviously the wrong way to campaign.

All yotube ratings and comments have been disabled. Gee I wonder why? Mayor McCrackhead declares this pizza - “AWESOME!!!”

The second funniest thing in this comment section is that in true Saint Louis spirit, our shortsightedness is shining through. Only Saint Louisians care about the World’s Fair; only we care about toasted ravioli. We stay here, we don’t question our leaders, we allowed for the total destruction of our city, we live in the same neighborhoods our whole lives and never cross county lines unless we are going on a trip. We fear the city yet the minute we travel, we tell everyone that we’re from Saint Louis. Not Kirkwood, not Affton, not Chesterfield. We get offended if someone from Seattle or New York doesn’t know where Saint Louis is located on a map. “We aren’t fly-over. We used to have an international air hub”. We get offended if someone doesn’t know that really, Saint Louis is much bigger than just the population of the city - we scream “Count the counties too”. And, we are the first to say that we are a smaller Chicago and much better than Kansas City. Most dangerous city? We reply with “Well, that’s just a few neighborhoods. If we counted the whole region, we wouldn’t be so bad”. But we do nothing to make it better; just find excuse after excuse to justify the current existence of the city and why we never leave or make anything better.

Hands down, the funniest thing in this whole comment section was the Humpty quote. Classic

jmiller, you showed him. I’m sure he’ll have a lot more respect for St. Louis when he reads your idiotic comments. Do you know how stupid the rest of the country thinks you are when you use “hoosier” as a pejorative word for white trash? A Hoosier is a native of Indiana. You are a white trash idiot. See how those words aren’t the same? All over the country, if you call me a “hoosier”, no one will understand your self-imposed meaning. But, if I say “jmiller8624 is a white trash idiot”, everyone will understand.

Amanda, is this nothing more than shock journalism? What did he say that wasn’t true? Perhaps you as a journalist should be the one doing some research before posting this. Perhaps take a walk through North St. Louis or look around at all the old, empty abandoned buildings. Also do you think our world championship caliber baseball owners are doing a great job of helping develop downtown?

Maybe we should spend our time and energy making the city/region a better place to live and do business instead of worrying about a TV ad running in Austin.

In the time it takes to draft an e-mail to Mr. McCracken, you could contact our state legislators to encourage them to support tax credits for the renovation of historic buildings, for example.

If we drop the negativity and start tackling our problems, we can turn this ship around.

What a silly and amateurish article! Yes there are whole sections of St. Louis that are dilapidated and vacant. How about doing some research and writing about saving the Mullanphy Emigrant Home or some other historical structure in need of saving in our fine city? I agree with who wrote as a politician he’s using the divert and distract tactic, nothing new for a politician and nothing to get your feathers ruffled over.

Hell, he’s right. This is a has been town. Fortune 500 companies have no problem getting out of here, yet none ever seem to come. There are areas that are vast urban wastelands. I feel for the people stuck there (at least the ones who are the victims of the criminals that roam the streets)

People get whacked on street corners like no ones business, politics are divided up between the 2 parties, the black Democrats and the white Democrats, cronyism is the order of the day in all city jobs and work, and the schools are more than a joke. You can’t build anything because every building that might get cleared out to make way for progress will have some one chained too it telling us how architecturally significant this particular vacant building it is.

Is it just me, or does this guy remind you of Kent, from the movie Real Genius?

my friend in houston claims that they have better mexican food in texas, but i don’t believe it. the people who own mexican restaurants in st louis are also mexican. they came from the same mexico. they just travelled a few hundred miles north before they settled in their new home. same recipes, same heritage. what’s the difference? you are telling me that the mexican family who owns el nopal is less mexican than a mexican family who owns a restaurant in houston, or austin?

oh yeah, and this guy is a tool.

He could have chosen any number of cities. Detroit, KC, Philly, New Orleans, as examples of cities on the decline. Maybe he chose St. Louis because he’s been here recently and we can’t seem to stay out of the top-10 murderous, fattest, dirtiest, racist, blah, blah, list.

By the way, his real first name is Phil but he chooses to use his middle name as his first name.

St. Louis Metro population (2008, estimated): 2.87 million
Austin Metro population (2008, estimated): 1.5 million

Stop bashing your own hometown, have some civic pride. You don’t get to be the 17th-largest metropolitan area in the country by accident. And the city population is rising for the first time in 50 years. There’s nowhere to go but up - we are NOT Detroit, for god’s sake.

The message does hold true for our older cites throughout the US not just St. Louis. The whys and hows are multifaceted and solutions found to reduce the damage of the last 45 years. People like McCracken (Cracker sounds more probable) are just another cause..placing blame and not giving real solutions. We all can find fault and get some people to agree, the left and right extremes have been riding this pony for years.
How about thinking up ways to correct these problems that will really work and people will swallow hard but accept? Do we Americans really have the will anymore?

What do I think? I think he’s 100% accurate in what he says about St. Louis. On Monday night I was robbed at gunpoint outside my home in St. Louis. I have to say this is leaving a very bad taste in my mouth and I’m glad I am moving away from St. Louis next month to another state.

I didn’t get the sense he was trying to diss the people who live here, but even if he was, what kind of rebuttal could this region possibly offer, anyway? The city is a hell-hole of gigantic proportions.

What a jerk, is he one of W’s buddies, what party is he part of?

What’s your address Jeremy? I only ask because I have a hard time believing a lot of the self-reported crime by “city” residents on the message boards. I honestly think a lot of it is made up.

I grew up in the St. Louis suburbs and attended college here as well. I left for a few years and chose to come back because this is where I live and I can see the beauty of the city.

That said, to an outsider St. Louis looks lie one giant slum. We have elected goofy and self serving politicians for decades. If we all weren’t so stuck in high school and the clicks we joined then, we’d have elected competent people to make the city a decent place to live and work.

Our Riverfront is a prime example of the mismanagemet and serves as a good example of the state of St. Louis. While beautiful, and boasting a recognizable landmark, the riverfront district is dead most of the time.

It has been given a slew of drinking establishments (that have come and gone) and been given a reputation as unfriendly.

Memphis is a prime example of how a tourist district should be run.

Instead of letting those vacant buildings sit, let small business owners occupy them rent free or near free, get some live music that caters to different tastes, and enjoy the tax revenue. Live blues and jazz at one venue, rock at another, country at another, maybe a family style resturant ith a festive theme.

Bring back St. Louis as a tourist destination, and the tax revenue could be made to improve the city.

God bless Joe Edwards and hat he has done to revitalize a small portion of our city. Give him a budget and free reighn and see hat he can do.

Or better yet, hire me at a meager salary of about 30,000 a year and give me about 3 years.

The ad works on many levels. Anyone in advertising should understand how the use of St. Louis achieved its goals. It caught the viewers eye, kept thier attention, caught our attention, asks how can they and we do better? That is what this ad is meant to be and do.
St. Louisans know we can do better, must do better, so it caught our attention to work harder to be all we can be as a city. McCracken scored as he used the flaws in our system to draw attention to those in thier system. Its intent is to make the viewer see they deserve more from thier leaders. If St. Louis has a problem with it, perhaps we need to ask where did we go wrong, how can we fix it, if things are so bad others have picked up on it, who needs to leave office? He hit a nerve. Ignoring it won’t make the problems go away, makes us look weaker as a city.
I give this ad an “A”. It was brilliant.

I have not watched the ad, but herein lies the problem with Politics today. All the candidates want to do is to slam their opponents and not really tell what they plan on doing once they are elected. All their campaign promises (statements) are very ambiguous. During the Presidential campaign, Mr. Obama continuously stated he would create 5 million new jobs during his administration, question to President Obama, HOW?, WHEN? WHERE?.
While St. Louis is not Mr. McCracken’s opponent, he is obviously using something in the St. Louis government as an example of poor management. If he is campaigning for the Mayor of Austin, Texas, he should be making statements about his own city, not others.

All election ballots, should have a new candidate listed, “NONE OF THE ABOVE” and if that gets the most votes, a new election should be held with new candidates. Lets start getting people in office who are there “FOR THE PEOPLE, AND BY THE PEOPLE” not for themselves.

Perhaps my very positive view of St. Louis is my outsider’s perspective. Also, I tend to ignore city limits and look at the Metro Area as a whole. Taken as a whole, this Metro area is a Fantastic place to live, and has a huge variety of things to offer.

So when I see people in the West county trash St. Louis, I scratch my head. To an outsider, Creve Coeur is still St. Louis. Of course, when a politician like Brewster compares his city to ours for political gain, he conveniently ignores all the good parts of the Metro area, and only focuses on the bad parts of the city proper. Only in Politician math does the worst areas of a city of 356,000 defines a metro area of 2,822,000.

Austin – Please don’t vote for this man. You can do better.

PS- Thanks to Amanda/Kurt for the continuing moderation. I know it’s work, but it’s worth it.

Sure, some of what the guy says is true - but isn’t it in poor taste to run an ad putting another city down? Last time I checked we are all still Americans, and judging others is still improper.

And sure, maybe he was trying to prove a point about his own city by using us as an example. I can’t help but feel, though, the civic pride in me take offense to his comparison. I think it’s a shame that many people have forgotten to take pride in their community, regardless of what it may be. It’s still where you are from, where your neighbors and family are from. For us to be complacent with what he says is for us to permit the put-downs. A person wouldn’t let someone talk about their family that way, would they?

123456—

I cannot address your claims because emails get kicked back.

Maybe what he is saying is partially true, however when you do a comparison between two items, you are first supposed to pick two items that are very similar in a degree. Not once does he validate why St. Louis is such a horrible place to live in reference to Austin. So, my personal issue is, if you are going to compare you need to have some similarities. St. Louis and Austin have very little in common which have been specified in many of the other comments, so I am not going to be redundant. Maybe he is confused and thinks that St. Louis is the capital of Missouri??? If so he may need some education with Dan Quayle.
To be honest, what he is probably doing (and succeeding) is getting his name out there. People are going to remember his name, bad way of getting it out there, but everyone that listened to him ramble will remember this guy from Austin that was running for Mayor and wanted to insult St. Louis. RIGHT?
Anyway, I find him a coward by not addressing the issues in front of him and attacking city hundreds of miles away.

A lot of you completely miss the point. Austin isn’t as big as St. Louis is right now, instead it is at a point of size and status (check any recent city rankings) that St.Louis was once at. The point is, we are going to grow but we need to grow the right way. Leffingwell is still under the impression like many established Austin groups are that we can stymie growth. This thinking has led to the major problems Austin faces now, primarily traffic.

Maybe some are missing the real comparison. That being St. Louis of 1903 and St. Louis now. I think that was the comparison he could have been making in relation to Austin.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with the sentiment of his statement if not the political tactic. I personally love St. Louis…grew up there, visit often, find the city itself architecturally relevant and interesting…it’s pretty, livable and has nicer people then most places…however, due to its lack of forward thinking, I had to move in order to find meaningful work. If you look at St. Louis’ illustrious past (including the 1904 World’s Fair), it’s been nothing but declines. Compared to the early days when St. Louis was the center of the US and almost everyone on there way to anywhere had to pass through, it’s definitely declined in a major way. I truly regret saying it and hope it goes the other way soon. I’d love to come back!

All right!!! The Brewster just got Austin Texas a new rival City!!! WOW, I can hardly wait for the next time the Cardinals, Rams or even the Blues go down to Austin to play against one of their teams. Oh gee… Wait a minute… Austin does not have any professional sports teams down there.

You know it’s funny, but I can’t seem to remember the last time that Austin hosted a Men’s Final Four, Women’s Final Four, or Major League All-Star game. I guess when your city achieves the status Austin has, you just don’t NEED those events. People simply whisper its name and the magic happens…”Aussssstinnnn…”

Amanda’s focus completely missed the target. Yeah, there is a question - why did he choose to take on StL (the answer is: because it is a symbol of a decay). More important question is - are the things about StL he mentioned incorrect? The answer is no - they are the truth, and that’s why an outrage here, because the truth can hurt.

There is no bigger looser in urban decay in the 20th century than Saint Louis. It was also singled out because yes, in 1904, it was one of the coolest and most prosperous cities in the world. To mention decay of KC or Cinci doesn’t emphasize the point as much, as they were never close to what StL once was.

truth - ya ever heard of Detroit?

I do not agree with his tactic, but I can’t say he is wrong in the facts. There are great parts of the city that continue to develop, but for the most part that is not due to city management or funding, it is private development. The areas that have fallen into decay could have been supported by city funding and policing, but instead they HAVE remained neglected and and continue to spread like mold.

Maybe instead of worrying about what McCracken said, we should worry about why he picked St. Louis as his example. If we can answer that, it might lead to a larger conversation on what we can do to fix the problems currently being faced and which were probably observed by McCracken.

Either way, he does seem too dorky for a cool city like Austin.

he is a texas leaguer, and won’t make it to the big leagues. plus in st louis’s hey day it was the supply center for building the west. and that includes texas. and as the west was settled, the settler went with it. even than gov. johnson move the state capital to marshall, texas during the war in 1861.

maybe we need someone like brewster here in STL. this place is a dump and everyone knows it.

Another tempest in a teapot. Who is really concerned with what some society-climber in another part of the country thinks one way or another? Ill-conceieved comparisons or petty responses to them on our part do nothing to advance anyone’s causes.

I hope, as do others who have written, that we do not debase ourselves with a juvenile hate-mail campaign. The man has a right to his opinion, and he does make some valid points. St. Louis is a good town with good people, but we’ve got a LOT of work to do to turn our city around. No shame in that, and we’ve got company all over our country. We’re supposed to be the Show Me state — well, maybe we can show old Brewster and everyone else that St. Louis can rebound. There are signs out there that it just might happen.

I forgive Texas for inflicting George Bush on us for the last eight years, so I can easily forgive Mr. McCracken for any misdirected potshots he may or may not have intended to take at St. Louis. Besides which, with a name like Brewster McCracken, this guy may have more problems than we know…

I think Mr. McCracken is at least partially correct.
If you have ever had the pleasure of taking Grand Ave or Kingshighway from the Midtown to Hwy 70, or if you have taken a Sunday drive down Natural Bridge to the intersection of Newstead…you just don’t know what you are missing! Such beautiful homes and quaint neighborhoods…it’s surprising that this area hasn’t made the top 100 “Best Places to Live” list! (Abundant Sarcasm included)

What’s with “well….we got better sports”?

Big deal - they’re surrounded by sports teams in Texas…

Their city is absolutely beautiful….something St. Louis hasn’t been able to say for decades…

What next? “Buh buh buh…we gots pork steaks”

I believe that he just made the St. Louis reference to prove a point. Yes, St. Louis was the center of the universe at the turn of the century (1800’s to 1900’s). With the many companies and innovation being created here. It is nearly extinguished today. The spirit of St. Louis meant something that it doesn’t quite meant today.

I love my city, but it’s divided for a reason. There are sections of the area abandoned for a reason. Those who left, never to return, know why they did so. They have their reasons.

To leave communities without its base of wage earners and educated people leads to ruin.

I think this is what he doesn’t want for the people of Austin.
1. A city divided against itself ( for whatever reason)
2. The flight of the wage earners and educated folk from the core of the city.
3. Not to mention, bad management of city resources.

Is he really wrong and off base…….I dont know?

This guy is exactly correct. Perhaps if St. Louis took a moment away from trying to pretend that it is a big city it could learn a few lessons from other cities on how to do things. To see the revitilazation of downtowns, in so many comperable cities, for instance Indianapolis, Cincinnatti, and Greenville, S.C., it is sad that nothing can be done with St. Louis. By the way I have lived here all my life, so this is not some out of town guy with an agenda, just a local boy who knows a third-tier city when he sees one.

Perhaps Brewster can tell us how we can copy Austin’s model plan for traffic flow. I visit the city several times yearly as we have relatives there. I so enjoy sitting in stopped traffic, burning gasoline. Very environmentally friendly. Wish we could do it here. Oh, I also love mingling with the druggies and drunks on 6th Street, so much fun and convenient if you are in the market for them. Maybe we could pick a street and allow rampant drug use and underage drinking there all the time. We could use more panhandlers, too, there’s nothing says home like a stoned guy getting in your face as you walk down the sidewalk. That will really move our city into the big leagues again.

For those who don’t like Saint Louis:move. Nobody is asking you to stay here. I’m sure Austin, TX would love to have you. Oh wait, there’s no job market in Austin. Shame on you.

I can’t get over how so many St. Louisans are cheerleading the area’s demise. No matter what your future plans are, this area getting better will benefit you, even if you’re leaving in a couple years. But like the grown up children we are, we whine and complain about how nothing is getting better, while those who actually know about the city are watching it improve, slowly but surely. Will St. Louis ever be a world class city again? Probably not, but it can definitely be a top 10 U.S city…maybe it would happen faster if all the self centered brats rooting against it would either shutup or leave.

I realized I side stepped with my comment’s topic a little but I was hoping to get some responses. Hope you don’t mind if I run it again because I do think what this region needs is more outsiders points of view.

We moved to Saint Louis from Chicago almost 4 years ago but have also lived in Miami and Washington DC at some point in the last decade. I have to say the Saint Louis region needs to wake up!! Not correcting the 130 year old mistake when the city was separated from the county is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen. The region has been at a competitive disadvantage ever since and that disadvantage is becoming more significant every year. You bicker, fight and point fingers like children instead of realizing you are on the same team. We have friends all over the country and everyone of them thought we were crazy for taking a job here because of the city’s reputation (which is the same reputation for the entire region because the only people that have a distinction between the two are people from St. Louis). But from our personal experience Saint Louis is radically better than it is perceived by most of the country. It is unfortunate that everyone here is completely clueless to how damaging that fact is. We were shocked after moving here to find this beautiful historic city (that has enormous potential) and a region that is much larger than one would think based on a tiny city of 350,000. The rest of the world doesn’t want to visit Saint Louis and they definitely don’t want to move here (us included).

But after living here for 4 years we have had almost nothing but good things to say about St. Louis. We live in the Central West End and I would compare it to our Lincoln Park neighborhood in Chicago or Georgetown in DC but at about 1/2 of the price. We really enjoy it. But the rest of the world will never know or care about any of the good qualities of Saint Louis because it they will always be overshadowed by the negative stigma as the crime capital of the U.S. People in your own region can’t get over it. Without question there are some bad parts of this city. But almost every major city has their own version of north Saint Louis. The difference is almost every other city is represented by a much bigger swatch of their region. The crime laden zones are diluted compared to here. And the comments I read from people that give their reasons for opposing the city joining the county again are so incredibly short sighted it makes me sick to read them.

St. Louis has been used to this broken and destructive rivalry for so long that people will endlessly defend it to the point they are incapable of grasping the important larger picture. In this global economy there are thousands of places people can choose to move to or relocate or expand a business in. Nobody will even consider looking at this region until you change your image. Absorbing the city into the county would almost instantatously make Saint Louis significantly more competitive. You would be a top 10 city again and have statistics like crime (and others) that would no longer misrepresent Saint Louis. Government and public services could be streamlined and it would create a more unitied mentality. You would bascially be like the rest of the country again. My family presently plans on being here awhile and we would like to see this region succeed. We wish all you natives felt the same way.

Well, the gauntlet has been thrown. We have been attacked by a foreign power with no provocation. This day will live in infamy, and I for one, will not take this insult laying down like some godless, sniveling Frenchman. It’s time to fight back, its time to get GHETTO. Are our women and children next? What red-blooded men and women want to fight back and defend out honor?

Austin isn’t a city, its an unwashed commune full of emo-hippies dressing like bums while twittering on Iphones ,wearing ratty Che Guevera shirts and plotting a vegan revolution. If Punky Brewster wants it, well, let’s give em a taste of old-fashioned, bricklayin, porksteak cookin, woman defending, God-fearing, .45 shootin midwestern revenge.

Who’s with me?

The problem with St. Louis is this:
- The City of St. Louis is ranked below the top 50 cities in the United States.
- As a region St. Louis is the 17th largest “region” in the country

Due to the city/county divide we lose potential businesses setting up here, our crime statistics along with a lot of other statistics are distorted.

The problem with North City is that a huge percent of it is owned by a developer who has ties with the city. Thus, he is not forced to clean up the property. Until he finally develops the area, it will be a blight to the city.

Other problems with the city is it is too resistant to change. Examples include our view of public transportation (Failing Prop M and the MetroLink expansion proposal in the early 90 to south St. Louis county), resisting combining the County and City again, many residents view of the city as a dangerous place (come down it is actually quite pleasant to dine, shop and be entertained downtown). Hopefully one day residents of this city will realize that our shortsightedness is causing the city to look like a bad apple.

Unfortunately, the truth hurts. In 1950, the city had 800,000 people and a lot of jobs. In 2009, the city has 350,000 residents and continues to lose jobs. Yes, there are many parts of town that continue to be “nice”. The problem is that without jobs (keeping existing and attracting new), we’re going to continue to struggle economically.

I went to high school in Austin and visit often. It’s a great city but has its share of problems. So does St. Louis. Both are nice places to live.
It looks like he recorded the video in the Alamo Draft House. That might explain the strange logic to attack St. Louis. Cheers, y’all.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2290/1836881720_6b723fe3df.jpg

Mr.Mc Cracken shuld be upset.He know we got Austin beat when it come to police corruption,sexual transmitted disease,unemployment,welfare,crime and murders and carjackings and all the things that make St.Louis the great city that it is.No wonder he’s jealous of The Lou!!!

I left St. Louis in 1975 for the Navy, the city had over eight hundred thousand residents, the last time I looked the city I now call home, Corpus Christi, TX. has a larger population than St. Louis proper. I grew up 2 blocks from Sportsman Park, now look at the area. THis is what happens when liberals are in charge, look at Detroit. This man does not want this to happen to Austin TX, which we call moscow on the Colorado.

stltransplant well said. I completely agree with you. I grew up in the county, but have since moved downtown.

The problem is that many in the St. Louis region view the city as a crime ridden core, and they are scared of the thought of combining with it. When I moved downtown, people I worked with would ask if I was scared to live there. Unfortunately, many of their thoughts are reinforced by petty crime in the city. I have had my car broken into twice in 3 years. My brother was mugged in the late 90s in Soulard. Unfortunately the school system is a mess, and a lot of kids dont go. These are the same kids that break into cars and are menaces to the city region. This needs to be stopped, and the question of how is a good one. Any ideas?

I say again…

If you don’t like Saint Louis then you can always move. There is no law(that I know of)that requires you to stay here. Oh yeah, you have a job here that pays your bills. Maybe Florida or California would be a better fit for you.

Way to represent our city and be proud.

I love Saint Louis and plan to reside here for many years to come.

Jason the revitalization of St. Louis has won nation wide awards. It is the model being set up by Denver. The problem is it now needs to spread to the north part of the city, along with smaller pockets of south city. Also people in the region need to support the area.

Again the biggest problem is that St. Louis is not combined with St. Louis county which makes us always end up on the top of everyone’s crap list (crime, murder, STDs, ect).

Tommy -

You want us to leave St. Louis because we won’t sugar coat everything that’s wrong with it?

It’s called being realistic….

No, this is totally wrong: his ad should say that he is going to make his city exactly like STL. That he will split the city up into fiefdoms so that the city’s core empties its population, car theft will remain high, illiterates will become neighborhood wardens, multinationals will leave, funding for public transit disappears, he will make their waterfront look like a Mad Max movie, he will decrease the air quality, and make sure that people become fatter. They will elect him for his humor.

Hey Tommy, why “say again”? Because your opinion was irrelevant and no one took the bait?

In the evening, I leave my comfortable, pretty well paid tech job. I either walk or ride my bike home, through tree-lined streets of century-old homes. On the way there are kids (white, black, asian) all out playing in the street with each other. A lot of their toys and bikes are accidentally left out overnight; they’ll still be there in the morning. When I get home, my neighbor across the street waves and says hello. I head to my back porch, grab a cold beer, turn on the Cards game, and ponder my myriad choices of non-chain, non-fast food options for dinner. In my 6 years living here, I’ve never encountered a theft let alone violent crime.

What city do I live in? Saint F-ing Louis. And I don’t want to leave.

This man told the truth and did not lie or exaggerate, so why is there a problem? The topic should be how to eliminate this stigma. It starts in the community…but that is not even on the radar. You get out what you put in. I guess the truth stings sometimes.

I don’t think anyone named `Brewster’ should be knocking anyone, or anything, else.

stg, well said.

A.Patriot, you nailed it. This is not about Brewster or Austin. Why do we care point out shortcomings of Austin? If there is any truth in what he was saying, and looks like a lot of people think there is, then we should concentrate on changing and improving Saint Louis. Not talking about freakin’ baseball.

sgt, I echo your sentiments exactly. There are many amazing neighborhoods in the city and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. I always challenge anti-city folks to come to my area and tell me where I live is a dump. Tree lined streets, lots of parks, great restaurants, close to everything, tons to do, and perhaps most surprisingly to county folks - it’s SAFE. Yes the north side certainly has major problems, but I don’t assume the entire county is just like it’s bad parts.

My dad can beat up YOUR dad…

Congrats media…you just gave this guy publicity money couldn’t buy. Do you hate STL too? Played right into his plan. Meanwhile, you have plenty of STL neighborhood groups that could have used the space you gave this guy. I think his campaign tactics were only as good as the media who pimped him out.

Is it true that guy was someone who wanted to develop here and he couldn’t bribe his way in, so now he is angry?

Sounds pretty accurate to me.

So what’s the big deal? Even ORLANDO is deteriorating (perhaps ‘imploding’ is a more accurate word)… as are almost every city in this great land.

Sorry this dude called out St. Louis specifically, because you’re not alone, folks. Can’t beat the baseball there, however. How long will it take to pay that new statium off? Hmmmmmm.

Enjoy your equally HOT summer!!!

More important to Ferris Brewster McCracken Day Off is who does he root for “Aggies” or “Longhorns”. He can lose if he chooses wrongly.

Once you leave the confines of the University of Texas and the Capitol artea, Austin has some nice suburbs and an over abundance of “Gentlemen’s Clubs”.

Fanfaron -

The privately financed stadium? Is that the one you’re talking about? If so, then mark it “paid in full”

Let’s look at the facts. In 1955, the city had roughly 855,000 people, the fourth largest city in the country. Great neighborhoods and local schools where children were getting a good education. A large number of fortune 500 companies and others that had their HQ’s here. We had an airport that was one of the 7th busiest in the country. It was a hub with hundreds of non-stop flights available at a reasonable cost. It was a hub for transportation whether it be trucking, trains, airlines, or the waterways.

Today, less than 325,00 people, a school system taken over by the state and a graduation rate that is less than 50 percent. Not to mention it is no longer a hub for transportation, almost every major corporation has moved its HQ to some other city, dubbed many times the murder capital of the USA, VD capital of the country, and crime everywhere.

I think McCracken hit the nail on the head. It is a disgrace. And you know when it started going downhill? When the democrats took control in the mid-fifties. Today they still have control. They keep trying the same thing over and over expecting different results. When are the uneducated and illiterate people of St Louis going to wake up and realize democrats are not your friend? They are only using you for your vote. They lie and deceive you and you keep falling for it. So maybe, you do deserve what you get. You keep asking for it.

Steve, if you hate it so much here, then leave. Those of us sticking around will be that much happier without the whiners. As stated before, I work and live in the city and see it no different from anywhere else I have lived.

It’s sad if you think it’s purely political and that white flight, cheaper housing, the decline of manufacturing and the plight of the airline industry are all the fault of democrats in the city of St. Louis

If the decline was their fault, then the revitalization must be their fault too. Unfortunately the complainers refuse to pay attention to all the good things happening just across that little made-up, arbitrary line dividing us City Dwellers from “civilization” in the rest of the metro.

I agree with the poster who said that it is often the new blood who truly appreciates St. Louis. My wife and I currently live in a beautiful neighborhood in south St. Louis City, having moved here from the southwest United States a couple of years ago. We are surrounded by wonderful parks, beautiful old homes, and love everything that St. Louis has to offer culturally (good restaurant scene, St Louis Symphony, baseball, zoo, art museum, etc. etc.) We can walk to restaurants and coffee shops, and have a real neighborhood feel where everyone watches out for everyone else. We have no plan to leave - this is the best place we’ve ever lived. Two years in the city and have never experienced or witnessed a crime…

I grew up in St. Louis, and yes some areas, especially the North, have major problems. STL has ranked for many years, at the top, or near it, of the most crime ridden cities in the US. There are many factors that contribute to its state. The largest being that the city limits of STL can’t be increased to take advantage of the more prosperous suburbs. As a result the tax base of the city has been shrinking while the need for public programs is increasing. The city limits of STL were set in the early 20th century. Back then the city had the money and didn’t want to worry about supporting the poor rural areas. The rich all lived within the city limits. Now over 100 years later the situation has reversed and the city is suffering. I think STL has passed up many opportunities to revitalize the downtown, looks as if they are heading down that same road again with the new Busch stadium. I have to agree with many of the posts though, that STL has little to do with Austin. Most large cities have experienced urban decline, why single out STL?

As a former St. Louisan and always from the greatest city in the Midwest in my heart I think that Mr. Brewster must be picking on my home town because he has no idea that El Paso is even part of the state of Texas. A common failing among TX politicians. I have been to Austin and it is not that great a place St. Louis has it beat all to armadillo soup! Austin is just a small town with a lot of money in the pockets of the politicians. The folks who have to work for their livings live in the small rural communities because only a millionaire can afford to live in the city of Austin.

Hey, Austin is not that great Brewster, after all you have the University Texas to drag you down. go A&M

Do you Know what a native Texan is ?

A Mexican that couldn’t make it to Oklahoma.

Austin ain’t as nice as it used to be.

–A Native Texan

(Here’s the message I sent to Brewster.)

Mr. McCracken I read your comments about my hometown of St. Louis with great amusement.

I do appreciate your willingness to be a leader in the great (sic) state of Texas and would like to encourage to you get behind the movement for Texas to secede from the USA.

You see Mr. McCracken (did you have a role in Slapshot?) we really can’t take any more of Texas’ contributions to the office of President as the last one just about destroyed the country.

So we look forward to hearing from you next in your new role as Mayor in the great country of Texas.

Sincerely, Mike

The last time I was in St. Louis (I am currently and temporarily transplanted in Colorado) I was very impressed with the urban renewal that was taking place down town. It seems rather irresponsible of this man to compare a city with a rich and lengthy heritage to Austin. It is apples and oranges, but give me St. Louis any day of the week.

There ARE large sections of our urban core that have been abandoned. I’ve got great news for anyone tired of waiting for “someone” to do “something” about that. We have decay, but St. Louis is also home to one of the TOP Habitat for Humanity affiliates in the country. They are responsible for one of the largest LEED certified developments in the country (a neighborhood of 28 houses LEED certified PLATINUM last year) and have built 258 new homes in St. Louis city since 1986.

Nearly 70 of those homes are in the JeffVanderLou neighborhood just northeast of the Fox Theater and tomorrow morning they will raise first walls on another section — 28 more homes — that will be finished by Christmas. Habitat homes are built by volunteers — regular people like YOU — and they have opportunities as soon as this weekend for you to start being that “someone” who does “something” about revitalizing the city!! check it out at http://www.habitatstl.org.

According to this site (http://recenter.tamu.edu/data/popm/pm7040.htm) the St. Louis Metro area had a population of 2,457,116 in 1970. According to the same site, the population in 2008 was 2,720,670. It’s not record setting, but it is growth. Sure, the city proper lost residents during the same time frame, but the suburbs offset it.

The same web site (http://recenter.tamu.edu/data/popm/pm0640.htm) shows that Austin had 398,938 people in 1970, and 1,652,602 in 2008. Outstanding growth! However, it should be noted that even after that epic growth, the Austin metro area would still have to grow over 50% - just to match the population St. Louis had in 1970!

While the St. Louis area is becoming more used to it’s size (increased roads, better services, etc) Austin is experiencing Serious growing pains. Austin will need good leadership if they Ever want to be the size of St. Louis - Not a politician who will attack a strawman to distract from his own failures.

Austinites – you really can do better.

View the piece at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3fUkvuvFHg

Huh. Of course Austin doesn’t have decaying urban areas that look like North St Louis (yet) - the city’s not that old! Sun Belt cities just developed later and differently! I’ve been to ATX (they think it sounds as cool as STL… wrong) numerous times. They have more than enough of their own racial/economic stratification and homeless people on MANY more street corners than I’ve ever seen in St Louis. I wish this guy would focus on the problems in HIS city instead.

In preparation for the 1904 Worlds Fair there were some amazing things done to St. Louis. Many of which are still in place more than 100 years later. None of us were alive at the time, but from what I have read, pictures I have seen, and the evidence that still exists, I would say that time period blows away what we have today. 2009 and 1904 are two completely different time periods and are difficult to compare, but If you look at the way it appears St. Louis was regarded in the country in 1904 compared to how it compared to the rest of the country today, we have lost a lot of ground. I’ve lived here all my life and I love St. Louis, but that’s the facts Jack.

Ah Austin home of Highland Mall. They closed the mall temporally when the Texas relays brought a large number of black visitors to the city.

The mall’s current occupancy rate is only 60 percent, compared to the national average of 94 percent. The Security and Exchange Commission said that is the lowest rate of any indoor mall in the United States.

http://socialistworker.org/2009/04/22/shutting-the-doors-on-blacks

Brewster is very much like our new BREWERS.

I cannot see what all the hell raising is about. The guy is right.
This city has been going down the drain for the past 50 years.
I spent the last 35 downtown and saw it in person.

As a native of St. Louis and a resident of Austin, a few “informed” observations from both sides: Brewster McCracken in no Virvus Jones. The Cardinals and Longhorns are both consistently competitive teams with a strong fan base that bring the communities together. Austin has Highland Mall to be ashamed of, St. Louis can claim Northwest Plaza. The “where did you go to high school” parochialism of St. Louis is no more or less pronounced or obnoxious than “God Bless Texas.” Texas can take responsibility for Bush 43 and Missouri can recall how many times John Ashcroft was elected to statewide office. Having lived in both cities, I can assure you: there is urban plight/crime (to very similar extents) in both cities. St. Louis divides north/south (with Delmar as the unofficial dividing line). Austin is no different, other than the division is east/west and the dividing line is I 35. The list goes on, but the bottom line really is: while I found it odd/non-sequitor to see Brewster McCracken’s “St. Louis Slide” strategy play out in the campaign here in Austin, his point is absolutely true. St. Louis, for all it has to offer (and my entire family calls it home), suffered a noticeable decline over the last century. The Custard is better in St. Louis. The Tex Mex is better in Austin. The summers are hotter in Austin, the winters colder in St. Louis and when it is all said and done maybe St. Louis edges out Austin for no other reason that St. Louis has the Slyman Brothers and former “Jeopardy” champion Tom Kavanaugh.

I have to say that the spirit of the Austin man’s comments were probably right in line. Be attentive to your city or you’ll decline in the way that St. Louis has declined.

I grew up in Berkeley, attended the old Berkeley schools from K through 12, then left to go to college. I came back in late 81. It was the worst mistake I’ve ever made. I continue to live in this area, simply because I’m stuck. St. Louis has the vices of a large town to go with the vices of a small town. It has only a few of the virtues of either.

I’ll throw this gas on the fire before I quit. Back in the 70s, I was in school up north. Around the New York City area, this town had a reputation for having one of the worst labor climates in the country. The unions here were regarded as particularly belligerent. There are many reasons for this town’s decline, but folks, look to the “ready to strike anytime” mentality of the 60s and 70s for making it hard to do business here.

What people who mention deficiencies of Austin fail to understand, is the actual point McCracken made: that yes, Austin has it’s share of problems, and he (as a politician) is promising to turn the tide. As an example of decay he used Saint Louis, which is a “prime” example not only because of its decay (many other cities face similar problems), but also because of its old grandeur which many struggling cities of today never had in the first place.

The Slyman brothers, alone, may have been entirely responsible for the decline of St. Louis in the 20th Century.

As a native Missourian I moved away from the St Louis area 40 years ago. I still have many relatives living around St Louis all tho none in the city. I am in St Louis at least once each year and I have watched with sadness the city go downhill rather fast. I think Mr McCracken should be thanked. Perhaps it will get the attention of those in charge of St Louis and perhaps the “Dead Areas” will get some very needed attention.

Mr. McCracken seems to be saying that poverty is more upscape with the “Austin Model.” Maybe one of his campaign promises can be to turn all the crack houses into “McCracken” houses? You know, rid that city of blight.

Hey, I really wanted to make this about baseball. We’ve got the 10 time World Champion St. Louis Cardinals. They’ve got nothing. Oh, well, pity for Austin.

right, we should all just bury our heads in the sand and ignore the enormous problems and declines in this city. If you don’t like it Move….what a moronic statment…. If you don’t like it, help to make it better, plenty of people have ALREADY MOVED AWAY because they didn’t like it. All our historic bricks are being shipped out of the city for greener pastures…

Don’t ignore the problem…the pride hurts yes, but use that as motivation to foster change.

ok, you can rip on me now and tell me to move if I don’t like looking at neighborhoods of burned-out vacant buildings.

How rude!
Whether onCracken is right or wrong about St. Louis is beside the point. You wouldn’t take your kid who was jut bullied and say “Hey look at that other kid, he’s ugly. Much uglier than you could ever dream to be.”

This is pretty similar.

Great proofreading. The embedded video doesn’t work.

As an Austinte up until four months ago when I moved here, I can tell you that Brewster is , was , and shall continue to be an idiot. Austin is a good city-but they’ve had idiots running things for the last fifteen years that I was there. But then this is also where a homeless transvestite ran for mayor a few years back-and I think he (she?) placed pretty high. I mean the slogan for the city is ‘keep austin weird’. well it definetly is.

/miss Taco Cabana though.
//and the TX Chili Parlor.

I’m really sorry the local media latched onto this non-story about Brewster McCracken’s anti-St. Louis ad.

It’s filled with facts. It’s one-sided and unfair to St. Louis. However, that makes it (1) par for the course for any political ad and (2) far nicer than most of the things that the tinfoil hat crowd that spends their days complaining about this city on the forums would ever have to say about St. Louis.

Rather than attacking Mr. McCracken, I’d like to invite him to our city. Let him experience the baseball, the frozen custard, and all the cliches that even the most jaded of residents in our area seem to enjoy. Then, show him a downtown that’s seen over $4 billion of investment in the last decade, a revitalized Forest Park that’s home to many of our world-class cultural attractions, and vibrant urban neighborhoods like the CWE, the Loop, Tower Grove, Lafayette Square, Soulard, and The Hill. With a bit more time, he could also see vibrant suburban communities with a personality all their own like Kirkwood, Webster Groves, Clayton, and Maplewood.

Then, instead of attacking Mr. McCracken further, we could take a long hard look at ourselves in the mirror. Let’s face it- there are too many pessimists here. I keep hearing people say “America- love it or leave it”. Well, I feel the same way about St. Louis. Sometimes I think we’d be better off as a city of 250K surrounded by a county with about 700K if it meant all the naysayers would leave. We could make up for the loss in tax revenue in short order because all of the naysayers would be living in paradise somewhere else, only to complain about it after a few months.

The biggest obstacle to St. Louis’ renaissance is the myopic attitudes of many that live here, which is evident in this discussion and just about any other topic on this forum and others. The things we do well just can never compare to Chicago or Boston or New York. The problems we face, like crime, public schools, and segregation, must be exclusive to St. Louis, or at least they are worse here than anyplace else. Listen to these people and you would believe St. Louis is a hellhole. Or you could take off your tinfoil hat, turn off the Internets, and go for a walk or a short drive and enjoy a city with a high standard of living/low cost of living combination that is difficult if not impossible to match anywhere else.

Brewster McCracken, I’m ready to give you a tour of St. Louis whenever you’re ready to swallow your pride and check this great city out for yourself!

I’ve lived in Texas, all over. Austin is about as clean as St. Louis is, so what’s his deal? It’s not much different here than it is there, except for the twang. Texas is a great place to visit, you just don’t want to live there!

STL-AUS is exactly right. I bet Austin doesn’t have a family like the Slymans selling appliances. The Slymans really represent St. Louis, wait, I mean America at its best. They are even open on Sundays unlike that wimp Goedeker. Seriously, like you can’t make time to shop or work *and* spend time with your family or at church on Sunday. Give me a break!

Also, I would like to see Jeopardy Champion Tom Kavanaugh, a St. Louis native, race Lance Armstrong on a bike while answering trivia questions. Any advantage Lance has on a bike would surely be lost when he gets a migraine from trying to figure out the name of Tanto’s horse in the Lone Ranger. It is Scout by the way. I thought I better tell him so he is not distracted from his Tour de France training.

So Austin unless you can kidnap the Slyman Brothers and Tom Kavanaugh, Jeopardy Champion and bring them to your city, you may as well elect Brewster because it is all over for you anyway.

Unfortunately, its true. STL has been going down hill for a long time. Why haven’t we built a new bridge yet? Why is there still smoking in public? Why is this town so segregated? Why is the public school system one of the worst in the country? Why did we just half to cut half of our public transit system? Because this town is stuck in 1904, when we were actually a great town. ST. Louisans hate change, things that are different and minorities.

They like George Clooney and the Cardinals though…I bet George Clooney hated this town too.

If you actually watch the add, he’s not talking about St. Louis in a hateful or mean-spirited way. It is a fact that St. Louis, in a little over one hundred years, went from the 4th largest city in the U.S. to not even one of the top 50 largest. His point is that any city, no matter how great, can decline. He was by no means trying to insult St. Louis. Look at how many empty buildings there are downtown, which, as the city center, should be the most sought-after, highest priced real estate. While STL’s downtown is undoubtedly making a huge comeback, there is NO denying that it declined during the latter half of the last century - this is the point he was trying to make. During the rest of the ad, he talks about how one of Austin’s big companies is moving jobs overseas, thus he is worried that Austin could face similar problems.

Also, has anyone else noticed that this article looks to have been written by a jr. high student? While McCracken was actually speaking in a matter-of-fact manner in his ad, the author here doesn’t seem to be above personal insults (saying he got beat up as a kid, for example). This is not serious journalism.

Mr. McCracken’s ad has hit a nerve in ST.Louis. He is running for an office of a truely unique city and using STL as an example of what can/could go wrong with the Austin ecomomy. THATS IT! Some have said not Fair, Most are reading way to much into the comparison of STL/AUS as a smackdown on STL. Many have invited Mr. McCracken to visit and take in what St. Louis has to offer. Why not visit Austin and experience what he is trying to perserve. I live in Austin and and understand what it meant by the “Austin Model” Growth,Jobs and Strong Economy Having lived most of my life in St. Louis area I only wish the best for the area and its citizens. Go Cardinals!

I see that extremely unprofessional of him, And As I see it he has no room, actually less room to talk, last I recalled Texas has deserts between cities, Our areas maybe abandoned, but they at least can be inhabited, unlike deserts

Statistics don’t lie only neo-liberals and neocons do.

St. Louis is a crime filled backwater with few opportunities. It’s parochial, unfriendly and uncomfortable with new ideas and ways of doing things. It’s population has less education overall than most cities its size. It likes things like Imo’s that other people would throw in the garbage. It’s racially divided and both races that compromise the two main ones are heavily racist towards one another and the black race frequently violently targets whites for crime. Some would say that’s a hate crime but lets move on. The races are even especially social class based and discriminatory within themselves and discriminate by zip code - et. al West County hates North County, North County hates eastern North County, South County hates West County, St. Charles county hates everyone…. It used to be a primarily Catholic area but is now fractured and heavily controlled by Jewish influences although they compromise only a tiny tiny minority of the population. It was once a manufacturing hub but peaked in the 1970’s and began a very heavy and steady decline from there (once outsourcing began). A large majority of its population is still stuck in the 1970’s and many of it’s service industry workers still heavily reflect 1970’s clothing and hair styles (butt crack Levis, long hair, boondockers with the red laces, Marlboro Reds, Busch Beer (on their breath)). Its population are heavy drinkers and usually drive drunk as evidenced by all the liquor containers witnessed along on and off ramps of its highways. 90% of it including and especially St. Louis and St. Charles counties are dirty, trash strewn and run down. Public services are metered out unequitably based on zip code. Some areas the highways you’d think were in Beverly Hills though the housing stock is just okay, other areas you’d think you were in War Torn Iraq. And for all those in Cardinal Nation and the other rabid illiterate sports fans - statistics show that the most successful DON’T have publicly subsidized, privately owned, sports franchises and thus spend their money more wisely.

Overall the St. Louis area gets an “F” for a failed, fractured and unlikable area to live out one’s life.

I would consider moving to Austin just so I could vote for this jerk’s opponent, but I like it far too much down here in South Florida to move to Texas. Been there(Texas), done that, and don’t like it. Austin does not deserve a clown like Brewster McCracken because anyone that is so insecure as to come down on something else to make himself look good is in need of a good dose of self-esteem….

The email address that is listed for Brewster McCracken must have gotten flooded with responses because the email that I fired off to him was bounced back to me as “not valid” so I think that they have just shut it down. It’s probably a blessing that my email did not go thru because it wasn’t very nice……….

100 years ago St. Louis served as a vital artery of transportation with the two largest rivers in the land meeting near our town. I think the fact that method of transporting freight, people and other things has largely been replaced by other means, business and population have been on the decline.

St. Louis currently ranks 18th in “largest metro areas in the US”. Austin ranks 36th. Granted this man isn’t running for mayor of the entire metro area and St. Louis has been on a bit of a decline since the days of steamboats, not to mention parts of north st. louis look more like a 3rd world country than a city in 21st century america.

Whatever, I’m not getting into a pissing contest with some d-bag named Brewster over who’s town is better. Go Sooners if he wins! and matthew mcconahey is the worst actor to ever appear in any film ever!

I’m not e-mailing him, I don’t care about Austin.

What I don’t understand about all this is why someone pretending to be an impartial journalist would put out a call for people to jam this guy’s inbox with hate mail. And yes, hate mail is exactly what he’ll get and she knows that. Let him say what he wants about St. Louis; Texas is going to secede from the union anyway, right?

Statistics don’t lie, nice job of writing an utterly pointless and asinine diatribe completely free of factual or meaningful statistics!

No one’s forcing you to live anywhere near St. Louis, nor are they forcing you to participate on a St. Louis-based website. I know you fit in quite well with many of the mouthbreathers on these forums and blogs that have nothing better to do all day than to rant virulently against St. Louis, but your absence of any rational thought sinks to a new low. Take your ignorance and hatred elsewhere, please.

And STL MAN, unless you’ve actually been to a Third World country, please spare us any comparisons to north St. Louis or any other impoverished American community for that matter.

As someone said earlier, St. Louis truly is its own worst enemy. Our good attributes are never good enough, and our bad qualities are always the worst. Some of you really need to travel outside of St. Louis and then you might appreciate how good we have it here. Of course, that would require you to actually go out of your front door or a release from the institution in which you live, so keep muttering at the shadows on the wall, watch out for those black helicopters, and keep doing us all proud by hating on St. Louis!

Corporate Tool:

What an appropriate handle for you and I’m sure true through to the bone.

Amanda,
Sorry if the truth hurts, but McCracken’s statements are pretty much the way it is. In 1904 St. Louis not only hosted the World’s Fair but was the
fourth largest city in America. You would be hard pressed to find another
city that has fallen as far in population, jobs, and prominence. Our industrial base is long gone and thanks to generations of inept and corrupt politicians businesses have deserted downtown and the area north of the city. Where other cities welcome and encourage business St. Louis hits employers and employees with idiotic charges like the earnings tax.
Other than a great baseball tradition the St. Louis region is the pits.

Ok.. i will vote for him. He did not say anything that is not true and i would prefer to follow the Austin model than the st louis model. And i suspect so would St Louis…

A Native’s usual response to criticism (shouted):

“FINE THEN WHY DON’T YOU JUST LEAVE!”
(stomps off satisfied they’re superior)

bubbagravelhauler… You do know this is the editorial/opinion sector of the website, right? How is it that people don’t understand how this works?

Statistics Don’t Lie, trust me, my handle is every bit as ironic as yours.

I say that we cut off Texas’ supply of Budweiser products for awhile, we’ll get an apology out of Austin in no time!

Two items: Some of us might remember the Tile Town Carpet City commercial stating that they had enough carpet to cover Cleveland and a Statue of Liberty cartoon came out and said “Thank Goodness” or something to that effect. Secondly, The mayor of Austin is just a glorified city council president (called the “weak mayor” system). Like Cincinnati or Kansas City, MO and several midsized towns, the ACTUAL day today running of the city rest with a city manager.

It’s just funny how there are so many on here giving there approval to leave St. Louis if they don’t like it here. Maybe attitudes like that helped Brewster pick St. Louis anyway. Just to let you know, I left because I didn’t like it and I did it without anyone’s approval. Again, Brewster hit the nail on the head. What is there to defend, your own inability to see what he has seen?

STL Lawyer’s got a point. Mr. McCracken must have hired an ad agency from the local junior high school. When dissing St. Louis is the best thing you can say about Austin, you probably aren’t finding many redeeming qualities in Austin, either.

What I’ve seen in the 24 years since I have lived here, he is correct. The city is a cesspool with rude people. Right of the bat you are qualified into the right “social, racial, religious group”. ” Where did you go to high school? ” If that’s not bad enough,folks here never use Please and Thank you! It is almost expected it will be done!
What is so wrong when you open a door for someone, can’t you say Thank you? Why do care if I’m from Virginia or Arizona? Why can’t you say welcome to Missouri instead of saying “Oh” and turning you back on me?
Texas is no better but Missouri you sure have shown me!

I live in San Diego, but travel to Austin for work and for some of the festivals. I have never visited St Louis. I think Austin is a great town and enjoy visiting. But to be fair, I went to http://www.bestplaces.net and compared both towns. Sorry folks- sure you got a baseball team, but Austin whips you everytime.
Austin has higher salaries, lower crime rates, better job growth, lower unemployment, higher incomes- the list goes on. If I were Austin, I’d forgo a pro sports team for a heathy, safer, more prosperous place to live.
I know that this isn’t an Austin vs ST Louis forum, but the author of this blog is trying to make it into one. I think the mayoral candidate was just trying to make a point.
You can disagree, but city stats are city stats.

Many heated responses here from folks who identify too closely with where their butt has stayed planted a while. I was born here. The more I travel, the more I see what we have here. Our riches include the folks from the past who came out of this area. Such talents do not come out of nothing, but from the whole fabric of an area. Good and bad. I must say, we have quite the variety. And in an area that is admittedly racist and gender and class biased (what area in this backwards country still isn’t when you get down to it)an amazing number are minority and women. Like sports, it’s kind of presumptuous to assume you can identify so much with a win or a loss that you get rude or superior to others when all you did was fork out for an overpriced ticket and drink a few beers. Any area is what you make of it. What did YOU do for STL today?

when i first moved to STL…i went to that area that he is talking about..i was in shock…”OMG….why is this area fenced…..why so many building just sitting there empty”….i have never seen such a site. and i am from a ghetto…and where i am from,it didn’t look that bad.still,it was near Scott Joplin’s place. i had to drive real fast..cause i had these people coming up to my car. anyway, i moved back to Texas(I lived in the 63366 and 63303 area)for 6 years…and the thing i noticed about STL its very sport friendly. when I moved from Corpus to STL,I remember a friend saying how STL was the center of the sports universe.a Mecca…and when i settled here i noticed all the Blues Flags on cars,The Rams flags,The Cardinals.STL wears those teams like a badge of honor.yall have the Arch,The Zoo,Forest Park…”the shrine”(which was taken over by belgiums i believe)Budweiser headquarters…. as we Texans call it.it does lack support of the Arts..whether it is in music,motion picture industry..art in general..when i moved to Austin,I saw that this city supports those formentioned as well as having every festival you can think of(1st night,SXSW,Spamfest,Eeyore’s B-day,the Republic Of Texas biker rally,Pecanfest,Stitch,Carnival,ACL,Armadillo X-Mas bazaa,art night austin,austin music awards,austin pride festival,no pants day…it doesn’t stop..it goes on and on and on..i even see Beatle Bob out here MCing shows…that says alot.and the tex nex food is amazing.(i found only one place that has that same style of texmex..and it’s in Wentzville,off of hwy.70 cheap pricesand you get a big portion for your money.)gathered we don’t have fried ravioli,but we have NY style of pizza thru out the city..plus it take like 10 minutes to get to where ever you need to go with out using the main Hwy.i miss STL but I love Austin…great place.

I read the other day that Austin is the number one city in the country for employment opportunities. See what a coordinated business plan can do? Urban development in this once great city of STL is now non-existent. Old money keeps the multitude of factions warring against each other lest their empire be conquered. Wake up and smell the coffee.

I have to agree with the mayoral candidate in Austin. In 1904 St Louis was a top class city. Now the urban core of St Louis is largely a dump, especially compared to cities like Austin. The rampant shootings in north STL are enough to keep anyone out, not to mention, investors!

oh yea,one more thing…i did notice how STL and the STC areas don’t have what we have here….A big homeless problem.it was brought up as a question to Ole’ Brewster,and he is in denial…they are everywhere,they are at every corner,at every bus stop….we have here whats called the arch…a place for the homeless to sleep at and such,thing is…its planted in the entertainment district.so you have these people agressively trying to get your money at 6th street ..and vive versa….Brewster hasn’t said a thing.i do remember that yall have a policy where they pick up the panhandlers and give them a bus ticket and send them on their merry way…we need that here.but brewster,like i said is in denile of our problem.it doesn’t bother him cause he doesn’t live in the area of downtown.

St Louis: dying quickly. Austin: prosperous and growing. Biggest problem in StL; attitude.

With a name like Brewster McCracken what do you expect the guy to do he’s got to slam somebody to make himself look good. Sound’s like a cowboy. I’m going to ignore him.

Did Brewster McCracken say anything about St. Louis that was untrue? I guess that he could have singled out Detroit as an example of how not to run a city but everyone is doing that these days.

St. Louis has been falling apart. I’ve photographed parts of the town that have trees growing on the tops of abandoned buildings and entire malls that are standing empty. St. Louis has been going through a very hard time. Its been documented and studies in many books (eg. _An Empire Wilderness_ by Robert D. Kaplan ch. 4) and is evident to anyone that rides the Metro Link from the airport through downtown. Austin is currently thriving in a bubble that protects it from the problems facing the rest of the US and part of the world, but McCracken knows that it can’t last forever.

well…did he lie? st.louis city is a dump. it used to be a major, key city. that generation passed long ago. take a stroll through lambert international airport and see the ghost town. try finding a money changing booth in the alleged int’l airport. the city is a joke. no one goes there after dark.

yeah, let’s rail at someone for telling the truth.

When you have prime real estate in the middle of down town right next to the ball stadium and can’t get anyone to build on it that about says it all for the viability of the down town. St Louis has had several major companies that have move out in recent years. When the city needed the airport expansion it allowed it to be tied up in court for years by a small backward thinking town like Bridgeton. Now the expanded airport is underutilized with a major area of it closed. The city schools are in a shambles. I would think that if the city doesn’t get it’s act together soon they may want to put up a bill board asking that the last person to leave will please turn out the lights. The city in in the center of the country with two major rivers and four major interstate highways. It doesn’t have to be this way. St. Louis get your act together.

I grew up in St. Louis, my family there since before the civil war. I live in Houston, and will probably retire in Austin, the nicest area in Texas. All of my descendants and their families live in Austin, and I spend a tremendous amount of time there. All of my anscestors, siblings and their families live in St. Louis, and I spend a lot amount of time there. Both places are very near and dear.

The McCracken campaign ad I viewed online ends up as an unfair smear on metro St. Louis. Like any complex topic taken on in a few seconds on TV, there is no way to fairly portray St. Louis in this venue. If I had a few seconds to represent my former hometown on TV, I would say something like “St. Louis is a great place, but it is not perfect.” Austin voters have been left with the impression that St. Louis is mostly a ghost town.

Austin has had the luxury of working under the Texas constitution, which gives it virtual carte blanche to annex everything around it. Austin can control its development any way it wants, it is mostly a new and uncrowded city that is enforcing environmental and livability standards for the future across the huge area of its current city limits. Austin will end up as a very large city population-wise in a matter of a few decades, given current growth rates. It is trying hard to retain the qualities that make it so attractive to new residents. I would guess that Austin will end up being larger than Houston or Dallas, and very much larger than St. Louis. It is a very unique place.

St. Louis, the city, has had the misfortune of working under the Missouri constitution, which precludes any annexation or physical growth of the city. Once the city itself was populated, the city of St. Louis had virtually no say in the further development of the metro area. Metro St. Louis has developed nicely and prospered, and is a great place to live, and this includes the city. I miss St. Louis most every day, and I understand why most of my family will stay there for life.

St. Louis is correct to point out its wonderful sports teams and other great institutions, the Cardinals being the best professional sports franchise in the country. Austin is a minor league town as of now, but with major league college sports. This will change, Austin will get big league teams, but maybe not in my life time. When I retire to Austin, it will take a trip out of town to see big leauge sports.

If I were rich like Gates or Buffett, I would buy a lot of Southwest Airlines tickets for residents of both towns, and let them explore the other city. Two great places. St. Louisans would see a young Austin, which seems to have the deck stacked in its favor. Austin folk would see a beautiful and mature St. Louis, still growing, and able to offer all the assets of a major metropolitan area. I celebrate both towns!

I would be in great denial to say we don’t have problems here in STL, but this buffoon in Austin is an idiot. Every city has crime, poverty, and political issues; Detroit, Cleveland, et al. He’s comparing apples to oranges; he obviously didn’t look at any positive points because he’s running a campaign on scare tactics to get votes-a typical politician. “OOOhhh let’s not be like scary St. Louis!” GEEZ, DUMB.

We have free museums and the zoo (one of the best), the best drinking water, some of the best hospitals in the country, the Arch grounds are beautiful (did anyone hear of how they want to put ADVERTISING on the GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE?), I see the street cleaners (people and machines) out everyday, Washington Ave. looks gorgeous, etc. I ate lunch today in Forest Park and all kinds of people were out, walking, biking, having lunch, and relaxing in the sun.

I’ve been as far west as Vegas, north to Chicago, east to New York, and far south to Dallas/Ft. Worth and Orlando. With this economy EVERY city, not only in this country, but in this world is having problems right now. Why pick on us when you can pick on us all? Chicken I guess? I’m glad McCracken doesn’t live here, he can stay in Austin.

I’m a native St. Louisian and I’m staying.

Here’s his facebook group http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=37894339999
why not stop by and say hi and ask why he’s spending so much time focusing on St Louis and not Austin.

Ahhhh, ST. Louis…what a BEAUTIFUL example of what happens when democrats run everything.

Taxes and business costs go up, businesses and working-class go bye-bye. What’s left is bureaucrats and gang-bangers, misfits and morons, bombed-out looking lots and general disfunction. Get over it city-dwellers and smell the rot.

What’s next, national obamarot…