Removing one old building makes the whole town look better. Thanks to Jimmy Zumwalt for removing the old Thomas service station on Hwy 28 and Legends Bank for tearing down the old Western Auto on main street (in Belle). The community thanks both of you.
This last week I visited a St. Louis neighborhood green space project. Old blighted buildings were being removed to create rich urban green spaces to promote healthy, vibrant, and engaged communities. The theme was vacant to vibrant. It made me think of a local theme, from Bland to beautiful … Wishful thinking maybe, but possible.
In St. Louis there are plans to remove over 303 neighborhood buildings, providing new opportunities for over 30 acres of inner city space. Sports fields, parks, orchards, community gardens, art exhibits and natural areas will replace derelict buildings. It can happen here.
There is a partnership of organizations participating in the St. Louis Green Space Coalition, but it begins and ends with the city government. Nothing happens unless the city councils want it to happen. Nothing will happen in our small communities unless our city council decides to make big plans.
“Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency.” — Daniel Burnham, 1910
