Please. The problems of St Louis & similar places are bigger than local govts can solve. They've become income sources for rent seeking investors who don't live there, seek only profit & eschew civic responsibility. Of course they're run by Democrats. Repubs don't want to take any responsibility for it, so they don't.
Only now that the rot has spread to small town America have white conservatives taken notice of it.
Yeah, I don't know what could reasonably and legally be done to fix it. The infrastructure is garbage, taxes are high, the crime is seemingly random, it's polluted, and there's no compelling reason for people to move here. If I could do my job anywhere else, I would definitely look into it.
Saint Louis is a stand-alone city with around 300,000 residents. It's surrounded by St. Louis County which has just over one million residents. St. Louis County (aka The County) is a confederation of small cities with no direct ties to St. Louis City. People who work in the city pay a 1% income tax to the city, which I'm assuming is where they get most of their money. Other than a few gentrified "hip" (but still dangerous) areas, virtually everyone who could be defined as lower-middle class and higher lives outside of the city. Saint Louis is filled with burned out buildings, abandoned factories and warehouses, and neighborhoods where people just stand in the middle of the road and will stop your car if they get the whim. I've blown through red lights because several people have started walking up to my car.
Like I said, I don't know what the solution is. I don't know many non-locals who like the place, it's just where our jobs are. I think it would take a huge investment by the Federal government to come in and rebuild the core, combined with the merging of the city and St. Louis County, which would never be approved by voters. It does, at least, have some nice universities and a decent location if you need to do business all around the country.
