Great Column from Post-Dispacth: St. Louis Needs More Immigrants

I completely agree with this column from the Post-Dispatch:

http://www.stltoday.com/business/columns/david-nicklaus/article_61ec7841-e0a9-5f90-9654-0aa2f91d5e88.html

Clearly, St. Louis has some assets it can leverage. The International Institute, which provides a variety of services to immigrants, sponsored 6,000 Bosnian refugees in the 1990s. They spread the word to friends and relatives, and now an estimated 70,000 Bosnians call St. Louis home.
They have bought homes and started businesses. They stabilized a broad swath of the city and have begun to move to the suburbs. In short, they've done what waves of German, Irish and Italian immigrants did before them.
But for at least 60 years, from the 1920s to the 1980s, St. Louis had no noticeable influx of foreign-born residents. It's no coincidence that the city lost population and, during the latter half of that period, the region's economy stagnated.

I recommend you read the whole column. While it focuses on the entrepreneurial aspects that immigration brings, I'd add another as well: adding cultural diversity. The reason South City is my favorite part of St. Louis is because the presence of Latin American, Asian, and Middle Eastern immigrants bring a little more variety - especially in terms of restaurants and grocery stores - to the world of St. Louis. Attracting immigrants to St. Louis would be a great thing for the city to pursue.

A Surreal Walk Down Lafayette Street Pt. 1

My recent walk down St. Louis's Lafayette Street, between Jefferson and Grand, was a rather surreal experience. The most striking aspect is the number of empty lots between buildings, like this one:

These new buildings have been added on what were presumably empty lots. While infilling is almost always a good thing, and the buildings at least were brought into harmony with the area with brick facades, I'm not a huge fan of their architecture, which is out of step with the neighborhood.

(More after the jump.)

Cool Buildings in Need of TLC

I plan to have a regular feature called "Cool Buildings in Need of TLC" - examples of beautiful, quirky, or otherwise notable old buildings that are in a state of disrepair or abandonment but that look redeemable from the outside (and, if they are, ought to be saved). Here are two from Lafayette Street in St. Louis:

One of these things is not like the other

(Lafayette Street, St. Louis)