St. Louis’s “urban prairie”: Vacant land and the potential for revitalization

Prener, Christopher; Braswell, Taylor Harris; Monti, Daniel J.

doi:10.1080/07352166.2018.1474079

Cited by 18 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…City officials should also consider what other unintended consequences of closures might exist, including inefficient public transit and school bus routes, the viability of businesses within neighborhoods with higher densities of closures, and the capital costs associated with maintaining and upgrading barriers over time. Given the significant challenges facing St. Louis, including segregation, vacancy, and population loss (Gordon 2009;Prener, Braswell, and Monti 2018;Tighe and Ganning 2015) as well as continuing elevated rates in crime, we wonder if more active crime prevention strategies including those that address deep-seated social issues deserve priority over the cost of maintaining these street closures.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given St. Louis's systemic population loss since the 1970s, we also controlled for proportional population change since 1970 and the 2016 vacancy rate, a known outcome of systemic urban decline (Prener, Braswell, and Monti 2018;Silverman, Yin, and Patterson 2013). Finally, total population and the 2016 poverty rate are included as control variables.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Closing the Gateway: Street Closures, Bisected Geography, and Crime in St. Louis, MO

Prener¹,

Braswell²,

Miller³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Unlike most American cities, St. Louis, Missouri has a highly bisected street grid. Where intersections would typically be open to two-way traffic, in hundreds in cases in St. Louis they have been closed using concrete barriers or cul-de-sacs. These street closures are the outgrowth of a 1970s-era “defensible space” strategy to address rising crime rates. Oscar Newman, who is most closely associated with this paradigm, developed it while a faculty member in St. Louis. The city therefore is not only the birthplace but also one of the most significant test cases for its implementation. In this paper, we provide the most comprehensive data set of closures available, evaluate their location in the city, and assess their association with contemporary violent crime patterns. We find that barriers are located in neighborhoods that lost significant population between 1970 and 2016, particularly in North City and the northernmost reaches of South City. Critically, though the barriers are imagined as crime reduction tools and justified as such in City legislation, we find that they are associated with elevated violent crime rates at the neighborhood-level. This finding suggests significant limitations with “defensible space” strategies in St. Louis and elsewhere for addressing crime.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Closing the Gateway: Street Closures, Bisected Geography, and Crime in St. Louis, MO

Prener¹,

Braswell²,

Miller³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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show abstract

“…The automated or semi-automated identification of vacant and underused lots has only been attempted at the municipal or regional level to date (Moudon 2001;Alles 2007;Mouwerik & Mann 2007;MWKEL 2011;Iwer 2011;FrankfurtRheinMain 2012;Prener et al 2018). Cadastral agencies provide the appropriate database for a GIS-based analysis at lot level by spatially intersecting lot boundaries with building footprint information and/or other thematic information.…”

Section: Previous Approaches Towards the Automated Detection Of Idpmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban infill development potential in Germany: comparing survey and GIS data

Schiller

Blum

Hecht

et al. 2021

Buildings and Cities

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Limiting land take is an important sustainability target. To this end, infill development is a primary strategy. To implement this strategy, policy-makers need a reliable knowledge base on infill development potential (IDP), such as brownfields, vacant lots and underused lots. This study presents the results of the first comprehensive national survey of IDP in Germany. Almost 12% of German municipalities were contacted by questionnaire. In contrast to previous studies, this study also takes into account smaller towns and small-scale vacant lots, which would otherwise lead to a considerable underestimation. Additionally, a feasibility study shows how IDPs can be identified using a geospatial approach. Here, a procedure is presented that allows the identification of IDPs and the differentiation between vacant and underused lots by analysing urban morphology using nationwide and commonly available geospatial base data. The results provide a good basis for an initial inventory. However, to obtain more accurate results, additional specific data would be required, the accessibility of which is currently limited. With the development of an improved spatial data infrastructure combined with Open Data initiatives, geographical information system (GIS)-based procedures for the automated detection and monitoring of IDPs could become more important in future. POLICY RELEVANCE If the objectives of land policy, especially the avoidance of urban sprawl, are to be achieved, then the more efficient use of already developed land is essential. At the strategic level of policy development, knowledge of land suitable for infill development is as necessary as knowledge of the land take. Currently, regular standardised questionnaire GEORG SCHILLER ANDREAS BLUM ROBERT HECHT HOLGER OERTEL UWE FERBER GOTTHARD MEINEL

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“…Louis's population peaked in 1950 with just over 850,000 residents (Gordon, 2014), but signs of decline were already beginning to be recognized (Thomas, 1949). Researchers have identified the subsequent population decline as a critical feature of the city's trajectory along with a host of policy failures to deal with not just population loss but associated issues like deindustrialization (Checkoway & Patton, 1985;Gordon, 2013Gordon, , 2014Heathcott & Murphy, 2005) and the city's vacancy rates (Prener, Braswell, & Monti, 2018). Despite widespread decline, however, St. Louis has experienced rebounding population and development in some neighborhoods (Daniel J.…”

Section: Economic Decline and Revitalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Finding the City in Sociology: Broadening and Deepening the Geographic Scope of the Urban and Inequality Literatures

Prener¹

2020

Preprint

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Cities have long been the object of fascination within sociology. Key portions of sociological literatures on inequality and globalization, for instance, have focused on urban spaces as essential sites for the production and reproduction of social life, and urban sociology itself is one of the oldest fields in the discipline. For all of this prominence, however, locating the city itself in these literatures can be difficult. Much of our understanding of urban life and urban social problems is derived from a relatively small number of American cities. Moreover, cities are often relegated to a supporting role as a research site rather than an institution worthy of interrogation. This article reviews the path that has brought a specific set of cities to the fore of American sociological analyses. In response, broadening literatures to cities in the literal and figurative American South and producing deeper literatures of specific cities can give sociology the opportunity to produce more representative and contextually rich analyses of inequalities, urban social life, and urban form. The literature on St. Louis, Missouri, is presented as an example of what such a broader and deeper literature could encompass.

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St. Louis’s “urban prairie”: Vacant land and the potential for revitalization

Cited by 18 publications

References 45 publications

Closing the Gateway: Street Closures, Bisected Geography, and Crime in St. Louis, MO

Closing the Gateway: Street Closures, Bisected Geography, and Crime in St. Louis, MO

Urban infill development potential in Germany: comparing survey and GIS data

Finding the City in Sociology: Broadening and Deepening the Geographic Scope of the Urban and Inequality Literatures

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