Washington University Professor Challenges Paul McKee's NorthSide Numbers
As three North St. Louis City residents challenge the "blighted" label given to their neighborhood, several experts are testifying on the issue in court. The definition of "blight" is likely to be the focus of judge Larry Dierker's decision, but most of the testimony so far appears to deal with other lines of criticism.
There's no way to prove that 20,000 (or even 20) jobs will be created or that a single person will move to NorthSide. The projections set forth by the City and Paul McKee could be unrealistic, but the criticism leveled at them in court has been no more grounded. If, as many believe, the NorthSide project is obviously flawed, it should be easier to criticize than it is proving to be.
Washington University Economics Department Chair and member of the Federal Reserve Advisory Board in St. Louis stated, "(McKee's plan) is something that if an MBA student came up with as a term paper, I would throw him out of the office. There are no numbers to back it up." He also claimed it would be "a miracle" if the project created the economic activity needed to justify the public financing behind the plan.
Now, I'm not an economics professor, let alone the Chair of an economics department at a premier university, but this testimony seems a little thin. I would expect numbers, examples and analysis to counter McKee's claims instead of a comment about term papers. Clearly the NorthSide project depends on a number of economic events, a growing economy and some changes in the local economy, such as the establishment of St. Louis as a hub for Chinese cargo, the relocation of a major corporate headquarters, etc. For whatever reason, instead of addressing the needed criteria for NorthSide's success and then challenging the likelihood of these events, the professor chose to simply say that the project would need "a miracle". At least as reported, the testimony sounds lazy and inarticulate.
Let's hope that the court case returns to the question of whether the "blighting" of a portion of St. Louis City was legal.
Gentrification: "... welcome by some and feared and loathed by others, and even dreaded and welcomed at the same time by the same people." Lance Freeman's pursuit of this duality makes the book strong-he's willing to admit that gentrification is both a pleasure and a problem, rather than setting up camp on one side.
If past experience proves accurate for future performance, almost certainly the Post-Dispatch reporting of the professor's testimony was lazy and inarticulate.
I am a Landscape Architecture thesis student and my site is in the Northside neighborhood. As part of my project I did an analysis on the the McKee project and found that in order for McKee's plan to be realized he would have to have 29,500 people living within the project area to support the housing element of his plan.
The problem, as most readers of this blog probably already know is that St. Louis has lost population for roughly 60 years. Only recently has the city gained population (projected 1.8% from 2000-2008). That gain, which was only about 6,000 people over 8 years, was an outlier in recent history, which led me to ask: How can McKee expect an influx of nearly 30,000 people to the city, let alone the Northside?
Chris - you're likely right. But even if there was more technical/precise testimony, why say the things that were reportedly said? They're not particularly relevant and, I hope, don't carry much weight in a courtroom.
Josh - I think the point is that NorthSide because of its size and revitalized infrastructure would help lead a new trend. You must recognize that it's a bit silly to rely on past figures when proposing/considering a very large development project. Should we say, not one Fortune 500 company has moved to downtown St. Louis in 50 years so therefore no F500 company will, so no one should propose building towers. Think about St. Charles County...the point is that development patterns change. I'm sure in the 1950's someone claimed that the city losing population was an outlier.
The P-D adds a bit more detail today. The professor had "no opinion" on whether the city had followed "proper procedure" in approving the TIF. Is this the crux of the lawsuit? The P-D story also makes the point that Alex should have made in this post, that the TIF isn't giving Paul McKee anything until he builds something that generates increased tax revenue.
...and that is because the financial backing of the TIFs from the city is not there (at least, not yet).