[duncan_idaho]

Originally Posted by siberian khatru

This is a loooong story (too long for me to copy and paste) that is worth the read. Talks about KC's current situation, but also has lots of details on stadium financing, economics, and how the Ballpark Village is doing and its impact on surrounding areas.

As Cardinals Plan to Seek More Public Money for Busch Stadium, Experts Balk

We went to St. Louis over the twins' spring break and stayed at the Hilton at the ballpark.

Downtown St. Louis has some advantages I wish we had here (Namely, the Metrolink, which is fast, clean, and easy to use. But there's also a really cool ****ing NATIONAL PARK). But that downtown is a real dead zone.

It is fundamentally different from Kansas City in that St. Louis has not been able to keep businesses and people living in and around the revitalized areas.

There are a lot of factors in that, among them a more intense city/suburb divide in St. Louis because of the suburbs being in their own county.

The reputation for St. Louis city and the area around the ballpark is much worse than the rep for, say, Power and Light or the area around the T-Mobile Center. Which is really unwarranted. I felt perfectly safe walking to and from the hotel to the parking garage, we walked to the Arch and the MetroLink station, and I walked about 3/4 of a mile to a grocery store one afternoon, and never once felt uneasy or unsafe.

My colleagues from St. Louis all warned me about how terrible and dangerous the whole area was, though. Typical suburban fear of the city, but to the extreme, seems to permeate the area. My wife's friends from there were aghast at what we had done and couldn't believe we hadn't been murdered or something.