There is nary an issue critical to the future of ºüÀêÊÓƵ that isn’t negatively affected by the region’s unique and damaging geopolitical division.
From the time the city of ºüÀêÊÓƵ and ºüÀêÊÓƵ County to today’s reality of a county with 90 municipalities, 81 municipal courts and 57 separate police departments, getting things done to benefit the region requires a virtual act of God.
Pick an issue:
• The minimum wage: A reasonable compromise to was difficult to get across the finish line. It likely is subject to a serious legal challenge because Mayor Francis Slay and County Executive Steve Stenger couldn’t get on the same page. The potential benefits of an increased wage are threatened by regional division.
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• The NFL stadium: The Edward Jones Dome is supported by city and county taxes. The proposed new stadium? Well, aside from the obvious fact that there have been no public votes regarding either city or state taxes, the county’s proper insistence that a vote take place caused Gov. Jay Nixon to of the equation.
• Uber: Once again, elected officials in the city and the county are squabbling, and the taxi commission they oversee can’t find a compromise to bring the app-based ride-sharing to town.
The historic events that started in Ferguson in August of last year have cast the region’s divisions, and not just its racial divisions, in harsh and unflattering light. In the past year, the Missouri Legislature, the Missouri Supreme Court and Mr. Nixon’s have all taken aim at the problems created by too many municipal courts relying on too many untrained police departments to put too many poor people in jail because they can’t afford to pay traffic fines in city after city after city.
But the problems caused by fragmentation were well-known before Ferguson.
Early last year we began publishing an ongoing series of editorials titled with the goal of moving our region together, to get beyond divisions that get in the way of ºüÀêÊÓƵ once again becoming the great city it was, and can be again.
To be great, the city needs better education, which is also hampered by too much division, 24 school districts where .
The region needs unified economic development policy, rather than having cities fight over the same tiny pieces of the tax incentive pie, moving box stores around and robbing Peter to pay Paul.
In the last year, various groups, from the nonprofit studying regional division, to the Ferguson Commission, to the 24:1 conglomeration of north ºüÀêÊÓƵ County cities trying to work together have recognized a simple truth:
ºüÀêÊÓƵ is better when it is united.
Our history tells us this. Studies of economic growth are clear, from the East-West Gateway Council of Government’s examinations of the proliferation of , to the international Organization for Economic Development study that found that fragmented government increases income inequality and racial division .
This is the story of ºüÀêÊÓƵ, and it must change.
So how do we get there?
Incremental change, particularly in the municipal court area, is moving forward. The Better Together-financed study by the Police Executives Research Forum went a long way to prod civic leaders into thinking about how too many small police departments in the region of positive change. In the end, though, voters will have a say.
Somebody, maybe Better Together, maybe somebody else, will propose a serious effort, likely as a ballot initiative, to undo the Great Divorce of 1876. Voters, either here or statewide, will be asked to reunite the city and the county. It could go so far as to erase most, if not all, of the arbitrary municipal and school district lines in our region.
Many people, particularly those in municipal government, scoff at such a big solution.
So what are the other options?
In the 1960s, the region briefly considered a borough plan, uniting as one city but with 22 boroughs divided to provide some smaller level of local control.
Maybe 22 is the right number. Maybe it’s 5. Could ºüÀêÊÓƵ thrive with one big city and a few regional suburbs? Could we play the computer game SimCity for real, redesigning a Greater ºüÀêÊÓƵ?
Whatever resulted would have to work better than what we’ve got now. As the experts in PERF wrote about policing in the region, nobody would devise the system of governance that ºüÀêÊÓƵ lives under now. Nobody.
So today, in our continued effort to push for a One ºüÀêÊÓƵ solution, we ask for your help.
Go to the website we’ve created () and Build a New ºüÀêÊÓƵ.
Click on the city where you live, and merge it with your neighbor, and another neighbor, and another. Which ones make the most sense? Which provide a more fair balance of racial and economic harmony?
How many cities does ºüÀêÊÓƵ County really need?
The Build a New ºüÀêÊÓƵ program allows you to share your new vision for our region with others on Twitter or Facebook. Tell your neighbors what your vision is, and ask them for theirs.
Change has to start somewhere. Why not with you?
One of the things this region is known for is The Question: “Where did you go to high school?†For some it’s a simple question of identity and connection to shared past. For others, it’s seen as as a convenient way to pigeonhole by class. Whatever your perspective, what’s interesting about the question is this: It doesn’t ask which city you grew up in, does it?
Losing boundaries among municipalities that probably never should have existed in the first place won’t erase historic differences between the amazing and unique neighborhoods that have defined ºüÀêÊÓƵ for more than 100 years.
ºüÀêÊÓƵ doesn’t have to wait another 100 years to make the changes that its leaders know instinctively have to be made for the region to grow and prosper and unite. It can build a better future right now, by using the serious momentum to eliminate the municipal court cabal as the impetus to consider bigger change.
It won’t be easy, but these days, nothing is easy in ºüÀêÊÓƵ.
The future is in unity. One ºüÀêÊÓƵ. One People. One Future.