Henry S. Webber, executive vice chancellor and chief administrator
In recent years, the city of St. Louis has received a great deal of national publicity. Some of this attention has been positive, celebrating achievements including the success of Cortex and other endeavors that have fostered a fast-growing entrepreneurial community, the revitalization of the Arch grounds, and the excellence of our local sports teams and cultural institutions. We should proudly own these stories, but we must also own tragic stories of children dying by gun violence, racial segregation and deeply concentrated poverty.
St. Louis suffers from split personality disorder. One city, largely associated with the central corridor, is booming. The other city, mostly located north of Delmar, continues to suffer from decades of disinvestment. St. Louis can’t be economically successful without building on our strengths and challenging the status quo.
With a group of colleagues at Washington University, I studied demographic trends in St. Louis as well as a set of other major Midwestern regions and cities. What I have learned about the city of St. Louis is both positive and distressing.
Read the full piece in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
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