Media Coverage of McKee's North St. Louis Plans Has Increased

Here is a review of recent media coverage of Paul J. McKee, Jr.'s plans for north St. Louis. Times have changed when all I have to do is link to the work of others.

Even on Donnybrook

The old gang on KETC's Donnybrook program brought up Paul McKee's plans for north St. Louis on the June 28 show. Ray Hartmann and Bill McClellan make good points critical of the Distressed Areas Land Assemblage Tax Credit Act and McKee's silence, while Charles Brennan and Martin Duggan wonder why people are upset. Watch the show here (the discussion starts about twelve minutes into the program).

Making the news all over the state

On July 2, Southeast Missourian business editor Rudi Keller published a column entitled "One person may qualify for new tax credit".

Keller also published a blog entitled "The $100 million man" on July 2.

The Kinder connection

On June 26, Fired Up! Missouri blogger Howard Beale reported that NorthPark Partners, the development partnership that includes Paul McKee's McEagle Properties, hired David Barklage as a lobbyist in April. Barklage is a long-time associate of Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder. Beale speculates that the recent inexplicable claim that the Distressed Areas Land Assemblage Tax Credit Act has more to do with NorthPark than north St. Louis has a lot to do with the hiring of Barklage.

Read more here.

On the radio, too

Some of the July 5 St. Louis on the Air program on radio station KWMU was dedicated to discussing McKee's plans. Listen here.

Handling the truth

Back in June, a Truth Handler blog entry made a point about the unintended consequences of well-meaning liberal support for urban renewal schemes like McKee's:

So, in the end, the good-intentioned attempts you had made to shift some sort of power/wealth to the poor by creating a new use for government power is then ultimately used by the rich to benefit themselves, and no one else.

Good coverage from At Home

At Home magazine blogger Stefene Russell has been continuing its pithy coverage of McKee's plans. One of her best recent posts is "The Politics of Neighborhoods" -- check it out.

Urbanists debating McKee's plans

Over at the Urban St. Louis forum, usually suffering from a dearth of discussion on north St. Louis, the thread on McKee's north side project has blown into a vigorous debate. Jump into the discussion here.