I think one of the issues that stood in the way of progress in the past was everyone thinking about only their neck of the woods. What we should do is look at other neighborhoods and see where we can fill in gaps. Grand Center is a great destination for the arts, so does downtown need to compete with that? No. Instead we should make it easier to get from downtown to Grand Center. We should cross-promote. That's the way this city is going to put itself back on the map for things that are positive and that we already have. Rather than seeing the neighborhoods as opposing, we want to make them more contiguous and accessible.

When people in St. Louis talk about the city's aspirations, many seem to point to 1904. Can that be a distraction?

Certainly there are things St. Louis can be doing better, but for us it's about getting the message out there about the great things that already are here. When I hear people sound maudlin over how great things were in 1904 or that the city isn't great anymore, I think it's counterproductive. Like a lot of Rust Belt cities, we're reinventing ourselves. We're can't focus on decline when there's so much momentum. We have the potential to be better than we were in 1904. It's disheartening when I hear from both visitors and people new to town when they're told by St. Louisans that we're no longer great. Because I believe we are great. I'm amazed at the number of passionate people spending their free time trying to be a part of the solution. So I'm hopeful over the next year we can start to turn that tide, because there's actually a lot to be proud of.

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