Broker power: real estate brokers in the St. Louis Model Cities program, 1966–1975

ABSTRACT

Evaluations of Model Cities have focused on whether federal officials and local planners lived up to the programme’s rhetoric of citizen empowerment. However, as this case study of St. Louis will demonstrate, more attention is needed to the ways that the local real estate sector influenced and frustrated government officials and community activists alike. Policies of disinvestment in mid-twentieth century cities produced a small but powerful group of landlords and real estate brokers in St. Louis, whose near-monopoly control of the housing market hindered grassroots rehabilitation efforts. In 1967, a Black-led community group known as Jeff-Vander-Lou, Inc. (JVL), found that the ‘slumlords’ who dominated their neighbourhood were too powerful to be compelled by municipal tools such as code enforcement. Realizing they could not defeat the landlords, they reluctantly joined them, and crafted a Model Cities demonstration programme that they hoped could improve housing conditions and attenuate the strangle-hold of landlords on their neighbourhood. As this article will detail, this momentary alliance allowed landlords to influence the St. Louis housing policy for Model Cities and beyond.

KEYWORDS:

• Model Cities
• real estate
• community development

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 “2 City Groups Seek Grant to Rebuild Homes,” March 31, 1967, St. Louis Post-Dispatch; Memorandum from Donald Bourgeois to Mayor Cervantes, “Re: St. Louis Model City Highlights,” June 12, 1967. Washington University Archives (WUA), Cervantes Collection, Series 1 Box 40, Folder 5.

2 Adams, “New Housing Act Likely to Help Speed Upgrading of the West End”, July 30, 1968, St. Louis Post-Dispatch; “Ex-Slum Lord Named Urban Renewal Head” The St. Louis American, July 11, 1968.

3 Bourgeois, “Re: St. Louis Model City Highlights”; St. Louis MCA, “A Proposal for Technical Assistance,” cover page; Siegel, “By the People Most Affected,” 64.

4 Bourgeois, “Re: St. Louis Model City Highlights.”

5 On similar trends in Model Cities broadly, see Weber and Wallace, “Revealing the Empowerment Revolution.”

6 Dunning, Nonprofit Neighborhoods, 11, 72–77; Siegel, “By the People Most Affected,” 126–62; Phillips de Lucas, “The Perils of Participation.”

7 Ibid.

8 Dunning, Nonprofit Neighborhoods, 48, 16, and 26; Immerwahr, Thinking Small, 52–54.

9 Liebert, “Role of the Middleman,” 93.

10 Siegel, “By the People Most Affected,” 19–20; Gordon, Mapping Decline, 176–78. See also Siegel, “Dominant Decision-Making Authority.”

11 Loehrer, “From the House Come Everything;” Johnson, Broken Heart of America, 350–351, 380, 437–39.

12 Nonprofit Neighbourhoods, 14–19.

13 St. Louis Model Cities Agency, “Application to the Department of Housing and Urban Development for a Grant to Plan a Comprehensive City Demonstration Program,” April 26, 1967. State Historical Society of Missouri (SHSMO) St. Louis Data Collection, Box 6, Folder 7, 55–56. (Hereafter: St. Louis MCA, “Application to Plan a Comprehensive City Demonstration Program”). Loehrer, “From the House Come Everything,” 145–46.

14 Taylor, Race for Profit, 74.

15 Ibid., see especially 17–19; Satter, Family Properties, 338–45

16 Taylor, Race for Profit, 255.

17 Ibid., 138–40, 254–55.

18 Taylor, Race for Profit, 241; Connolly, “The Strange Career of American Liberalism,” 84.

19 Lemann, The Promised Land, 199.

20 Ibid. See also Lassiter, The Silent Majority; Self, American Babylon; and Looker, A Nation of Neighborhoods.

21 Immerwahr, Thinking Small, 10–11; Dunning, Nonprofit Neighborhoods, 178–79.

22 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “Preliminary Guidelines for Model Cities Program,” November 1966. WUA, Cervantes Collection, Series 1, Box 40, Folder 1 (Hereafter: HUD, “Preliminary Guidelines”).

23 Their first preliminary application was submitted in early June, followed by another application in October of 1966. See cover letter, Mayor Cervantes to Secretary Weaver, October 4, 1966. WUA Cervantes Collection, Series 1, Box 40, Folder 1.

24 St. Louis MCA, “A Proposal for Technical Assistance,” January 26, 1967, WUA Cervantes Collection, Series 1, Box 40, Folder 1, cover page.

25 HUD, “Preliminary Guidelines”

26 St. Louis MCA, “Proposal for Technical Assistance”

27 HUD, “Preliminary Guidelines,” 2; St. Louis MCA, “Proposal for Technical Assistance,” 7.

28 St. Louis MCA, “A Proposal for Technical Assistance,” introduction, n.p.; Siegel, “By the People Most Affected,” 64.

29 “City-Wide Group to be set up to guide spending if bonds pass,” 28 October 1966, St. Louis Post-Dispatch; “CORE Opposes City Bond Issue as Being of No Aid to Negroes,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 1, 1966; and St. Louis Model Cities, “The Yeatman Area’s Place in the 1966 Bond Issue.” WUA, Cervantes Collection, Series 1, Box 40, Folder 1, p. 2.”

30 “City-Wide Group to be set up;” St. Louis Model Cities, “The Yeatman Area’s Place in the 1966 Bond,” 2.

31 “City-Wide Group to be set up;” Lee, “A Neighborhood That Refused to Die,” 4; “Macler C. Shepard Biography File” circa 1978 in Western Historical Manuscript Collection (WHMC), University of Missouri, St. Louis Vertical File 1968 to 2004, Folder 399.

32 Lee, “A Neighborhood That Refused to Die,” 4; “Macler C. Shepard Biography File;” and Johnson, The Broken Heart of America, 350.

33 Gordon, Mapping Decline, 167–68. Heathcott and Murphy, “Corridors of Flight, Zones of Renewal,” 159–62.

34 Gordon, Mapping Decline, 100, 167. Heathcott and Murphy, “Corridors of Flight, Zones of Renewal,” 161; “Mayor Tucker, Lindenbusch Get in Dispute Over Slum Clearance,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 1, 1961; John McGuire, “Mr. Urban Renewal,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 10, 1986.

35 Heathcott and Murphy, “Corridors of Flight,” 159; “City-Wide Group to Be Set Up;” “CORE Opposes City Bond;” and Loehrer, “From the House Come Everything,” 60–70.

36 St. Louis MCA, St. Louis Model City Program: Revised Comprehensive City Demonstration Program. December 31, 1968. Housing Section page 7. On Pruitt-Igoe, see Heathcott, “The City Remade.”

37 Haar, Between the Idea and the Reality, 15–34.

38 St. Louis Model Cities, “The Yeatman Area’s Place in the 1966 Bond,” 3.

39 Lee, “A Neighborhood That Refused to Die,” 4.

40 Loehrer, “From the House Come Everything,”47–51.

41 Lee, “A Neighborhood That Refused to Die,” 6.

42 See also James Spoerleder as quoted in Loehrer, “From the House Come Everything,” 51.

43 Loehrer, “From the House Come Everything,” 75–79.

44 Lee, “A Neighborhood That Refused to Die,” 6.

45 Ibid.

46 Ibid.

47 Sprehe, James E., “Board Votes for Rehiring of 13 City Building Inspectors,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 14, 1965.

48 Ibid. See also: Letter from Mayor Cervantes to Yeatman landlords. March 8, 1967. WUA, Cervantes Collection, Series 1, Box 50, Folder 5. On race in selection of rehabilitation areas, see Neighborhood Planning Sub-Committee, “Report on Rehabilitation Area Selection.” June 25, 1953. WUA Tucker Series 1 Box 22 Folder 10.

49 Lee, “A Neighborhood That Refused to Die,” 6; Cervantes to landlords, March 8, 1967.

50 Letter from Building Commissioner Kenneth Brown to Macler Shepard, December 29, 1966. WUA, Cervantes, Series 1, Box 51, Folder 2.

51 WUA, Urban League of St. Louis Records, Series 8, Box 4, Folder 39: “Federation of Block Units – Miscellaneous, 1950–1959.”

52 Letter from Florence Aritha Spotts to Edward Schrader of the Beautification Commission, July 9, 1966. WUA Cervantes Series 1, Box 44, Folder 17; Loehrer, “From the House Come Everything,” 50.

53 Ibid; “Demonstration Proposal: Housing Component,” March 23, 1967. WUSL Cervantes S1 Box 33, Folder 5.

54 Lee, “A Neighborhood That Refused to Die,” 4; Betty Lee as cited in Loehrer, “From the House Come Everything,” 79.

55 “Residential Inspection Begins in Yeatman Area” St. Louis Post Dispatch, 4 January 1967.

56 Brown to Shepard, December 29, 1966.

57 Ibid.; Bourgeois, “Re: St. Louis Model City Highlights.”

58 Bourgeois, “Re: St. Louis Model City Highlights.”

59 Lee, “The Neighborhood that Refused to Die,” 6.

60 Ibid.; “Macler C. Shepard Biography File.”

61 Lee, “A Neighborhood That Refused to Die,” 6.

62 Shepard as quoted in “Handling of City Slum Report on Sheridan Area Criticized,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 28, 1967.

63 Ibid.

64 Letter from Arthur F.C. Blase to Mayor Cervantes, March 1, 1967. WUA, Cervantes Collection, Series 1, Box 50, Folder 5.

65 Blase to Cervantes, March 1, 1967.

66 Letter from Liebert to Mayor Cervantes, March 1, 1967. WUA, Cervantes Collection, Series 1, Box 50, Folder 5.

67 St. Louis MCA, “Proposal for Technical Assistance,”7.

68 HUD, “Preliminary Guidelines,” 2.

69 Office of the Mayor Press Release, March 13, 1967. WUA, Cervantes Collection, Series 1, Box 50, Folder 5.

70 Ibid.

71 Ibid.

72 “2 City Groups Seek Grant;” Bourgeois, “Re: St. Louis Model City Highlights”; and Office of the Mayor Press Release, March 13, 1967.

73 “Demonstration Proposal;” Bourgeois, “Re: St. Louis Model City Highlights;” Spotts to Schrader, July 9, 1966; Loehrer, “From the House Come Everything,” 50.

74 “Demonstration Proposal,” 2.

75 “Realty Group Organizing to Improve Slums,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, February 17, 1966.

76 See for example, Letter from Ann Voss of the West End Gateway Center to Mayor Cervantes, August 19, 1966. WUA Cervantes Collection, Series 1 Box 51, Folder 2. “Ex-Slum Lord Named;” Richard Jacobs, “Two Landlords Got $300,000 for Mill Creek Area Holdings,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, January 30, 1966.

77 “Realty Group Organizing;” Frank W. Mitchell, “For the Slum Receivership Bill,” as reprinted from The Argus in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 5, 1966. Confidential Memorandum from Bob Duffe to Mayor Cervantes, August 19, 1966. WUA Cervantes Series 1, Box 51, Folder 2.

78 “Realty Group Organizing;” “Constable Aids Said to Be Still Demanding Tips,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, August 26, 1966; “Alderman Rivers Backs Housing Upkeep Bill,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, April 5, 1968; “United Drive Urged for Vandalism Law,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, April 29, 1966; “City Board of Landlords, Tenants Urged,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, March 24, 1967.

79 “Rent Hikes in County on April 1,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 7, 1968; Frank Leeming, Jr., “Many Apartment Rents Here to Be Hiked April 1,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, February 6, 1968; E.S. Evans, “Apartment Owners May Hike Rents,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, November 30, 1969. The Guild also advocated for raises in management commissions for rental properties through “concerted action,” see “United Drive Urged for Vandalism Law.”

80 Liebert to Mayor, March 1, 1967.

81 Ibid.

82 Leeming, “Many Apartment Rents Here to Be Hiked.”

83 “Demonstration Proposal,” 1.

84 Ibid.

85 Of the 38 buildings on the block, fourteen were “either owned or managed by five real estate brokers who have been working closely on this proposal.” See “Demonstration Proposal,” 1, 2.

86 Of 38 units on the block, six were owner-occupied. “Demonstration Proposal,” 1.

87 Ibid., 1.

88 Ibid., 1, 2.

89 Ibid., 2.

90 The description of these mechanisms is slightly vague in the Yeatman proposal. For example, under the heading “FHA 221” there could be several programs. “Demonstration Proposal,” 2. However, later documents clarify that Liebert (as then Coordinator of Property Owner Programs for the St. Louis Housing Authority) recommended combining 221 (d)(3) rehabilitation loans with Section 23 Federal housing subsidies. See page 13 in LaDonna J. Green, “Federal Subsidies for Private Development of Low-Income Housing,” circa 1968. Urban Housing Program of Washington University. WUA, Urban League of St. Louis Records, Series 8, Box 5, Folder 7.

91 “Demonstration Proposal,” 1.

92 St. Louis MCA, “Proposal for Technical Assistance,”7.

93 Phillips de Lucas, “The Perils of Participation;” Dunning, Nonprofit Neighborhoods, 48, 16, and 26; Telegram, Rev. Oliver Gibson to Mayor Cervantes, February 24, 1967. WUA, Cervantes Collection, Series 1, Box 40, Folder 4.

94 Liebert to Mayor, March 1, 1967.

95 Tyree, “Urban Residential Mortgage Financing,” 74–82; Division of Research and Statistics, Federal Home Loan Bank Board, “Metropolitan St. Louis: Summary of an Economic, Real Estate, and Mortgage Finance Survey” (Washington, D.C.: Federal Home Loan Bank Board, February 1, 1941), National Archives and Record Administration Record Group 195, Stack Area 450, Box 2, Folder “Metropolitan St. Louis Mo + Illinois #2 Resurvey Report Vol. I (2),” 19.

96 Letter from Macler Shepard to the Elijah Lovejoy Parish, April 18, 1983, as cited in Loehrer, “‘From the House Come Everything,’”97–98.

97 Second deed mortgages in the U.S. remain understudied, but their impacts share many common features with the better-known mortgage alternative the land contract. On land contracts, see Satter, Family Properties, 64–66; Taylor, Race for Profit, 49. On second deeds and regional variation predatory lending in the mid-century U.S., see Ratcliff et al, Residential Finance, 1950, 72; and Committee on Banking and Currency, “Second Mortgage Practices,” 1–2.

98 Liebert, “Role of the Middleman,” 96–97.

99 Committee on Banking and Currency, “Second Mortgage Practices,” 1–2; Rosser and Sanders, Mortgage Banking in the West, 350–51.

100 Liebert, “Role of the Middleman,” 97; Fisher, Urban Real Estate Markets, 19–20.

101 Liebert, “Role of the Middleman;” Quinn and Mendelson, “Decline of an Urban Housing Entrepreneur,” 11. Brune is included as executive advisor on the letterhead for the Guild, see Liebert to Mayor, March 1, 1967.

102 Liebert, “Role of the Middleman,” 96, 98.

103 Segal, “A Slum Landlord Program,” 449. See also Richard Jacobs, “City Could Do More in Slums, Critics Assert,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 23, 1967; Adams, “New Housing Act Likely to Help;” Voss to Mayor Cervantes, August 19, 1966; and WUA Cervantes Collection, Series 2, Box 51, Folder 170.

104 Ibid.

105 Taylor, Race for Profit, 19, 107, 140. Satter, Family Properties, 230–31 and 338–45.

106 “Demonstration Proposal,” 2

107 Ibid.

108 St. Louis v. Golden Gate Corp.

109 “Demonstration Proposal,” 1.

110 Lee, “A Neighborhood That Refused to Die,” 8.

111 Ibid.; U.S. Jaycees, Uplift, 229.

112 JVL, Inc., “Jeff-Vander-Lou, Incorporated: Working Together to Build a Better Community” Pamphlet circa 1969, SHSMO S509 Freedom of Residence Box 11 Folder 462.

113 Illinois Mennonite Youth Fellowship, “Project St. Louis: Through Jeff-Vander-Lou,” circa 1968, WHMC, Metropolitan Church Federation Records, Box 10, Folder 326.

114 “Yeatman Rehabilitation Group Plans Apartment Remodeling,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 26, 1967; Timothy Bleck, “Jeff-Vander-Lou Gives a New Look to Slum Area,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 16, 1968.

115 “Yeatman Rehabilitation Group Plans;” Bleck, “Jeff-Vander-Lou Gives a New Look;” St. Louis Assessor, Property Information.

116 Liebert, “Role of the Middleman,” 100, 98.

117 The program they used was FHA 221 H. “JVL, Inc.: Working Together to Build”(1969), 3.

118 “Demonstration Proposal,” 1.

119 “Macler C. Shepard Biography File;” Liebert to Mayor, March 1, 1967.

120 Liebert, “Role of the Middleman,” 100, 98.

121 Ibid.; McEnaney, “Nightmares on Elm Street.”

122 Ibid.

123 Ibid., 98.

124 “Yeatman Rehabilitation Group Plans;” Bleck, “Jeff-Vander-Lou Gives a New Look.”.

125 Ibid. See also the NCN, People, Building Neighborhoods, 772.

126 JVL’s distaste for HUD is palpable in their narrative around funding in National Commission on Neighborhoods, People, Building Neighborhoods, 772. See also, U.S. Jaycees, Uplift, 231.

127 Haar, Between the Idea and the Reality, 142–49.

128 “Demonstration Proposal,” 1; “Yeatman Rehabilitation Group Plans;” Bleck, “Jeff-Vander-Lou Gives a New Look.”

129 Loehrer, “From the House Come Everything,” 81; Siegel, “By the People Most Affected,” Haar, Between the Idea and the Reality, 143.

130 “JVL, Inc.: Working Together to Build”(c1969), 3; National Commission on Neighborhoods, People, Building Neighborhoods, 773.

131 George Curry, “Award Winners’ Aims Same, Backgrounds Far Apart,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 12, 1974; Loehrer, “From the House Come Everything;” 116–19; and Phoenix Rising

132 National Commission on Neighborhoods, People, Building Neighborhoods, 772.

133 Phoenix Rising.

134 “JVL, Inc.: Working Together to Build” (c1969), 3.

135 “Demonstration Proposal,” 2.

136 Liebert, “Role of the Middleman,” 93.

137 Ibid., 102.

138 Ibid., 102.

139 “Role of the Middleman,” 102.

140 Bourgeois, “Re: St. Louis Model City Highlights.”

141 St. Louis MCA, “Application to Plan a Comprehensive City Demonstration Program,” 60–64. See also the intermediary draft, “Housing Supply” Model Cities Report Circa 1967, SHSMO Freedom of Residence Records, S509, Box 15, Folder 688, 11–12.

142 St. Louis MCA, “Application to Plan a Comprehensive City Demonstration Program,” 61, 71.

143 “Housing Supply,” 14–21.

144 Ibid., 17, 20; St. Louis MCA, “Application to Plan a Comprehensive City Demonstration Program,” 64–67, 74.

145 Ibid., 17–18. Chin, “The Shifting Role of Public–Private Partnerships.”

146 Liebert favoured the LRA. See, “Role of the Middleman,” 113.

147 St. Louis MCA, “Application to Plan a Comprehensive City Demonstration Program,” 61; “Housing Supply,” 12, 17, 20.

148 St. Louis MCA, “Application to Plan a Comprehensive City Demonstration Program,” 61.

149 “Housing Supply,” 12.

150 “Housing Supply,” 12. St. Louis MCA, “Application to Plan a Comprehensive City Demonstration Program,”61.

151 “Ex-Slum Lord Named.”

152 Slayton, “State and Local Incentives and Techniques for Urban Renewal,” 793; Green, “Federal Subsidies for Private Development of Low-Income Housing,” 2.

153 Green, “Federal Subsidies for Private Development of Low-Income Housing,” 4–5.

154 St. Louis MCA, “Application to Plan a Comprehensive City Demonstration Program,” 71–72.

155 St. Louis MCA, St. Louis Model City Program (December 31, 1968), 6.

156 Ibid., 28. See also pages 9 and 13.

157 His start date is unknown, but he was active in the role by February 1968. See “New Blight Talks Sought,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 2, 1968; Liebert, “Role of the Middleman,” 105; Green, “Federal Subsidies for Private Development of Low-Income Housing,” 13.

158 Liebert, “Role of the Middleman,” 105.

159 Taylor, Race for Profit, 246.

160 “Ex-Slum Lord Named.”

161 Ibid.

162 Ibid.; Adams, “New Housing Act Likely to Help;” Liebert, “Role of the Middleman,” 107.

163 “Model City Action to Meet U.S. Rules,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 2, 1969; Siegel, “By the People Most Affected,” 124–63.

164 Shepard as paraphrased by Richard Jacobs, “Model Cities Agency Seeks Wider Limits,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 28, 1968.

165 Siegel, “By the People Most Affected,” 123–28, 138–40.

166 Ibid.; “Reduced Citizen Role in Model City Criticized,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 6, 1970; “Walk Out Ends Model City Meeting,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 7, 1970; Robert Adams, “Fight Likely on Control of Model Cities Funds,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 1, 1969. See also: Dunning, Nonprofit Neighborhoods, 72–73.

167 St. Louis MCA, Additions and Revisions to the St. Louis Comprehensive Demonstration Program.

168 Letter from Irvin Dagen to Mayor Cervantes, January 7, 1969, as included in frontmatter of St. Louis MCA, Additions and Revisions to the St. Louis Comprehensive Demonstration Program.

169 Adams, “New Housing Act Likely to Help;” “Ex-Slum Lord Named;” National Urban League and Center for Community Change. The National Survey of Housing Abandonment, 26–27.

170 Liebert, “Role of the Middleman,” 107.

171 Liebert, “Role of the Middleman,” 108.

172 Ibid., 108; HUD, Section 312, Chapter 1, 1–3.

173 Liebert, “Role of the Middleman,” 108.

174 Jack D. Herrington, “Re: Rehabilitation Demonstration Program Project No. Mo. R-54, West End,” January 2, 1970, WUA Cervantes Series 2 Box 51 Folder 170, page 11–2, 6–7, 9; Curt Matthews, “14 Renovated West End Homes Fail to Meet HUD Standards,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, December 23, 1969. See also Complaint by West End Community Conference against St. Louis Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority (United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri February 13, 1970) in WUA Cervantes papers Series 2, Box 51, Folder 170.

175 The lawsuit references a ‘loan at 3% interest from the U.S. government,’ terms that resemble those of 312 loans. Complaint by West End Community Conference against St. Louis Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority (United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri February 13, 1970) in WUA Cervantes papers Series 2, Box 51, Folder 170, p.12. On loan terms, see Liebert, “Role of the Middleman,” 108.

176 L.P. Snyder, “Real Estate Activity, Project Mo. R-54,” 11. Craig Brown, Chairman of West End Community Conference, to Mayor A.J. Cervantes, November 7, 1969, WUA Cervantes Series 2 Box 51 Folder 3.

177 Liebert, “Role of the Middleman,” 108, 109.

178 Ibid.,108.

179 Ibid., 114.

180 Ibid., 110, 113–18.

181 Chin, “The Shifting Role of Public Private Partnerships,” 105. Sally Bixby Defty, “Delinquent Tax List Reflects Problems,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 16, 1972.

182 Carter Smith, “Housing Groups Left Holding Tax Bag” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 28, 1975; Sally Bixby Defty, “Land Trust Aids Agencies,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 29, 1970; Sally Bixby Defty, “City Agency Seeks to Attract Developers,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 20, 1973; Sally Thran, “City Tax Dun on Land U.S. Bought for Homes,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 24, 1973.

183 Gerald Meyer, “Neighborhood Unit Caught in Squeeze,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 16, 1973.

184 Smith, “Housing Groups Left Holding Tax Bag,” Thran, “City Tax Dun on Land;” Siegel, “By the People Most Affected,” 178–80.

185 Smith, “Housing Groups Left Holding Tax Bag.”

186 Ibid.

187 Meyer, “Neighborhood Unit Caught in a Squeeze.”

188 Ibid.

189 Ibid.

190 Ibid.

191 Ibid.; Land Tax Suit No. 16 “Notice of Sheriff’s Sale Under Judgement of Foreclosure of Liens,” April 1, 1975 and Land Tax Suit No. 29, February 14, 1978, both in St. Louis Post-Dispatch February 14, 1978.

192 Jeff-Vander-Lou, Inc., “Working together to build a better community” pamphlet circa 1978. University of Missouri-St. Louis, Black History Collection, Box 4, Folder 68.

193 As quoted in Rue, Sheila, “Rebuilding of An Inner-City Neighborhood” St. Louis Post-Dispatch November 15, 1975.

194 Johnson, Broken Heart of America, 351.

195 Loehrer, “From the House Come Everything” 159.

196 NCN, People, Building Neighborhoods, 659, 763–803.

197 Carter administration as quoted in St. Louis CDA, Memorandum on Joint Development Conference, June, 6, 1978. WUA, Mayor Conway Collection, Series 3, Box 5, Folder 2.

198 U.S. Jaycees, Uplift, 229–32.

199 Siegel, ‘By the People Most Affected,’ 201–205; Johnson, Broken Heart of America, 381; Team Four, Inc., Citywide Implementation Strategies: The Draft Comprehensive Plan (St. Louis, MO: Team Four, Inc., 1975).

200 NCN, People, Building Neighborhoods, 782.

201 Jacob Barker, “Still Stuck with Paul McKee,” March 23, 2019. St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

202 Tom Wheatley, “No Regrets for Cool Papa,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 1, 1985.

203 Siegel, ‘By the People Most Affected,’ 175.

212 ‘Demonstration Proposal,’1.

213 St. Louis Assessor, Property Information.

204 Sheila Rendon and Barbara Manzara, “Developer, City Must Talk to Northside Residents,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, November 9, 2008.

205 Johnson, Broken Heart of America, 410; Jake Wagman, “North St. Louis Land Buys, Plans Ride on Ties to City,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, June 27, 2007; Michael R. Allen, “Facts About Paul McKee’s North Side Properties,” Preservation Research Office (blog), August 16, 2007, http://preservationresearch.com/north-st-louis/facts-about-paul-mckees-north-side-properties/.

206 Sarah Fenske, “Board Bill Would Remove McKee Exemption for Code Violations,” March 1, 2018, Riverfront Times, https://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2018/03/01/board-bill-would-remove-mckee-exemption-for-code-violations.

207 Barker, “Still Stuck with Paul McKee;” GeoSTL and Landmarks Association of St. Louis, Inc., “Northside Regeneration Survey Results,” April 3, 2019, http://landmarks.geostl.org/;

208 Jacob Barker, “Developer Paul McKee Inflated Property Values to Secure Tax Credits,” May 9, 2018. St. Louis Post-Dispatch; Barker, “Still Stuck with Paul McKee.”

209 Chin, “The Shifting Role of Public–Private Partnerships,” 105.

210 Taylor, Race for Profit, 231–62; Gordon, Mapping Decline, 181–219.

211 Dunning, Nonprofit Neighborhoods, 11, 72–77; Siegel, “By the People Most Affected,” 126–62; Phillips de Lucas, “The Perils of Participation.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Morris Speller

Morris Speller is a Lecturer in the University Writing Programme at Johns Hopkins University. His dissertation, Reckoning with Redlines, examines the history of mortgage discrimination, predatory lending, racial segregation, and housing policy in St. Louis City from the 1930s-1970s. He has a Master of Science degree in Human Geography from University of Bristol and received his PhD in History from Johns Hopkins University in Fall 2020.