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Historical February–March 2022 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
My youngest daughter Sarah is facing what many people her age are facing, finding a job that will lead to the career that she loves, a job that will utilize her master’s in anthropology and love of culture but will also let her continue to do some work with conservation.
She has spent the last two years in four different conservation corps in four different states but is done with doing Corps work and would like to find a job that is fulfilling and career oriented. Sarah and I have often discussed this, and I told her that I thought one of the hardest things about being an adult is ‘choosing’ – choosing a college, choosing what to major to pursue in college, choosing a job, choosing where you are going to live, choosing a partner. By choosing you are by the process eliminating the other paths. Luckily for me, I made that last choice pretty early (Andy and I got married during my junior year of college) and that narrowed down my other choices.
When I graduated from college, I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I knew that I was going to do it in St. Louis because my husband and his family were here.
With the help of Karleen Hoerr we found a house that we loved in the location that we loved. Andy was a high school art teacher and working at the Muny, and I got my first job in a bank. Luckily for us, the neighborhood was much less expensive than it is now. Andy and I are still in the same house that we love and in the same neighborhood that we love, but things have changed. Our neighbors are still wonderful and our proximity to the Loop and Forest Park are still wonderful (although I have to admit I have always hated that Metrolink bridge).
With the developments and improvements in our neighborhood the costs have increased substantially. This, in turn, causes the taxes to increase substantially. Andy and I have owned our art studio for approximately 10 years and the taxes have increased over 100% in that time.
I know that we have some initiatives in the community council to assist our long-term residents with repairs and aging in place, but I can only hope that all the projects that we propose or endorse will allow for our neighborhood to maintain its rich diversity and we don’t create an environment where our long-term residents can no longer afford to live here. How do we choose to make our neighborhood ‘good’ but not ‘too good’? How can we work for a neighborhood that is safe, progressive, more sustainable, but still accessible to people with a range of incomes?
It is a difficult balance. Let’s hope that as we choose how we move forward we keep this in mind.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, February–March 2022.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times2022_02.pdf, printed page(s) 2; PDF page(s) 2.
