Good book on Eminent Domain - Little Pink House


I just finished reading Little Pink House by Jeff Benedict which was a very interesting book since it was written more as a non-fiction novel than as some boring legal treatise. I find it frightening that it is so easy for a municipality to decide to "blight" an area for purely economic reasons. The topic seems more appropriate now that we have moved back to mid-county which is "eminent domain" central in the St. Louis area since we are located just a few miles from both the failed Hadley Township efforts in Richmond Heights and also the languishing McKnight and Manchester redevelopment plans in Rock Hill. We used to live in Brentwood, and I remember back in the mid 80's driving down Brentwood Boulevard south of Clayton Road and actually seeing these lovely brick structures known as houses. First they removed the neighborhood that is now the southern parking lot for the Galleria, then they took down a nice little street of homes behind the old Brentwood Square. Finally they completely wiped out all the homes east of Brentwood south of Eager Road for the Promenade. It is hard to believe we really need that many shopping centers in the Richmond Heights/Brentwood area, but the truth is many of those lots are still pretty crowded all the time (even during this recession.)

However the same cannot be said about the new development efforts in Rock Hill. The Hollywood Video has closed down on the southeast corner, so we find the biggest draws are the new eating establishments: the Amighetti's, the Bandana's, the Baskin-Robbin's and the frozen custard place (my son would add the new Wendy's too). The giant parking lot on the southwest corner is hardly used and there are not any stores there worth visiting (Stein Mart?). Since there used to be a DMV station there, it seems appropriate that the lot is now empty enough to be a good practice lot for high school students to learn driving!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BMI & BMR Calculator (Body Mass Index and Basal Metabolic Rate)

Image
My wife has been researching type 2 diabetes and recently checked a book out of the library which included a body mass index (BMI) chart much like the one pictured here. Whereas it is fairly easy to follow, I, of course, think it must be converted to an online calculator! However, when I checked the Internet, there were already a billion of them so I had to make one that was different. So my lovely BMI BMR calculator accepts either inches or centimeters for your height and pounds or kilograms for your weight and calculates not only your BMI, but also your BMR (basal metabolic rate) which determines how many calories you should consume! So I made a spiffy "all in one" healthy body indicator calculator which not only determines how underweight or overweight you are, but also tells you how many calories you should consume to maintain or improve your ideal weight. 
Read more

Trying out the L'Ecole Culinaire Presentation Room restaurant

Image
We had been seeing the ads for the restaurant at L'Ecole Culinaire and since we live so close by we thought we would try it out. We had always enjoyed dining out at cooking or hotel schools like the CHIC in Chicago and the Statler at Cornell where we went to college. Since we still love to go out and eat here in St. Louis , we ventured over to their restaurant on the first day they were open for lunch. The first thing we noticed is that they do not have much parking! They really need to let patrons know where they are supposed to park. The restaurant itself is small but very well attended. There was one fellow who kept straightening all the centerpieces and place settings on the tables, and we always saw one or two student workers milling about. The lunch menu was small and the choices did not appear overly "gourmet". The special of the day was a bison burger stuffed with cheese, and other choices picked by my group included a club sandwich, a "margherita" pi
Read more

Not all Frosted Window Films are the same!

Image
We live in an older home with a lot of issues and one of them concerns our back door to our patio from our sunroom. The door has double paned glass on it, but unfortunately the seal has broken so you can see moisture collect inside of it. We decided the easiest way to "remedy" the problem was to cover the window with some "frosted" film so we did not have to see the moisture condensing between the panes. But the question was, what film? There are a bunch of them available so we had to select something to try on the door. The first place we tried was our nearby Lowe's store which had a bunch of Gila brand film. We selected what seemed like the typical adhesive based door sized  film that cost about $25 after tax. We thought it could not be that hard to put up and look nice on our door. So one day my wife ran out and purchased it at Lowe's and we commenced to install it on our door window. We made our own soapy water solution and followed the directions
Read more