The Impact of Industrial Districts in St. Louis

Plate 14 from the 1947 Comprehensive City Plan of Saint Louis provides a snapshot of the city's planned industrial districts and neighborhoods. This story map will explore the relationship between these industrial districts and the demographics of the communities they impacted. The planned industrial districts in Saint Louis overlapped with predominantly black and low-income neighborhoods, reflecting the urban planning principles of the time, which aimed to segregate communities and ultimately displace these residents.

The Comprehensive City Plan of 1947 (CCP) aimed to protect residential areas from industrial encroachments, implying that the planners prioritized the well-being of particular communities over others. Plate 14 shows the separation of residential and industrial areas, following urban planning principles of the time. This approach was influenced by the City Beautiful and the Garden City movements, which aimed to create organized, self-contained communities (1). The CCP states, "Our obsolete and blighted districts now embrace half the city's residential area... They will continue to expand until the whole city is engulfed unless we remove the causes of this condition." (2) The plan suggests that older neighborhoods can be made attractive and wholesome through proper attention and new housing policies.

However, this quote also reflects the urban planners' mindset about the need for transformation in older central areas, predominantly black and low-income neighborhoods. While the language in the quote does not explicitly mention the displacement of black residents, the plan's focus on "complete transformation" implies a willingness to displace these communities in favor of "wholesome and attractive" neighborhoods. In reality, these efforts often resulted in the displacement of vulnerable populations, exacerbating existing inequalities.

When examining the 1950 census demographics and median family income maps from "Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the American City," we see a significant overlap between the planned industrial districts and predominantly black and low-income neighborhoods. This overlap suggests that urban planners intentionally placed these communities in industrial districts, evidenced by the city planners' actions and insistence on creating their eutopic vision.

The city planner, Harland Bartholomew, believed it was essential to guard communities against the effects of industrialization. As Heathcott explains, Bartholomew thought that "good communities had to be sheltered from the noise, pollution, and social disintegration of the city, with its tenements, shops, saloons, and factories all jumbled together on an urban terrain run by ward bosses, committeemen, and political operatives." (3) This vision led to the formation of distinct neighborhoods meant to provide a more ordered environment for residents, located far away from the chaos and contamination of industrial areas.

While never explicitly stating a desire to segregate white and black neighborhoods, the emphasis on creating "good communities" and protecting them from "social disintegration" can be seen as a concealed way of reinforcing racial divisions. Bartholomew's vision of a "healthy and civil city" composed of "literate and educated nuclear families living in stately detached townhouses" mirrors the idealistic image of middle-class white neighborhoods devoid of any black residents. The concerns for property devaluation and social disorder were often associated with black neighborhoods and used as a dog whistle for segregation.

As quoted in Mapping Decline, "In the longer term, [expulsive zoning] hardened the view that black occupancy was a nonconforming blight on the central city and paved the way for its displacement under urban renewal." (4) This demonstrates that city planners designated black neighborhoods as industrial rather than protecting them as residential areas.

Designing predominantly black and poor neighborhoods as industrial districts surrounded by white residential districts is a clear example of how racism operates in urban planning, and the idea of spaces is central to understanding how this process works. Spaces are not just physical locations but also social constructs that shape how people interact with each other and their environment. When spaces are designed to exclude certain groups of people, their ability to form communities and social bonds is severely restricted. 

This phenomenon is particularly true for neighborhoods designated as industrial districts, where the dominant land use is factories, warehouses, and other non-residential uses. As previously mentioned, these areas are often loud, polluted, and dangerous, which makes them inhospitable to human habitation. As a result, residential communities in these areas tend to be fragmented and disconnected, making it difficult for residents to form meaningful social bonds and develop a sense of belonging.

This shows how the physical space created by industrial zoning reinforces racial segregation and undermines the social fabric of communities. When people are separated from each other by industrial zones and other barriers, they are less likely to form strong social connections and are more vulnerable to social isolation and loneliness.

The analysis of Plate 14 from the 1947 Comprehensive City Plan of Saint Louis reveals the deliberate efforts of the city planning commission to marginalize black and low-income communities. While urban planning principles avoided using language to directly mention the intended effects of isolation and community breakup, the maps of 1950s demographics and poverty clearly overlap with the planned industrial districts. Harsher living conditions and physical barriers in the industrial areas prevented the formation of strong social bonds and perpetuated social isolation in these marginalized communities. Recognizing the patterns of urban planning in St. Louis allows for a deeper understanding of its role in forming the city's socioeconomics and demographics.

1. Yalzadeh, Ida and Blumberg, Naomi. "City Beautiful movement". Encyclopedia Britannica, 4 Jan. 2019, https://www.britannica.com/topic/City-Beautiful-movement. Accessed 18 April 2023.
2. "Housing." Comprehensive City Plan 1947, https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/archive/1947-comprehensive-plan/housing.shtml. 
3. Tranel, Mark, and Joseph Heathcott. "Chapter 3 Harland Bartholomew, City Engineer ." St. Louis Plans: The Ideal and The Real St. Louis, Missouri Historical Soc. Press, Saint Louis, Mo, 2007.
4. Gordon, Colin. Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the Fate of the American City. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7zw7k2. Accessed 23 Apr. 2023.