I got the same robocall with the same Survey St Louis caller-ID reference. But it was accurate in my case because I live in St Louis Hills. Apparently the PR person writing the script for Goodson was refering to the SW part of the city as "your neighborhood", apparently unfamiliar with how parochial we are about our specific nabes.

The reference to Tilles Park reminds me of one of my own pet peeves: how out of date and out of touch the city's official neighborhood designations are. If you look at the city neighborhood map, there is no such neighborhood as Tilles Park. Nor is there any such neighborhood as Kingshighway Hills. The city map refers instead to a large area called "Northhampton," but there is no such thing as a Northhampton Neighborhood Assn. Kingshighway Hills has an active neighborhood assn for "Northhampton east of Macklind," while an active Tilles Park Neighborhood Assn holds forth for the western part of Northhampton and the eastern part of what the city calls the "Lindenwood Park" neighborhood. The Lindenwood Neighborhood Assn only covers that part of the so-called "Lindenwood Park" neighborhood which is west of Watson. The city's defined area of St Louis Hills includes the totally independent Villanova neighborhood and the Parkway Gardens subdivision. There are similar disconnects in the Grand-Oak Hill area that the city insists on calling "Tower Grove South."

These designations are important, because police reports (at least those printed in the Journal) identify crime locations by those neighborhood designations. A crime that occurred in the Tilles Park neighborhood would be relegated to either Northhampton or Lindenwood Park.

The folks at City Hall should get out more.

Pretty cranky today, Mr. O.

The squabble between "official neighborhood designations" and local usage is longstanding. By the official map, there is no Dogtown and a bunch of loftistas are perched in a place called Downtown West . . . Add in what the realtors call different neighborhoods and it's pretty clear that there is not much hope for reconciliation.

Besides, any real St. Louisan can pick out the neighborhood and parish by street address, right?

Oh, PE, you do like to agitate!

As a Protestant, I have always been made to feel like an outsider in my own neighborhood (where I have lived nearly continuously since 1951) because I'm not a member of "the parish." That's where all of the really important news gets exchanged, and anybody not in the parish buzz book just isn't anybody to worry about, Dahling!

But that's changing. As older Roman Catholics die or move out to nursing homes, they are increasingly being replaced in their homes by people who aren't Catholic, either other religions (notably Bosnian muslims) or especially the unchurched. People who have no religious affiliation at all is the Democratic Party (and left-of-center third parties)'s highest religious demographic, and that inward population migration is what fueled the City topping 80% for Kerry in 2004.

Back to topic, if the mayor's own top PR guy says "that there is not much hope for reconciliation" on neighborhood designations, I guess we shouldn't look for any mayoral leadership on the matter, which is all it would really take.

So far, O, it's an army of one. Get data.

PE, the simplest fix would be just to rename the City's list of official nabes to more closely match the names used by associations and realtors. And there is precedent to do so, since "McKinley Heights" was originally called "McKinley-Fox" by the City.

So then, "North Hampton" could become the more parochial "Tilles Park-Kinghsighway Hills," which rolls off the tongue, non? But in some cases, renaming would simplify, like "Peabody-Darst-Webbe" possibly becoming "King Louie Square."

Personally, I don't care that much, since it's nice to live in, and maybe someday sell, a house that doesn't fall into any neighborhood with official crime stats.

As for the ridiculous Roddy recall, why are the Greens involved? Sure, I can see tree-huggers being park-purists. But don't they realize (via recall and the special election sans-primary that follows) that any successor would be chosen by the very ward machine linked to Roddy?

Ugh, the official neighborhood boundary map rears its 79-headed body again. ;-)

CDA/PDA, Assessor, etc. would be resistant to change the boundaries, because that's how both 1990 and 2000 Census data "by neighborhood" were re-aggregated. Likewise, those code numbers are used for generating reports of CSB data, Building Permits, and the like. Each parcel of land in the city is coded as being in one of those 79 neighborhoods. Each neighborhood has a number as well as a name. For example, Benton Park West is #30.

There's a chunk of the Bevo Mill neighborhood south of Bates and east of Leona typically claimed by Holly Hills. Likewise, for political reasons at the time the map was drawn, the boundary between BPW and Gravois Park zig zags along Cherokee, Compton, and Potomac, with the bizarre outcome that several houses that face Gravois "Uncle Louis Buckowitz" Park (the park itself) on Potomac, are considered part of BPW by the City (but not by either neighborhood group).

Changing the names of existing officially neighborhoods might be easier. You could call Northampton (or is it North Hampton?) Kings-Tilles!

Or not. ;-)

Riculuous Roddy recall, or ridiculous Roddy?

The man is an arrogant jackass with no real constiuency. Brian, get some facts -- the recall is about way more than the lease despite what TV news might say.

Brian: The linked KWMU report doesn't say anything about Greens being involved in the recall. It quotes Don DeVivo, who happens to be the ward's Green Party committeeman, but I don't believe either Green group in the city is formally involved in the recall or that DeVivo now belongs to either Green group. (As committeeman, DeVivo is a member of the Green Party Central Committee, but that group hasn't met in well over a year.) Two Rivers Greens has enough on its plate promoting the Progressive Party petition drive, its Progressive Film Series and distributing public access cable shows, without getting involved in the 17th Ward spat. Don Fitz, the defacto head of the other Green group, has a long-standing dislike for Roddy, but Fitz and DeVivo are not on good terms.

So, how'd the fundraiser for Mike McMillan go?