Dear Lou,

I wish that all native St. Louisans could see their city the way so many others do when they visit St. Louis for the first time.
I wasn’t born and raised in St. Louis. I grew up in New Hampshire and worked on the East Coast before relocating to St. Louis in 2007.
When I first came here, I saw St. Louis for what it is versus what it was in the past. I saw a destination that was rich with potential and approaching a tipping point.

I saw all the brick-and-mortar aspects of a city steeped in history with amazing architecture. I saw the nascent stages of innovation leading the way for St. Louis to become an innovation-based economy. I saw a wealth of education with nearly 30 colleges and universities. The raw ingredients were all here. With its high quality of life and affordability, St. Louis looked like a gem that had yet to be fully discovered and was fast approaching an urban renaissance.

I often feel that many St. Louisans suffer from a perceptual hangover, dwelling on what we once were, instead of being focused and open-minded about what we are becoming. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people lament over the airport or the number of corporations that used to be headquartered in Saint Louis that have since left.

You can't drive down the highway to the future by looking in the rearview mirror.

I think that too often we allow our problems to define us. I don't argue for a minute that we should ignore the real challenges we need to address and overcome. I do implore people, however, to have a balanced perspective.
The most satisfying and enjoyable moments in my work at Explore St. Louis are witnessing the surprise and delight of people visiting St. Louis for the first time—including people who had either low expectations or no expectations at all.

When so many people visit here, their jaws drop. They’re amazed how exciting and fun St. Louis is to discover and the amount of treasures around every corner. They’re blown away that we have a world-class zoo and museums that are free for all who visit. They see how affordable and accessible St. Louis is. They see opportunity and potential. They say things like, “I want to buy a house here... I want to have a second home here... Maybe I should move my company here.”

I’ve never been more bullish on St. Louis’ future than I am today.
When you look at the billions of dollars that have been invested in cultural and entertainment amenities such as Union Station, City Foundry, the Armory, St. Louis City SC and their new stadium, the Gateway Arch National Park, Forest Park, the Brickline Greenway—the list goes on and on—the momentum is undeniable.

When you look at our amazing food and restaurant scene and the fact that we have nationally renowned restauranters who have moved back to St. Louis because of the abundance of opportunity, when you see all of this new energy, I believe we have finally reached that tipping point and the transformation we have been longing for is finally taking hold, and our best days are ahead of us.

Yes, we have a hundred problems just like every other city in the United States, but we’re working hard to address them. Instead of letting those problems define us, let’s make St. Louis better for everyone. We have the opportunity to lead the nation forward by improving societal issues that have beset American cities for more than 200 years.

Instead of looking at what we have lost, look at all we have gained.
In downtown St. Louis alone, we have four stadiums. We have world-class theaters. We have an entertainment complex in Union Station. You have one of the most interesting and eclectic places—literally in the entire world—called City Museum. All within a 10-block radius.

We just need more people to see the abundance that St. Louis has to offer—and I believe that starts with us. I believe St. Louisans are instrumental in helping us propel this transformation. I’d argue that the image that needs the most work is the image we have of ourselves. Let's start celebrating all that is right instead of focusing on all that is wrong. Let’s stop making apologies that we’re from St. Louis. Let’s be proud and vocal and have more swagger.
Instead of lamenting the shortcomings of our past, let’s focus on the momentum we are creating today and the promising future in front of us.

Sincerely,

Brian Hall
Chief Marketing Officer, Explore St. Louis

Dear Lou,

Our history with you runs long and deep. For more than 120 years, we’ve been proud to call you, our home. And proud to power the quality of life for generations of St. Louisans.

As a neighbor and an integral part of every St. Louis community, we believe the St. Louis region is only as strong as the communities within it. And that every community matters.

When communities struggle, so does the greater region.

It’s time to change this. It’s time to empower people, progress and prosperity, especially in our communities that have been underserved for far too long.

And this means stepping up to make a meaningful difference in the lives of all families. It means investing in inclusive economic growth so good jobs are available to everyone.

These challenges are too great for one person or group to handle on their own. But when St. Louis’ organizations and leaders combine our energy, we can create this thriving community.

Together, we have the power. Let’s build a more sustainable future for the St. Louis community, once and for all.

Dear Lou,

My family is proof that you don’t have to be from a city to love it. My wife and I are native New Yorkers, and we didn’t know much about St. Louis before we relocated to the region a decade ago.

All it took was one immersive weekend at places like Grant’s Farm, the Saint Louis Zoo, the Gateway Arch, and restaurants on The Hill for us to fall hard for St. Louis. And after we moved here, the more we discovered, the more we found to love. Our kids’ school. The sports. The food. I’m Italian and my wife is Chinese, and we are just in awe of the restaurants here that speak to our hearts through our stomachs.

We’re big believers that you can’t just live in a community and take from it; you need to give back. So my wife and I joined boards and volunteered. I started a chess nonprofit in North St. Louis County in collaboration with the St. Louis Chess Club and inaugurated the Ascension Charity Classic PGA golf tournament at Norwood Hills Country Club.

On the East Coast, St. Louisans have a reputation for working hard and being valuable employees, but they tend not to stick around out there. Now I understand why. I’m humbled to be able to contribute to all the things that are wonderful about this region through my energy and optimism.

I tell people all the time that when you choose to live somewhere, you love it even more. Because I’m not from here, I have a different lens for viewing all the things that make St. Louis special. I’ve become an unofficial brand ambassador for the region—it’s the best-kept secret in the United States. Through my vocation as a marketing professional, I have a great platform to share that message.

When I’m not working, my avocation is writing books about big-stakes decision-making. I’m especially passionate about the study of leadership at the presidential level. I look at how and why presidents made big, bold decisions—like Theodore Roosevelt and the Panama Canal or Lyndon Johnson and civil rights. I study the things that motivate and inspire people to take on big challenges.

I apply what I’ve learned authoring those books to day-to-day life by thinking about how to motivate and inspire stakeholders to achieve big things locally. In St. Louis, we need bold, forward-looking leadership that doesn’t turn a blind eye to challenges but tackles them with hope, optimism, and solutions.

I’m a big believer that as a region, we’re only as strong as all the communities within it. It’s incumbent upon all of us to make each community strong for all its residents, because we’re competing with other strong metro areas—and it’s an intense competition—for jobs, young people, investment, and tourism.

The key is public-private partnerships between local government, businesses, and nonprofit. We need to come together and work toward the same goals without getting distracted. We all have the right intentions. We just need to get aligned on a couple of critical things to flourish.

First, we need to have an equitable and inclusive growth that fosters economic opportunity for everyone. Toward this goal, I’ve championed things like the Ascension Charity Classic, which raised more than $2.5 million in 2.5 years for the Urban League and other nonprofits.

While the money is important, I’m even more excited about how the tournament has played out as a love letter to the St. Louis region that’s live on the Golf Channel for three days, eight hours a day. It reintroduces St. Louis to the rest of the country—because we don’t always put our best foot forward in the news.

Second, we need to strengthen our urban core and ensure it’s a destination for people to work and live. This means addressing safety, infrastructure, and transportation.

Third, transportation across the whole region needs to improve so there’s easy access for businesses and other travelers. Plans to expand and renovate the airport are a good step toward this goal.

All three of these goals are interlinked and reinforce each other—and that’s key. We have to keep trying to create things in a very focused way, not trying to boil the ocean. If we can’t focus, we’re going to lose ground to other cities. I want to make sure St. Louis doesn’t just survive but flourishes.

My children were both very enthusiastic about moving to St. Louis a decade ago. Now my son is a freshman at the University of Chicago, but he’s already talking about his life after graduation and his plans to move back to St. Louis. I love that his roots here go deep, and I hope every other newcomer also finds their connection to this wonderful region I’m proud to call home.

Sincerely,

Nick Ragone, EVP and Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Ascension

Dear Lou,

You can be a tough nut to crack.

Like many of those born here, to understand you, I had to learn about you. About your history, your policies, and the forces that shape your economy. That zip codes can exist within miles of each other, but the residents of each might as well live in different worlds. It wasn’t until much later that I understood how you became that way. You’ve gotten in your own way, sometimes, St. Louis, and blocked your own progress by keeping people locked out of opportunity.

My family experienced the impact of your racial segregation up close, and I knew the isolation it imposed as one of the very few Black children at my school and in our neighborhood. And now, I have devoted my life to helping you build equitable health outcomes for all—not just the few in privileged zip codes.

What would it be like if we lived—not in different worlds—but in the same equitable world? I don’t think it’s as complicated as some make it out to be. I’ve talked about you so much and for so long that I can quote myself now: you don't have an innovation problem. You have a distribution problem. You are not at a loss about how to develop healthy residents who enjoy safe living environments, jobs, and schools. It’s not rocket science. We make up stories about how people can make it out of your darkness with hard work. But your structures are rigged.

You can’t wait anymore to change it. Don’t wait. If we wait to change a critical mass of hearts and minds, we’ll be waiting another century. No single person, family, politician, or business can do it alone.

There's so much to love about you, and your vast reservoirs of goodwill. You have brilliance, talent, and potential. You are often named one of the most charitable cities in the country.
But ask yourself: why is your charity necessary in the first place? It’s not enough to just be generous. The rules of the game have to change. We can’t just program and social service our way out of inequity.

I encourage you to grow. It's easy to get complacent, comfortable, and unwilling to change or accept external ideas about how we could be. It’s almost like you have an “allergy” to outside methods or ways of being sometimes. “Where did you go to high school?”—what could be more provincial than that?

I have hope. Your major institutions, many of which have announced commitments in the right direction, are leading change—like the 2030 jobs plan. I am encouraged by your St. Louis Anchor Action Network, comprised of 16 large organizations devoted to improving economic outcomes in a 22-zip code geography that has faced disinvestment for too long. They understand their collective power, and are banding together in service, not just of their individual ambitions, but for our region, our home, as a whole. Not every city has that.

I am also encouraged by your Once and for All effort from Beyond Housing which is opening hearts and minds to why investing in your most under-resourced communities is the key for moving the entire region forward and creating stronger, more equitable, and prosperous St. Louis for all.

I am heartened by your people, who are willing to have conversations about reorganizing the logic of our systems and structures to ensure the health and well-being of everyone, regardless of race or zip code.

Sincerely,

Jason Purnell
President – James S. McDonnell Foundation

Dear Lou,

I was born in 1969, one year after the Fair Housing Act passed, making housing segregation and discrimination illegal. Moving from St. Louis City to Pagedale in 1974 meant following the American dream for my parents and so many others. And so, the magic began. Through the eyes of my youth, my childhood was like a fairytale. The community looked out for and were accountable to one another.

Unfortunately, I would later understand that this shielded existence was far from our region’s racially influenced narrative:
• The myriad of municipalities in St. Louis County and resulting fragmentation had been a historic tool to control the racial composition of neighborhoods through racially restrictive deed covenants, indentures, and ordinances.
• Despite the legal end of segregation and redlining, the value of our homes would continue to be suppressed. As such, my parents would never build meaningful housing wealth that could be leveraged to finance college for their children or passed on as generational wealth like their majority counterparts.
• Disinvestment would occur through the decades as business owners sought more affluent communities. The combination of low housing values, middle class flight and commercial decline would result in perpetually fewer resources to fund our city services and schools and a decades-long fight to restore vitality.

I am 52 now, and the vestiges of our racial past still loom large today. The home I currently own is in a municipality with a now-illegal racial covenant which historically only allowed people of color to dwell in a domestic capacity. Imagine what it feels like to read that the home I currently occupy was not meant for me simply because of the color of my skin.

And during the 2018/2019 school year, the highest-spending majority White district spent $8,412 (nearly 40%) more per student than the highest-spending majority Black district and 2.4 times (about $18,000) more per student than the lowest-spending districts. Have we contemplated the compounding impact of this inequality over decades to communities of color? As a member of the Missouri State Board of Education and former member of the Normandy School Board, this challenge weighs heavily on me. I am determined to do all I can to bring about the structural and systemic change required.

𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐲 𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐦𝐬 𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞

An awareness of the interconnectivity of housing, education, and employment systems is emerging. Purpose-driven initiatives such the St. Louis Anchor Action Network are bringing together institutions, businesses, community leaders, and other stakeholders to address inequities through efforts to increase employment, income, health, and wealth building. Our region has made other inroads, such as our Cortex Innovation Community a myriad of new residential and commercial developments.

Yet despite this progress, too many people experience generational poverty in racially segregated communities with inequitable access to opportunity. This has an ugly genesis in segregation and racism—the ugly truths we talk around and choose to omit to avoid pain, shame, and guilt.

𝐒𝐨 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐨 𝐰𝐞 𝐠𝐨 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞?

To move forward and repair the harm, we have to 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤 about our ugly racially biased past, the long-term restriction of resources to communities of color, and the harmful impacts that linger to this day.

Despite our challenges, I have faith in us because we St. Louisans have a unique superpower: our philanthropic spirit of giving. Our spirit of giving can:
• Propel us forward to invest in our fellow residents and apply an equity lens to everything from schools to infrastructure.
• Help ensure that zip codes are no longer determinants of health, economic, academic, and other important outcomes for our children.
• Drive workforce development, increase population growth, and attract international investment.
• Ultimately fuel my most fervent wish: For St. Louis to become a unified region where everyone can thrive.
We can accomplish so much together by leaving our agendas at the door and working to heal the fractures that divide us. But we must first be willing to face the truth of our past and work with and learn from people whose views differ from our own.

I am proud to be part of organizations that are expanding cultures of inclusion and to take action with coalitions of civic-minded partners.

I love St. Louis’ distinctive yet very American commitment to giving and uplifting others. I look forward to channeling that spirit toward revealing truth and healing, removing structural barriers, redesigning systems, and aligning resources to support and strengthen all our residents. I cannot wait to see the magical experiences our children and grandchildren will have because of our work now.

With love, hope, and optimism,

Pamela Westbrooks-Hodge,
Normandy school district graduate and current resident
Member of the Missouri State Board of Education
Board member of Beyond Housing
Principal, Edward Jones

“Dear Lou,” is a movement created to spread awareness for “Once and for All”—a plan
to create a stronger, more equitable, and prosperous St. Louis. This plan is based on
the truth that St. Louis is only as strong as all of our communities. In order to create a
stronger St. Louis region for everyone, it’s vital that we address the high levels of poverty in our
underserved communities—once and for all.

https://www.onceandforall.org/
https://www.beyondhousing.org/

“Dear Lou,” is a movement created to spread awareness for “Once and for All”—a plan
to create a stronger, more equitable, and prosperous St. Louis. This plan is based on
the truth that St. Louis is only as strong as all of our communities. In order to create a
stronger St. Louis region for everyone, it’s vital that we address the high levels of poverty in our
underserved communities—once and for all.

https://www.onceandforall.org/
https://www.beyondhousing.org/

“Dear Lou,” is a movement created to spread awareness for “Once and for All”—a plan
to create a stronger, more equitable, and prosperous St. Louis. This plan is based on
the truth that St. Louis is only as strong as all of our communities. In order to create a
stronger St. Louis region for everyone, it’s vital that we address the high levels of poverty in our
underserved communities—once and for all.

https://www.onceandforall.org/
https://www.beyondhousing.org/