David Kovaluk / St. Louis Public Radio
Originally published on December 16, 2020 9:26 am
A draft of a new jobs plan for the St. Louis metropolitan area is drawing early criticism.
Greater St. Louis Inc., an organization that officially will launch in January merging five economic development groups, released a draft of the STL 2030 Jobs Plan earlier this month for public comment. The organization will collect feedback until the end of January.
The jobs plan, commissioned by Civic Progress, focuses heavily on a strategy to beef up the region’s core in an “inclusive” way that also reduces racial disparities in income and wealth.
History was made Dec. 15 when President-elect Joe Biden named former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg as his Secretary of Transportation. In addition to being the first openly gay member of a U.S. President’s Cabinet, Buttigieg is also noteworthy both for his lack of hands-on experience managing any sort of transportation department or agency and for his small-city background. But according to one analysis of the appointment, this may actually be a good thing, for it may mean that federal transportation policies may actually pay attention to those Americans who get the lowest quality of transit service, namely, those living in our smaller cities.
It’s our annual December donation drive. Please give from the heart (and wallet!) by clicking here. Thanks.
President-Elect Joe Biden’s pick of South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg to be the next Transportation secretary drew polarized reactions from sustainable transportation advocates who were either thrilled with his big ambitions for transit and ending traffic violence, or wary of his inexperience in implementing either.
Buttigieg was a surprising choice for the post, which experts speculated would go to a transit or transportation veteran like New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg or a major city mayor who had dealt with large-scale federal transportation grants, such as Los Angeles’s Eric Garcetti. But others were thrilled to see a Midwestern former mayor take the helm of an agency that has not always recognized the unique challenges of ending car dependency in transit-poor cities where most Americans live and argued that his vision for