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Joseph M. Darst (March 18, 1889, in St. Louis, Missouri – June 8, 1953, in St. Louis) was the 37th mayor of St. Louis, serving from 1949 to 1953.
Darst attended St. Louis University High School, Christian Brothers College, and Saint Louis University. His business career was in real estate, but he was always interested in politics and worked on several campaigns. In 1933, he worked on behalf of Bernard F. Dickmann in his successful race for Mayor. Mayor Dickmann appointed Darst as Director of Public Welfare. During his eight years in this position, Darst oversaw the construction of three public hospitals in St. Louis. Darst returned to his real estate practice in 1941. He made an unsuccessful bid for President of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen in 1943, losing to Aloys P. Kaufmann. Darst served as director of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) during 1947-1948.
Darst was elected mayor of St. Louis in April 1949. Darst was a proponent of urban renewal through slum clearance and the construction of large scale affordable public housing. This approach to urban renewal has been criticized by later generations of urban planners and theorists such as Jane Jacobs. During Darst's time as Mayor, approximately 700 public housing units were completed. When he left office, an additional 17,000 units were under construction and 4,000 were in the planning stages. Although he was initially opposed to a City earnings tax, Mayor Darst came to believe it was necessary for the City's finances to remain stable. He successfully lobbied the Missouri Legislature to pass legislation enabling the earnings tax.
Mayor Darst was in poor health during the last year of his time as Mayor. He died just two months after his term of office expired at age 64, and was buried in Calvary Cemetery.
The Wendell O. Pruitt Homes and William Igoe Apartments, known together as Pruitt–Igoe, were joint urban housing projects first occupied in 1954 in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. The complex of 33 eleven-story high rises was designed in the modernist architectural style by Minoru Yamasaki. At the time of opening, it was one of the largest public housing developments in the country. It was constructed with federal funds on the site of a former slum as part of the city's urban renewal program. Despite being legally integrated, it almost exclusively accommodated African Americans.
Urban renewal is a program of land redevelopment often used to address urban decay in cities. Urban renewal involves the clearing out of blighted areas in inner cities in favour of new housing, businesses, and other developments.
Vincent C. Schoemehl, Jr. was the 42nd mayor of St. Louis, Missouri, serving three terms from 1981 to 1993. At the time of his first election, he was one of the city's youngest mayors. In 1992, Schoemehl was defeated in the Democratic primary by lieutenant governor Mel Carnahan in a bid to become Governor of Missouri. He is best known as being primarily responsible for the NFL St. Louis Cardinals relocating to Phoenix, Arizona, and the expansion of Lambert Airport and the start of the eminent domain destruction of the Carrolton neighborhood in the name of noise abatement.
John Frederick Collins was an American lawyer who served as the mayor of Boston from 1960 to 1968. Collins was a lawyer who served in the Massachusetts Legislature from 1947 to 1955. He and his children caught polio during a 1955 outbreak. He was reliant on a wheelchair and crutches the rest of his life. After partially recovering, he ran for mayor in 1959 as an underdog. He successfully portrayed himself as outside corrupt "machine politics" and was elected.
Raymond Tucker was an American politician that served as the 38th mayor of St. Louis from 1953 until 1965.
Aloys P. Kaufmann was the 36th Mayor of St. Louis, serving from 1943 to 1949.
Bernard Francis Dickmann was the 34th mayor of St. Louis from 1933 to 1941.
Victor J. Miller was the 33rd Mayor of St. Louis, serving from 1925 to 1933.
Yaphett El-Amin is an American politician who, until 2006, represented a portion of St. Louis in the Missouri House of Representatives. She is a Democrat.
The history of St. Louis began with the settlement of the area by Native American mound builders who lived as part of the Mississippian culture from the 9th century to the 15th century, followed by other migrating tribal groups. Starting in the late 17th century, French explorers arrived. Spain took over in 1763 and a trading company led by Pierre Laclede and Auguste Chouteau established the settlement of St. Louis in February 1764. It attracted French settlers leaving Illinois after their defeat in the Seven Years' War. The city grew in population due to its location as a trading post on the Mississippi River, as the western fur trade was lucrative. The city played a small role in the American Revolutionary War and became part of the U.S. through the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.
The Boston Planning & Development Agency (BPDA), formerly the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), is a Massachusetts public agency that serves as the municipal planning and development agency for Boston, working on both housing and commercial developments.
Albert Eugene Cobo was an American politician who served as mayor of Detroit from 1950 to 1957.
Daniel D. Page was the second mayor of St. Louis, Missouri, United States.
Joseph Brown was mayor of Alton, Illinois, serving from 1856 to 1857, and the 21st mayor of St. Louis, Missouri, serving from 1871 to 1875.
Louis Lesser was an American businessman. He developed property across the United States, predominantly around the Los Angeles area; he also purchased and managed property. Lesser developed Barrington Plaza, a 712 apartment and commercial FHA Urban Renewal project in West Los Angeles.
The history of St. Louis, Missouri, from 1905 to 1980 saw declines in population and economic basis, particularly after World War II. Although St. Louis made civic improvements in the 1920s and enacted pollution controls in the 1930s, suburban growth accelerated and the city population fell dramatically from the 1950s to the 1980s. Like many urban areas, St. Louis experienced high unemployment during the Great Depression, then expanded its industrial base during World War II. The city became home to Gateway Arch National Park during the 1930s, and during the 1960s the Gateway Arch was built on the memorial grounds. St. Louis City and St. Louis County made multiple attempts at consolidation during the period, but none were particularly successful. Despite attempts at urban renewal that included public housing projects such as the Pruitt-Igoe complex, the city continued to lose population to county cities.
McCormack Baron Salazar is an American real estate development firm based in St. Louis, Missouri specializing in economically integrated urban neighborhoods with more than $4.23 billion invested in affordable and mixed-income housing projects. McCormack Baron Salazar provides development as well as ongoing property management services, development financing and tax credit services, and asset management services. </ref>
The Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee (HACM) is a municipal agency of Milwaukee, Wisconsin dedicated to providing public housing and services for residents of the city of Milwaukee. The agency was established in 1944 and is responsible to a board of commissioners appointed by the mayor.
Mill Creek Valley was a historic neighborhood located in the central corridor between 20th Street and Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri. European settlement began in the 18th century with mills established along La Petite Rivière, now known as Mill Creek. It became an industrial and railroad center in the 19th century. Union Station was opened in 1894. The building was closed in 1978 and renovated for commercial use. Also a residential and commercial center, Mill Creek Valley was populated by German immigrants and African Americans, before and after the Civil War. More people moved into the area during World War II to support the war effort.
The San Francisco Redevelopment Agency (SFRA) was an urban renewal agency active from 1948 until 2012, with purpose to improve the urban landscape through "redesign, redevelopment, and rehabilitation" of specific areas of the city.
Much of the original content for this article was based on the brief biographies of St. Louis Mayors found at the St. Louis Public Library's website, https://web.archive.org/web/20041013215847/http://exhibits.slpl.lib.mo.us/mayors/mayors4.asp
