I’ve been driving out and around the Howard Bend area since the early 1990s, and it’s interesting t see how it’s been changing. In fact, one of my earliest posts, almost fifteen years ago, looked at the area when it was still rural. Finally, after years of false starts, Maryland Heights’s dreams of developing the area into a warehouse district is happening, similar to what is happening around Edwardsville, Illinois.

Of course, there has not been any major tectonic upheaval in the intervening years, raising the land above the floodplain, so this area will still flood when the levee breaks. But hey, your federal tax dollars will at least be used for something local!