If anyone asks me the neighborhood that has been hit the hardest by racism, predatory banking policies, redlining and failed government actions, it would easily be JeffVanderLou (though in time at the current rate, other neighborhoods in St. Louis and North St. Louis County will surely catch up). I had revisited the area in the summer of 2018.

There is just so much destroyed, and so much abandonment, I do not know what can be done. I do know the rampant real estate speculation that has already begun because of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency moving to the area east of here in St. Louis Place is not the solution.

Update: The building on the right below was demolished in the summer of 2020. The other buildings are now gone as of the summer of 2021.

Below, what are now the infamous abandoned houses on St. Louis Avenue are now coming around on yet another year of sitting half destroyed. If you can believe it, I remember when people still lived in at least a couple of them.

There had been some demolition back in 2015, but it did not finish demolishing what were equally derelict houses that had been destroyed by brick rustlers as the ones that were removed.