What Does a Sustainable St. Louis Region Look Like?

Published on Monday December 23rd, 2013

Themes, goals, objectives and strategies provide an outline for what the people of St. Louis want for the future of the region and how we will achieve it. The vision for the future of the St. Louis region is expressed in nine themes, which collectively define sustainability for our region.

Development of the Themes, Goals, Objectives and Strategies

The regional planning process was a three-year effort with the goal of finding out what “sustainability” means to the residents of St. Louis and determining how regional and local organizations can better coordinate and collaborate to build a sustainable region. OneSTL was developed through:

  • Community Input: The values, priorities, and concerns of residents, local government officials, and other community leaders were gathered through telephone surveys, interviews, public meetings, on-line surveys, focus groups, and open houses. Questions asked included: What do you value? What should be changed? What should be preserved? The themes and goals reflect what we heard from people from throughout the eight-county region.
  • Technical Studies and Reports: Seventy-five technical plans and reports were completed as part of the planning process. These reports provide data and contextual information for the current environment in the region. They provide a baseline understanding of what is happening with such things as housing, the economy, transitoriented development, climate change, bike and walk planning, and racial equity issues as well as provide best practices for addressing local and regional challenges. The results of these studies helped shape the objectives and strategies for achieving the goals of the many communities of the St. Louis region.
  • Committee Input: The members of the committees that worked to create OneSTL represent a wide variety of organizations and advocate for an equally wide variety of constituents. The technical and topic-area expertise brought by the committee members were essential in developing the objectives and strategies.