The city-county question has dominated local discussion of fragmentation and subsequent consolidation. Recently, the implications of this conversation has come into more focus. The most likely route to consolidation between the city and county is for St. Louis City to re enter St. Louis County as its 89th municipality [Editors note: I’ve had to reduce that number since I started writing this article: shout out to you, Mackenzie]. While this would be a step in the right direction, eighty-nine municipalities isn’t exactly the consolidated ideal. Unfortunately conversation regarding consolidation within the current boarders of the county rarely follows and when it does, is often regarded in a much more negative tone. Mark Mantovani, Democratic challenger of incumbent St. Louis County executive, Steve Stenger, for example, has done a great job contextualizing his support for the re-entry of the city into the county but has deemed support for a reduction in county municipalities, a bridge too far. Kirkwood itself is surrounded by many small satellite municipalities to which it provides varying degrees of services. While any consolidation between Kirkwood and its neighbors is still very far off, it has become obvious that we have an obligation to at least begin the conversation so long as we remain members of a community that would rather push its problems down the road. What follows is an examination of Kirkwood’s neighbors, what they bring to the table, how they’re doing on their own and what comes next.
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Glendale: Glendale is interesting. They have their own police department, share a fire department with Warson Woods, and share a pool with Kirkwood and Oakland (each contributes per capita). Glendale is also home to North Glendale Elementary School, one of the five elementary schools in the Kirkwood School District. There is an axiom for municipalities that goes: residential lands lose money, industrial breaks even and retail makes money. This general rule of thumb, and the ratio implied there within, is important to consider when examining the viability of a community long-term. Glendale does contain a short stretch of retail properties located on the southern side of Manchester road, it is dominated by single family homes. Another secondary effect of any merger of Glendale with Kirkwood would be the replacement of the title of Kirkwood’s oldest building from 1 Ponca Trl. built in 1830 to 9 Hill Dr. Built in 1820.
Oakland: The Czechoslovakia to our USSR, Oakland is, perhaps, our truest satellite state sharing a pool, fire department, and police department with us. Oakland is a city of institutions though. Within its boarders are Westborough Country Club, Ursuline, the Oak Bend branch of the St. Louis County Library, Bethesda Dilworth —one of the largest long term care facilities in Missouri— and, ironically enough, Kirkwood Early Childhood Center.
UPDATE 05/13/19: Turns out I was wrong about Oakland. Oakland is not the Czecholovakia to our USSR but rather the Monaco to our France. Sure they’re small and homogeneous and thus avoid having to deal with any of the real issues, but its still really effing cool. Especially architecturally, but also Minturn Ave’s pedestrian bridge to help #HealTheGrid.
Fenton: A river divides us and oh so much more. I am super excited for this bike/pedestrian bridge over the Meramec, being able to ride a bike to some Saint Louis FC games would be some pretty Brooklyny shit.
Sunset Hills: I have always related The Hills, culturally speaking, to a more South County persuasion. Maybe its the Lindbergh school district, the lack of the historical, the glut of the low valued, the auto-centric; I’m not really sure. But I sure am glad Kirkwood doesn’t have to worry about filling that beast that is the Toys-R-Us building (RIP), or trying to develop around the four highways and two golf courses that fill the area. Kirkwood, as is, doesn’t have very much to do with Sunset Hills. Sunset maintains their own police department and swimming pool, is territory of the Lindbergh School District and the Fenton Fire Protection District. The one area where more collaboration and consolidation between Kirkwood and Sunset Hills would be appreciated is on improvements to South Geyer. A sidewalk extension from the Sunset Hills homes located North of 270 to the incredible Laumeier Sculpture Park just South of it (a 12 minute walk) would be a massive get not only for those residents but also for one of the municipalities premier institutions.
Frotenac: A bunch of Huntleigh/Ladue wannabes, kinda sad really.
Crestwood: Des Peres in 10 years: home of dead malls and the only grocery stores within 100 miles of South Kirkwood. Additionally Crestwood is pretty large and pretty tangentially connected, both in terms of its boarder and culturally; to add it would be to add a weird appendage. Interestingly, Crestwood does own the little sliver of land that sits South of Big Bend Rd and North of 44 just to the East of Meacham Park that the Sam’s Club sits on. While I am not interested in the zero-sum TIF-a-palooza that is St. Louis County’s sales tax scramble, I’m sure that this is a thorn in the side for Kirkwood officials who are.
Warson Woods: Warson Woods have a population of ~1900. The majority of these residents are old. According to the 2010 census over half of the population was over the age of 50 while less than 41% of St. Louis county meet that threshold. This could be costly in its own right as an elderly population is likely to put more of a burden on emergency response personnel. On the other hand, however, a predominately older community is also likely to contribute much more tax revenue for its school districts than it uses as it contains fewer dependent children. (note: school districts are independent of municipal boundaries and as such Warson Woods currently resides partially in both the Kirkwood and Webster Groves districts). Warson Woods contracts fire department service with Glendale and maintains its own police department.
EDITORIAL: Even if Kirkwood wasn’t to swallow Warson Woods or Glendale whole, couldn’t we at least try small “c” consolidation and merge fire districts? Although multiple efforts have been made at consolidation recently including a Rock Hill-Glendale-Warson Woods operation and later a Rock Hill-Maplewood-Richmond Heights-Clayton-Brentwood joint venture, both have fallen apart. Small consolidation works, I promise (and I even brought examples!)
Nonetheless, we press on…
Huntleigh:
The truth is, I don’t stand a chance
It’s something that you’re born into
And I just don’t belong
—Weezer
Des Peres: Des Peres so far has faced very little pressure in terms of the tax revenue pie. West County Mall has, so far, made sure that it takes in plenty relative to the small area and few residents that the municipality must provide services for. The municipality does so well in the sales tax game, in fact, that it has charged 0% in the way of property tax in the last twenty two years. That could be subject to change in the near future however. 
While the mall’s management has been quoted as saying the rumors of the malls demise are greatly exaggerated, Amazon and other online retailers will continue to make it harder and harder to make the numbers work at traditional brick and mortar. While there has been no hint of a downturn in Des Peres’ other central industry: grocery stores on Manchester, Amazon bought Whole Foods last year so I’d just keep your head up Des Peres, Amazon’s coming. Des Peres has seen a recent diversification of their tax pool towards more contemporary dining and event centered sources with the addition of high profile, destination restaurants Rosalita’s Cantina and Circle 7 Ranch. Des Peres is also notably home to the headquarters of Edward Jones, and St. Luke’s Hospital. At the end of the day, however, Des Peres remains an auto-oriented community with little to no sense of place.
In Conclusion
To be honest, not many of Kirkwood’s neighbors look, upon further inspection, all that appealing. Sure there are a few carrots to be had and some efficiency gains to be incurred but given the backlash that would likely ensue, I’m not sure any of it would be worth the headache. You see, people like being the Mayor of Glendale and Des Peres: You don’t have to do or worry about a whole lot and they get to have their ego stroked and yo even get some cash, the same is true of having a new fire chief in every tiny town. Rich people don’t mind paying for inefficiencies so long as it means that when they tell people they live in Glendale the person understands they live in the nice part because, well, there is no bad part of Glendale. There are no historically black neigborhoods, no black people, no Michael Devlins, no apartments, no liberals. There are upper middle class families that go to church at MQP, belong to Westborough, work at Edward Jones and play lacrosse. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have Glendale (and Warson Woods, and Oakland, too) all be a part of Kirkwood. Their neighborhoods are relatively dense, their homes beautiful, and their streets relatively walkable, I just doubt that they themselves would want to be part of the “big city” with our big city “problems”. As far as a potential courtship with anyone else, the Des Pereses, Crestwoods and Sunset Hillses of the world, cities built not with the railroad in mind but the Interstate, to you I’d likely to preemptively, respectfully, decline. It’s not you so much; it’s us.
Kirkwood would control land use and zoning regulations in the municipalities it acquires. With that in Mind Huntleigh would be an absolute goldmine as multi acre lot. mega mansions hidden in the forests off Lindbergh could all be rezoned for high density retail and office like the rest of Lindbergh generating huge tax revenue. Warson Woods and Oakland have the same potential but to a much lesser extent assuming the swimming pool and tennis court development in Warson Woods and the homes adjacent to 44 in Oakland could be demolished and developed into higher density retail and industrial respectively.
Some luxury apartment and condo development in Glendale could make it at least break-even for Kirkwood but is not particularly exciting.
The other municipalities are likely large enough to sustain themselves and absorb whatever tiny municipalities they are adjacent to that are too irrelevant for me to remember off hand.