Pennsylvania Legacies #223: Great Rivers Greenway

Josh Raulerson (00:01):

It is Friday, September 6th, 2024 for the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, this is Pennsylvania Legacies. I’m Josh Raulerson. Creating urban trails is a complicated business, especially in older, densely populated and heavily developed cities like Philadelphia. It takes years and the labor of dozens of people just to do the planning, design, and engineering work that has to happen before ground is even broken. That is if you’re lucky enough to have adequate funding, both for development and construction, and a well-funded plan for long-term maintenance. On top of all that, planners have to proactively engage with communities where the trail will be built in order to ensure it will be used and loved by residents and visitors alike. And they have to do so in a way that actively serves the neighborhood without leading to gentrification and displacement. The Trails Team at PEC and the other organizations and governments with whom they collaborate on initiatives like Philly’s Circuit Trails contend with these challenges every day.

But their counterparts in another American city have found solutions for many of them through recombination of vision and innovative thinking, broad-based political support, historical contingency, and a commitment to equitable planning and development. The Great Rivers Greenway is advancing its mission to make the St. Louis region more vibrant by developing a network of trails and greenways. We learned all about it from our hosts at this year’s Collaboration of Regional Trail Initiatives gathering in St. Louis. PEC played an instrumental role in launching the collaboration several years ago on the premise that trail professionals around the country can learn a lot from one another and can be more effective in their missions by coordinating efforts. That was certainly true for PEC’s Director of Trails and Equitable Access, Emilia Crotty, who was part of the conversation in St. Louis this summer. She was so impressed by what she saw and heard there that she wanted to share it with the wider audience in Pennsylvania. So on this episode, happy to hand the mic off to Emilia for a conversation with Shaughnessy Daniels and Christopher Peoples of Great Rivers Greenway in St. Louis. Hope you enjoy.

Emilia Crotty (02:08):

So welcome, Shaughnessy and Christopher. I’ll introduce you more formally in a second. I want to just provide some background just to say that I first came across the work of Great Rivers Greenway this past June when I was in St. Louis for the Collaboration of Regional Trail Initiatives, or CRTI, which I’m going to assume most people have never heard of. I just want to give some background to what the Collaboration of Regional Trail Initiatives is. So, CRTI started in 2018 when PEC and partners brought together people from across the country who work on these regional multi-use trails, some call them greenway networks like the Circuit Trails here in Philadelphia. And now CRTI invites advocates, agency staff, funders, trail professionals, more generally to a different city each year for what we, we call a ‘not conference.’ We spend most of our time out in the world visiting sites, meeting people, doing the work, and building relationships with our colleagues.

And in June of 2024, CRTI brought this group. It was about 60 people to St. Louis, Missouri, where Great Rivers Greenway hosted the convening. And we spent three days visiting GRG’s completed projects, current project sites, future sites, landmarks around the city, and just really getting to know you all and your work. And for me, what we saw felt like a gold standard for inclusive equitable development in real life. Like put into practice something that you, you read about theoretically you dream about putting into practice, but you don’t actually really ever see on the ground. And so for me it was really inspiring and motivating. So I wanted to take some time to talk with you all today about inclusive development that is neighborhood development and investment that is responsive to and really acts on community needs and wants of all types, not just around recreation, not just around access to nature.

Emilia Crotty (03:57):

And CRTI, I should say, is intentionally a really small sort of intimate gathering of these trail professionals, but we at PEC really want to make sure that what we experienced in St. Louis can be shared out with others and that even those who attended can continue to focus on applying what we learned. So thank you for being here and thank you for sharing your perspectives on the work. And now more formally welcome Shaughnessy Daniels, director of Civic Engagement and Christopher Peoples, or Christopher, Equity and Economic Impact Director, both at Great Rivers Greenway in St. Louis.

Shaughnessy Daniels (04:29):

Thanks for having us.

Christopher Peoples (4:30)

Excited to be here. Appreciate it.

Emilia Crotty (04:32):

So first, can you share a bit about Great Rivers Greenway as a public agency, its creation and funding and its general priorities right now? And I’ll ask that of Shaughnessy.

Shaughnessy Daniels (04:42):

So, Great Rivers Greenway, we are indeed a public agency in that we, we serve three counties in St. Louis, so St. Louis City, St. Louis County, and St. Charles County. And we were created in the year 2000, so we’re almost 25 years old, following this large regional engagement effort. I think it was more than 10,000 people were polled. Thousands more participated in like visioning sessions which resulted in this goal to advance a parks and open space initiative. And from this idea there was a plan to create a sales tax, you know, that would sort of steward this, this, this initiative, this agency. So the tax was at one tenth of a sales tax that would generate probably about $20 million every year. Part of it would go towards improving local parks. The other part would go towards developing this regional network of greenways. So in 2000, the ballot initiative for the sales tax passed and the agency now known as Great Rivers Greenway was born, and Great Rivers Greenway, of course, our focus is to plan, design and build a network of greenways in the region. So again, that those three those three counties. So that’s, that’s who we are.

Emilia Crotty (05:56):

And can you remind me when that sales tax is up? It has a sort of a sunset, doesn’t it?

Shaughnessy Daniels  (06:01):

2035.

Emilia Crotty (06:02):

2035. Okay. So you’re—

Shaughnessy Daniels (06:04):

Do have, so we are, we have, there are a few sales taxes that we are funded by, but that particular one does sunset and we will go back the back to the region and the voters get that passed again. So we can continue on with this work that we’re doing.

Emilia Crotty (06:20):

Okay. And can you tell me your, in, what are your individual roles at the organization or the agency?

Shaughnessy Daniels (06:25):

Right. So my role is largely, again, as director of civic engagement largely to in short community stakeholders have an opportunity to participate in our greenway development process. So, you know, particularly as a, as it relates to planning and implementation of new Greenway projects, the engagement team and me as director of civic engagement helps to spearhead to make sure that, you know, we are looking to community to make certain that they are part of the process and actually have meaningful ways to participate in the planning, design and building of greenways. 

Emilia Crotty (06:57):

And you, Chris?

Christopher Peoples (06:59):

Yeah, and mine here is the Director of Equity and Economic Impact. And so my role is a very unique role in the organization that kind of blurs the line of its legislative initiatives. So doing economic development specifically looking at strategic tactics, policies and initiatives that we can do to activate greenways in, in our underserved and under-resourced areas in St. Louis, but more particularly my focus right now is in north St. Louis and the neighborhoods adjacent to what we call the North Connector.

Emilia Crotty (07:32):

Okay. And so your role in particular, I feel like speaks to the, the values of, of Great River Greenway. Chris, I mean, yours too, Shaughnessy, but it’s pretty unique to have an organization have that sort of role. Can you tell me where that, how it came about and whether it does speak to the values of the agency?

Christopher Peoples (07:49):

It does. It speaks to their thoughtfulness, right? And so I think to, to get there and understand our process and what Shaughnessy and her team helps lead most of the time is that we looked at community and, and we took a community driven approach. And so we had a, we had a competition in 2018, 2019 for the, what at the time was the Chodo Greenway to see how we could move that project forward. Through that, which it became the Brickline Greenway, there was two working groups there was the equity working group, and there was the economic development working group. And as that process closed, they realized that for this project to be successful and looking at other what we call partner sister projects throughout the region, like the, or throughout the country, like the Atlanta belt line or the New York High line, that for this project to be successful and for this project to be truly equitable and inclusive, that those two factors had to intersect.

Christopher Peoples (08:45):

So the working group combined and it became the Equitable Economic Development working group or advisory group, I’m sorry. And so that advisory group over a year came up with a strategic plans with certain policies and initiatives that GRG needed to do to move forward in an equitable manner. Mm-Hmm. And a fifth initiative that came out of that outside of the four that they originally created was they realized that they needed someone to implement those four initiatives. And so they created this role. And as I said earlier, my role is very unique. So as Shaughnessy told you about our organization we’re tasked with the, the responsibility of doing greenways public trails and public spaces. And that’s what our tax dollars could be used for. And so economic development isn’t in those initiatives. Right? Right. So Susan and the working group was, our advisory committee were very thoughtful and realized that they could get around that by funding it through fed private dollars and philanthropy. And so my role is co-funded through private investors local banks and Phil philanthropists, and then also a partnership with St. Louis Development Corporation. Which is the regional development corporation for the city of St. Louis.

Emilia Crotty (10:03):

That’s interesting because your role in, and I’m trying to think of how, what we learned at CRTI can be applicable in other places. And so thinking about your role in one way, I, I was thinking that y’all have really steady funding coming through this tax, this the, the taxes coming through. And so I figured, oh, that’s how they have so much capacity. But hearing that, Chris, is it, I realized, oh, no, you actually had to put, just like so many of us have to do, had to throw together all these different funding sources to make this real possible to do the work that you needed to do the way that GRG prioritizes it. And so that’s one question. Is that, Issa, you mentioned that GRG is 25 years old. Have they always, have you always focused on inclusive planning from the beginning? Yes.

Shaughnessy Daniels (10:41):

I mean, we were born out of engagement, so, and inclusive planning. So I mean, the initiative that happened before we were even created, the initiative that created us you know, so inclusive planning, engagement, all of that is sort of interwoven, interwoven into the fabric of who we are. And we couldn’t accomplish the vision of this Greenway network without the community and without the partnerships that have, you know, sort of helped us, you know, advance our, our vision for the region. So yes, I mean, I think this is the not, I think I, this is something that’s always been just sort of, it’s a core value. But that’s because that’s the way we were created.

Emilia Crotty (11:20):

So tell us about the network, the great Rose Greenway Network. How many miles will it span once completed?

Shaughnessy Daniels (11:25):

Sure. Yeah. So if you, I don’t, I don’t know if everybody’s had a chance to look at our maps, but if you look at our, our current map, you’ll see a vision for about 300 miles of greenway, and about 135 miles of those are built out to date. But the long term vision is 600 miles of accessible, multi-use trails. That’ll connect our region’s, rivers, our parks, our communities, and our people.

Emilia Crotty (11:48):

Wow. Beautiful. So, understanding that listeners probably won’t know the, the sort of economic and demographic conditions and trends in St. Louis right now. Do you mind giving a bit of context about the environment that y’all work in? And if you could, sort of what happened in the past couple, few decades to create the conditions that you’re working in right now?

Christopher Peoples (12:06):

So, as Shaughnessy said, we service three counties, right? And so those three counties have their own unique identities and their own demographics. Right? And so if you focus on where the inclusivity of the equitable manner is at I would say north St. Louis is probably one of the most disinvested areas in our region. It’s a demographic of African Americans and other people of color. And so our city is kind of split like most cities, unfortunately, through segregation, there’s South city and North City, there’s this magical line that we call the Del Mar divide, which kind of splits our city economically and by color. And so the areas we’re working in, now, what I like to say doing my work is that they just need, they need to love and need a little bit of attention. And so what we’re doing is we’re trying to work in partnership with other agencies, other nonprofits and, and other service providers to bridge that gap of service, to help bring those resources into those communities and to help move things forward. And so, luckily, through leadership in the city and other agencies there’s this strong desire to go ahead and start trying to do equitable economic development in those areas, in the focus areas or part of what they call the economic justice plan which is a plan that was created under the leadership of the Mayor, Tishaura Jones, and then being implemented by the St. Louis Development Corporation, or SLDC as we call them here.

Emilia Crotty (13:38):

And it’s, well, something I noticed when I visited St. Louis was that there weren’t, and I should say the very specific part of St. Louis that I visited, which was like the downtown kind of core, there weren’t that many people. And so, and I began to learn about the population decline. So I just wanted to make a mention of that, because I think when you’re talking about equitable economic development, it’s also, it’s about bringing people in, but also making sure that the people that are there don’t get displaced. So tell me, can you share a few words about the population decline?

Christopher Peoples (14:08):

Yeah. Over the last, I’d say decade, decade and a half the population of St. Louis has declined. And I wouldn’t say it actually has declined as far as a region, but it’s more been displaced from the urban core. So people like most major cities, urban sprawl has happened. And unlike most major cities where it’s starting to contract and people are starting to move back into the urban core, St. Louis, it’s a, it’s moving at a little slower rate. And so part of my work is looking at initiatives that we can do to obviously, as I like to say, repopulate the, the urban core, but also looking at those stay in place tactics to make sure that, as you said, the people that are there feel welcome, that they feel like they’ve been in integrated in the, the process of repopulation.

Christopher Peoples (14:55):

And then they get the benefit from these new improved infrastructure projects and, and amenities that come with the repopulation of the city. And so I think I, there’s a, a gentleman out of Washington University who wrote a report that says St. Louis is losing about 75 families a month. And of those 75 families, almost all of them are single mothers. So moving to obviously put their kids in better school districts and put them in safer communities. And so the goal is obviously to stabilize those things that are making people feel like they don’t want to be in the community. Obviously, public safety and amenities and basic resources like grocery stores and pharmacies. So getting those things in place so that people want to be back in the urban core.

Emilia Crotty (15:41):

Thank you, Chris.

Christopher Peoples (15:42):

And activation, too. That’s one of the things I’ve been talking to other agencies a lot of in St. Louis, is not only if we do these things, but how are we going to program them. And how are we going to activate them? Because that goes to public safety, and that goes to all the other things too, right? Just having people in the space.

Emilia Crotty (15:58):

Those are exactly the conversations we’re having in Philadelphia that you can build it, and some people will come, but a lot of people won’t come. They won’t feel welcome. They won’t feel comfortable, they might not necessarily feel safe. So it’s about the programming, the activation, and, and then supporting those program providers. Anyway. So tell us about the Brickline. This is the transformative project. We learned about it at CRTI. So can you just tell, share something like broad terms about, about the Brickline project?

Shaughnessy Daniels (16:22):

So yeah, the broad strokes, you know, Brickline Greenway, it’s a public private partnership that will connect our cities for most treasured parks. So Forest Park, the Gateway Arch National Park, fairground Park, and Tower Grove Park, it will connect 14 St. Louis city neighborhoods. It’ll connect businesses, the business district, the innovation district, the arts district job centers, transit, educational institutions, hundreds of destinations. So it’s like this, this, you know, network. It’s like a network within the broader network. And for us, it’s more than just a trail development. It’s more than just that. You know, we always, you know, we have to define greenways and we talk about them as multi-use trails. And, but this is, you know, something, this is a transformative effort that is allowing St. Louis to really reimagine the possibilities for the city but also for the region. So it’s, it’s, it’s one of those projects where it’s not just about you know, this one trail that’s going through this one community. This is something that is really for the entire region.

Emilia Crotty (17:31):

And that gets to my next question about what you’re doing differently in St. Louis, because when I, when I was there learning about the many projects that you have going on, I heard a lot of what I know about the standard steps to developing out a trail. It’s like securing the space and doing a feasibility study and concept plans, but then you all take it a step further and, and you’re really, you’re really working on creating conditions for people to thrive. And so that was my perspective. So can you just share a little bit about what you think that GRG is doing differently in St. Louis? When you think about other transformative projects, like you mentioned Chris, the Highline, or Atlanta BeltLine what do you, what do you all do differently?

Christopher Peoples (18:13):

Well, I’ll start, and then I’m going to toss over to Chris. Because I know he’s going to, he’s going to, you know, build out my answer. So I would say that, first of all, we’ve learned a lot from other projects around the country. Like, we took time from the very beginning to learn and listen from those other developments. Highline Indianapolis Cultural Trail felt like. So we, we took some time to really study and visit with other projects. And we listened to understand their challenges and also their opportunities. So we took time on the front end before we put any designs on any paper before we had a framework plan, or we did that, you know, big competition. We took the time to, to learn and listen first. And we also took the time to engage community stakeholders first to understand what this actually could be for our city, what it could be, and what it should be.

Shaughnessy Daniels (19:07):

We, we set out and, and work with community to define project goals within that first year before we even started to do a framework plan. And then we refine those goals to create what we now show as our, our outcomes. So I think that what makes this different is it’s all of that. Plus it’s a true commitment to inclusive planning and equitable development. And breaking down silos so that none of this happens in a vacuum. Everyone’s at the table from our institutional cultural partners to our neighborhood representatives, major employers, small businesses, city staff, philanthropists, everyone’s at the table. We put everybody in one room, you know, as often as we can so that everybody can hear each other and understand from each other and so they can work together to bring the project to life. So I think that’s what we’re doing differently, in my opinion, but Chris is going to help me answer that question.

Christopher Peoples (20:05):

Yeah. And I actually might take a different approach. I think Shaughnessy answered it well. So I can summarize what she, she said actually in the way I view it. I think that what we’re doing this is, this isn’t an infrastructure project. This is a project of civic progress. And so we’re, we’re showing our region that if you bring people together, if you put the, all those pieces together, private, public philanthropy, all in the room together, that they can march together and get things accomplished. And so, like I like to tell people especially in some of my working groups, is if we’re all marching in the same direction, we’ll get there a lot quicker. And so I think what we’ve been able to do, and, and I’ll take a step back on that, not only this just being a civic progress project, but also what GRG is good at overall.

Christopher Peoples (20:55):

And it’s some of the things I take pride on in working here is that we’ve already shown that if you build strong partnerships, and you’re inclusive, that you can get things done. And so we do that through the region. And I think what we were doing internally for greenways, we’re showing people that you can do that for economic development, and you can do that for health outcomes. And you, there’s so many more things that you can achieve outside of building a trail or opening up a public space or park. So I think that’s what we’re doing well.

Emilia Crotty (21:28):

That was my take too. That, that you all take it the next step. So I was looking at your website and, and I saw your, the description of your work, which is around creating vibrant, open spaces, places that are welcoming, welcoming a network of trails and places where people can discover things and explore. And I was like, yes, that’s what most of us in the trail world do. And then you all have a next part of the sentence that says, while creating equitable opportunities for everyone to thrive. And that to me was like, Ooh, that’s a step that I think that many of us in the this field really want to, we wish we could do that, we want to do that. But it feels like outside our scope, like outside our wheelhouse, and just like you said, Shaughnessy, it’s about breaking down the silos where like we feel like we’re like in our lane of like, building out this trail, but not going to tackle all these other things. Even when we know that our work, especially with these transformer form of projects, can directly or indirectly lead to what we call green gentrification, neighborhood change displacement. So I’ll ask you, can you share that trajectory of like, of how GRG figured out what those opportunities would be for everyone to thrive and how you centered people in the Brickline Project in particular, like who are living around along the greenway route, how they’re center centered in the project?

Shaughnessy Daniels (22:43):

I guess I would answer that by saying, you know, we view the community and the people that live in the community as the experts. So their voices, their opinions, their ability to impact and actually make decisions for the, the project itself. We’re asking the community to lead. We’re building this project at the speed of the trust that we build in the community. And, and following that so, so really the, the people when I, I mean, you, you ask about centering the people, the literally, I mean, we’re, we’re, we’re building around you know, what we’re, what we’re hearing and what we’re learning about the communities that we’re working in.

Emilia Crotty (23:28):

And when you hear that they may want more commercial spots filled when they want to feel safe, when they want better lighting on their sidewalks, things that may be well, that, that one is, is sort of like a greenway project. But when some, when it’s something that’s not specific to like a trail, you don’t say, no, that’s not what we’re here for. It sounds to me like you all say, okay, like, let’s figure out how we do that.

Shaughnessy Daniels (23:53):

So one of the things that we say often is that, you know, for, so a greenway can’t solve for everything, right? But you’re right. We don’t say no. We have the benefit of having built enough relationships to be able to say, Hey, partner the community is saying this. Let’s bring everybody together. We’re very transparent and we will say, if we don’t have an answer or we can’t do something, we’ll say that we, we don’t know, or we, or we can’t, but let’s work towards getting you there. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So those relationships, those partnerships are absolutely critical in our work because again, a greenway solve for many things, but can’t solve for everything.

Emilia Crotty (24:38):

And then at CRTI, I learned about your Ask, Align, Act framework, which sounds very similar to PEC, which has an inclusionary trail planning toolkit. But I think Ask, Align, Act is like a nice concise way of describing what you all do. Do you want to share sort of how you landed on that?

Shaughnessy Daniels (24:53):

Yeah. So early in the planning process, you know, we were kind of trying to describe and communicate what meaningful engagement would need to look like for this particular project. I mean, we engaged across all of the greenways, and I apologize for all the dings and the emails that are coming through, but we engaged on all of our projects. But this one felt different very early in the beginning. So it was like, okay, so how do we explain this? We have to make sure that people understand engagement is not check the box. It’s not one time it has to occur early. It has to occur often. And throughout the process it’s iterative. It’s multilayered. So it’s something that’s constantly building on what we’ve heard and what we’ve learned from community to continue to advance the project. You know, sort of pushing things through planning and design.

Shaughnessy Daniels (25:40):

So Ask, Align, Act was meant to demonstrate that community feedback is being sought, it’s being integrated, it’s being executed. And the true evidence of that in greenway design is really, you know, a truly unique and representative, you know, outcome or, you know, and we want the greenway design to be reflective of what the community said. So when the, when somebody walks down a greenway, they can say, I remember I had this conversation with Great Rivers Greenway, and, and, and there’s, there it is. There’s the thing, there’s the, there’s the amenity, there’s the, there’s the piece of art, there’s the, you know, the beautiful landscape because these are the things that I said were important for, for our community.

Emilia Crotty (26:23):

They see their fingerprint on it.

Shaughnessy Daniels (26:26):

Yeah, exactly.

Emilia Crotty (26:27):

I want to get into some, some specifics. Some of the targeted actions that GRG is pursuing. This might be more for you, Chris. So the Brickline is a massive $245 million investment in neighborhoods throughout St. Louis. Again, we keep calling it a transformative project that without specific safeguards and mechanisms in place, could easily accelerate increasing property values overall prices, and could directly or indirectly lead to residential and commercial displacement of longtime residents and business owners. So, like the scary side. As GRG works on the physical development of the trail, what are some of the anti-displacement measures that y’all are putting your energy towards, and why those?

Christopher Peoples (27:06):

Yeah, I guess the biggest thing that I always have to say, and I have to put that out there in full disclosure so people understand that GRG is not an economic development organization, right? And so a lot of our initiatives and a lot of our tactics are based and rooted in partnerships, right? And so we typically work with the mayor’s office and the St. Louis Development Corporation. I’m going to start saying SLDC to save you guys some tape on the other end, but, so, our work with SLDC and things that they have going on already. And so, a part of my work is I’m nestled in the SLDC’s Neighborhood Transformation team. And so I work with them on the initiatives that they have in place as far as anti-displacement and also repopulation of North City. And so, one of the things that they’ve been able to do is the community has been very strong and vocal about what they want to see from these projects and what they want to see from the economic justice plan and what they, what they call the Project Connect neighborhood plan.

Christopher Peoples (28:07):

And so, one of the things they’ve done is they went to the city and they were able to get a bill passed through legislature that allowed them to dictate the redevelopment plan for their neighborhoods. So the six neighborhoods around the, the new National Geospatial Agency or NGA campus in North City. So through that air, through that process, they were able to get a blight study done. They were able to dictate the terms of intimate domain, which is, to me unheard of. Right? They were able to tell the city that we want intimate domain, but we want to make sure that it’s not of property that is occupied that it’s not of property that could be redeveloped through community, and that they wanted a voice on any property that would be taken through intimate domain, but MAs basically looking at nuisance pro properties.

Christopher Peoples (28:59):

And then also they were able to get tax abatement. So at first it was only going to be for seniors. So the city had issued a, a senior wide tax freeze. But these, these same neighborhoods were able to not only get the tax freeze, but also in introduce a 10 year tax abatement. So that’ll greatly help the residents that live in these communities. Obviously with, as the redevelopment projects come their way, their property values have been frozen at this point, but then also they get tax abatement for any process or any years after the five year period that they already negotiated with the city. Hmm. So those things, there are things that they already have in place. And then when you look at the business corridors and those businesses that are there the same thing working with the city to make sure that I’m getting the, the, the existing businesses, the opportunity to get small business grants get facade grants.

Christopher Peoples (29:53):

And so what I do is I work in capacity building with the neighborhood associations. So those are things I want to filter down to the neighborhood associations and let them be the champion of those. So what I do is work with SLDC and the neighborhood managers to go sit down with the neighborhood associations and have a discussion about the project, I mean the process, what are the requirements, and then we identify those businesses also as those businesses come to GRG, going back to what our capacity is and what our limitations are. I send them to the appropriate organizations that can help them. And then there’s also nonprofits in that footprint that are doing great work too. So you have Tabernacle CDC with Pastor Andre that’s helping reset the comps in the community so that people can get home equity loans and lines of credit on their homes so that they can make those required improvements.

Christopher Peoples (30:39):

And then you have organizations like Mission St. Louis and North Newstead Association, which is another CDC in the footprint that are doing healthy home projects, which are home repair projects under $10,000 to help stabilize these homes, which obviously help keep, keep people in place and help prevent gentrification. And then also making sure that the affordable rental properties, specifically through North Newstead, are prioritized for people of color and people under a certain medium household income. So just working on those things. So I guess that’s a long-winded way of saying GRG is taking an effort to amplify. And I want to say that really loud, amplify the efforts of people that are already doing this great work, and then as our CDC comes online then we’ll start looking at those initiatives and how we can promote those and be actively participating in those processes too.

Emilia Crotty (31:30):

This is something I took away from CRTI was that you all have really strong partnerships with experts in their fields. You know, like the people who know all about housing and all about job, job training, small business supports. And that to me was something very different than a lot of the trail professionals that, or the trail organizations that I know. So what are the challenges of, of that kind working in those partnerships? Or what do you have to be really intentional to like, protect in your partnerships, do you think?

Christopher Peoples (31:59):

I think, and I, and once again, I give Shaughnessy credit for this and make sure we record that over and over again, so I can loop that in the office. It’s trust building, right? And so when I came on, Shaughnessy had just became the new kid on the block, and then she invited her little brother to come out and play, right? And so that’s my analogy of it, right? So coming into this space, coming from commercial development and coming from commercial urban planning it was one of those things that was new to me, but Shaughnessy taught me how to build trusted community to be patient, to listen, to try to help point people in the right direction when you can help. And so that went not only for the residents, but that was also for those partnerships and for those other institutions or organizations that were doing the work.

Christopher Peoples (32:42):

You know, no one wants some to see someone take their, their bag. And if you’re trying to fill your bag and you feel like someone else is trying to fill their bag, then there’s a level of competition and there’s always a competition for funding, right? And so what we’ve done is been able to build these relationships and say, Hey, we don’t want to do that, and not in a negative way, but we don’t want to do that because you’re already doing a great job of it. And how can we celebrate what you’re doing and also put you in the room with the right people that might help you move your mission forward faster or at a higher level. And so I think that’s what we do well, is that we can operate in that space without trying to be the beacon or the shining light. I think me and Shaughnessy take pride, and she said it earlier of being conveners. So we, we get more joy out of giving, getting people together and letting them say, oh, I can help you and I can help you, than us being the person that’s doing all the helping. So yeah.

Shaughnessy Daniels (33:36):

We do not have to be in charge <laugh>. Yeah. We do not. And I think all of that, plus being transparent goes a long way. You know, and being accessible, people don’t, there’s no guesswork with GRG <laugh>, you know, you need information, typically, you can just find it. You can call any of us. You can ask any of us. Our, our emails, cell phone, there’s a billion ways to reach all. I mean, sometimes it’s so hard to work with some agencies because there’s a, there’s gatekeeping on everything, and that is just not us. We’re, we’re open, we’re available, we’re transparent. And I think that that’s really important, particularly in communities where there’s such a high level of distrust, you know, when you, when you can say to somebody, you know, here’s my cell phone number, use it, and I mean it <laugh>, and that person knows that I actually have somebody I can connect with and, and, and can, that can help me address my issues. That goes a long, it actually goes a really long way. Just, just—

Christopher Peoples (34:41):

I want to add one thing to that too, is that, and Shaughnessy kind of stated it in what she said is that our messaging is the same. You, when you talk to any of us, you get the same answer. So there’s a level of trust that, like, I just had this conversation with Shaughnessy and Shaughnessy said the exact same thing that Chris said. And I think that comes from leadership. Because Susan wants to make sure that we are being transparent and we are being truthful. So we meet and we talk and we know, I know what Shaughnessy’s doing. We meet enough that I know what Shaughnessy’s doing, and we sit in each other’s meetings too, just so we have the knowledge of what the project managers are going through and what they’re tackling. And so when you catch any of us out in the field, you’re going to get, normally you’re going to get a consistent message and a thorough message too.

Shaughnessy Daniels (35:23):

And again, remember if, if, and if we don’t know, we’ll say, I don’t, let me go talk to Chris. I mean, you know. Right. Just being transparent.

Emilia Crotty (35:33):

And, and similarly, it sounds like, you know, the limitations of the project, you know the potential of the project, but you also know that it’s not going to solve every problem, but you are connected to people who you can send someone to. And so serving as a role of the connector can also be really valuable to people, to residents, individuals, and that will then garner more trust.

Shaughnessy Daniels (35:52):

Well, keep in mind that we’ve been working on building I mean, it, we’ve been working on this for some years.

Emilia Crotty (35:57):

Yeah, right.

Shaughnessy Daniels (35:58):

It’s been six years. So, you know, we have really worked hard at understanding who’s doing what, what plans are out there being versed in those other plans. You know, St. Louis has, there’s, there was, there has consistently been a lot going on in terms of, you know, creating plans sometimes that sit on a shelf, but dusting all of those off, off and just understanding who is on what base and making certain that we’re connecting with them so that we’ve got, you know, we’ve got sort of that history and understanding and knowledge and then we can help to move things forward when we’re going into, into a community. If we don’t know that the city or SLDC or Agency X or Agency Y has done a whole bunch of stuff in the background, right. If we don’t have that knowledge, we’re not really able to have a, a good community conversation and help that community move things forward. So. Right.

Emilia Crotty (36:52):

Have you seen any short term successes of any of this, the economic development or housing initiatives that you discussed? Any wins you want to mention?

Christopher Peoples (37:00):

Yeah. So I had a big win. So through a collaborative process with three neighborhoods co Blue Grant Center Jeff Vander, Lou JVL is what we call it, and St. Louis Place. We were able to go through a, a collaborative framework process to come up with an economic development organization. And I always said at first it was an economic development organization because we didn’t know what it was going to be. We, I like to say we were dating. And so I dated those three neighborhoods. And so through that dating process, we backed out looking at other type of economic development organizations, be it a, a Sid, a community and improvement district, or a special tax district or, you know, transportation oriented district. We decided, you know what, all of those things could be nestled nicely and neatly under a community development corporation.

Christopher Peoples (37:51):

And so we were able to come up with the Brickline North Community Development Corporation, or as we call it, the Brickline North CDC. It’s a collaborative CDC led by neighborhoods. So it’s those three neighborhoods I stated along with GRG. The CDC is going to take on five major initiatives. So neighborhood revitalization, public safety, small business support, neighborhood capacity building, and then lastly, neighborhood community engagement and advocacy. And so if you look at those things intentionally I left off affordable housing. And that’s intentional because as I said before, there’s people that are already doing great work. Mm-Hmm. But I think that looking at those five programmatic areas and initiatives that we came up with together led by residents and key stakeholders it, it’s a major win for these communities. If you understand the, the nature of CDCs in St. Louis, having a CDC that can advocate for your neighborhood and the programs and businesses takes you a long way and helps development help happen at an accelerated rate. So yeah,

Emilia Crotty (39:02):

That’s a huge resource to those residents and especially with small business owners. Yeah. That’s terrific. Congratulations.

Christopher Peoples (39:07):

Thank you. And then one other thing is that we are restarting the working group. So as I said at the beginning, I said the advisory group, that’s why I corrected myself. So originally there was an economic equitable economic development advisory group. And so that group was formed to give me strategies and four pillars to work towards. Well now I’ve got through that work. The strategic planning efforts are, are done. And so now it’s time for implementation. And so we have we’re starting tomorrow which is, I guess August the 21st. We’ll be starting the economic development working group. And so that, that working group will be led by mid to upper management professionals in real estate law economic development that’ll help me move forward. Five major initiatives. And so those initiatives are coming up with an organizational structure for the Brickline program.

Christopher Peoples (40:06):

So the CDC is the, for those neighborhoods and for economic development within those neighborhoods. But if you look at the Brickline as a program, it’ll need some type of organizational structure. So we’ll be working on that. We’ll be working on strategic planning we’ll be working on policy recommendations. So going to the government to say what policies do we need around the Brickline, be it a TIFF or other economic development tools to help promote business and growth around it. Land acquisition, so site control. So those key major nodes adjacent to the greenway. And then lastly, patient capital and funding. So all of those great ideas need money. And so hopefully those five areas will have five committees, and those five committees will help me move that work forward.

Shaughnessy Daniels (40:55):

You know, Emilia, I just want to say something really quick here, because Chris reminded me that we have, during the life cycle of Brickline, I think 17, and now this will probably be like 18 unique working groups for this project. But this is the power of what comes out of these groups, this type of work. Not only that, I mean Chris himself came out of Right. That sort of collaborative effort. So, you know, that is something that I think that, you know, CRTI can learn, you know, everyone from CRTI can learn from this type of initiative is sort of the power in bringing community together and what comes out when you have those conversations up. Chris?

Christopher Peoples (41:40):

And I didn’t want to talk over Shaughnessy earlier, but I wanted to help her a little bit with the answer. When you asked her how is community, how is community buried into this process, that is the answer. She answered it for you. So rewind and put it there. She does a great job of creating these working groups. And so she has the community advisory committee, which is made up of residents and, and key stakeholders that meet with her. She has the technical advisory committee, which are, you know, the city agencies and utility companies and traffic organizations. Right. And so she, she’s found a way to say, these are the critical people that we need to put in rooms and she knows which people to put in rooms with who so that the little voice doesn’t feel intimidated to speak up and the big voice doesn’t feel like it’s going to get everything they want. And so that’s how community is nestled or buried inside of the project is because she brings people into the room. And so I was looking at our mission statement, and you’re right, like we create open spaces where people feel like they’re welcome. And that’s part of the engagement process. It’s almost, you know, it’s a metaphor of our mission statement. Right. And so it’s great. So I wanted her to say that earlier, like, say something about the CAC and say something about the working groups. And so she did.

Emilia Crotty (42:58):

Well, so Shaughnessy, how do you keep them engaged over this long haul around something they can’t see?

Shaughnessy Daniels (43:04):

Yeah, because greenways take a little bit of time to build some longer than others. But we, we do keep a lot of tools in our toolbox. We have a variety of things that we do. Every engagement effort, of course, is unique to the community that we’re working in. So we may show up in different ways in different places. One of the things that keeps community excited about the Brickline particularly is that they’re part of the decision-making process. So even though it’s a lot of meetings and there’s some activities and fun stuff that happens along the way. But because this project is happening with community and not to community, and because when there’s a project milestone when there is, you know, funding that’s achieved, whatever it is, the community is eager to celebrate all of these wins because no matter how big or small this is their work that’s coming to fruition. So I think that is part of keeping people sort of excited along the way. And like I said, there’s little things, you know, we, we we’re, we’re out there, we’re, you know, we’re doing the, the celebratory events and the neighborhood night outs and the trash pickup events and the, you know, popcorn pop-ups and the ice cream socials. We’re doing all that other stuff. But really when the community can say, yeah, but you see this, I did that, that’s what keeps people at the table.

Emilia Crotty (44:29):

Yeah. And so much about celebrating those wins, celebrating those wins along the way. And then it becomes about being, wanting to be with the people that you’re doing all this work with. It’s about the relationships that you’re building as you’re doing it as much as it is the thing that you’re working on. So, shifting gears very abruptly, you mentioned fundraising, Chris, and, and just needing funding has the current funding landscape with all this Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act funding, has it like changed the game at all for you all?

Christopher Peoples (44:58):

Yeah, I think, I mean, like, and like I said, kind of outside of my wheelhouse, but I’ll give credit to the people that are good at it. I mean, so GRG is just overall good at winning grants, be it at a federal level, state level, whatever we’re good at it. And so when it came time for the ARPA funds and all of the Infrastructure Act funding to come out, it was like we were all, we were told for it, we were created to go for those wins. And so we have amazing project managers that have a lot of experience at federal funding. And we have great consultants that are used to working at, at the federal level on federal highway traffic projects. And so we were able to win a raise grant. So we were able to get a raise grant to do the north connector in North City.

Christopher Peoples (45:45):

We were able to get a Reconnecting Communities grant that we will be able to connect our, our office location to another major entertainment district, which is separated by a highway and two deck bridges of, of, of highway. So we’ll be able to con have a pedestrian bridge across the highway. And there’s pretty sure other funding that I’m missing here. But I, if I’m not mistaken, over the last three years and since I’ve been here, we’ve won about 45 to $50 million in federal funding Wow. For our project. And so, and then obviously we’re always geared towards leveraging partnerships. So if it’s something that we don’t do directly, we’ll partner with the city of St. Louis and their, their highway and traffic department. It’s called the Board of Public Service, but to go after grants. And so even with that, we were able to get a CM a grant that would allows us to do a, the opposite side of a road that we weren’t planning on doing. So it, it just, we have been able to leverage those funds, and so now we get excited about it. And then we also work very well with our elected officials at all three levels to see what funding opportunities are out there for us. Wow.

Emilia Crotty (46:58):

Amazing. Congratulations. So last couple minutes, I wanted to talk about practical application of what we have learned from you all. So what do you think from your work would could transfer to cities a without the space that y’all have in St. Louis? Because that’s another thing that I took away was like, wow, you got a lot of room. If you’ve been to Philly, you know, you don’t see like wide roadways like that. So in space, in places that are building trails and greenways without as much space as you all have and without some of the capacity that you have within your organization, do you think that there are some like core elements to your work that peers in other cities could bring to their work across the country?

Christopher Peoples (47:35):

Yeah. I mean, when you’re looking at infrastructure, I think it goes back to building those partnerships with government, right? And building those partnerships with other agencies. So even though this, the Brickline project is unique in the city when you get outside of the city limits, we’ve learned to leverage partnerships with the railroads. So obviously there’s rails to trail programs that are out there. You can look at utility corridors. So we have some greenways that are in corridors with high transmission tower line, wide footprints, but they only need their space, but they keep them wide to keep the facilities safe. So those are other ways you can get from point A to B in existing pathways. Not just using the, the city right away. And then when it comes to my work is economic development. I mean, there’s other successful stories.

Christopher Peoples (48:22):

Like I, one of my favorite sayings is I’m an engineer. I don’t try to reinvent the wheel, I try to make it more efficient, right? And so I look at people that have done what I’m trying to do successfully and say, how can I do something similar? And so if you look at the 11th Street Bridge in Washington, DC if you look at the Joe Lewis Greenway in Detroit, I mean, I can go on and on. There’s other examples of this work where if you look at all of them at the core level, you start at the neighborhoods, you let the neighborhoods build their capacity. Destination, Crenshaw is another one where you start at the neighborhood level and you say, how can I help you build capacity? And how can we work together to move things forward? And if you have community buy-in and they take ownership of it, then there’s a level of success there because they, they’re taking accountability for what it is. And that’s what Shaughnessy said earlier. What she’s good at is getting them to see that they have ownership in what’s going on.

Shaughnessy Daniels (49:21):

Yeah. And, and you’re right. And I will say one challenge is that when you have these big spaces, big streets, there’s big opportunity and there’s lots of division for, and sometimes, particularly in some communities where there may not be this kind of development, it might be hard to imagine what actually is possible. And so bringing, we’ve actually brought community members to other projects. We, you know, we’ve brought community members to Detroit, Indianapolis, other cities, or we’ve had other cities come to us to talk about you what that big opportunity actually can look like, and again, what the challenges are, but helping community to understand and, and really imagine what the possibilities could be.

Emilia Crotty (50:03):

Of all the work you’re doing right now, what are you most looking forward to? Whether that’s like a specific project or part of the process?

Shaughnessy Daniels (50:10):

Yeah, I, you know, what I’m looking forward to is seeing people experience St. Louis in a new way, seeing them explore the city, go to places they may not have visited before crossing that Delmar Divide, ha whatever, <laugh>, you know, the Delmar Divide.

Shaughnessy Daniels (50:29):

Yeah, right. Exactly. You know, boo on that. And then, you know, sort of it, you know, St. Louis. So St. Louis is clearly, we’ve had this conversation, it’s not a, it’s not a busy city, you know, it’s not busy bustling, but still having people slow down and take it all in greenways have a way of making you see a space in a completely through a completely different lens. So I’m excited for people to have that experience at a human pace.

Emilia Crotty (50:57)

Yeah. Yeah. How about you, Chris?

Christopher Peoples (51:00):

Yeah, I was trying to think of a catchy way of saying it. So I think I’m, I’m excited to see Blight go to might, is what I’m going to call it. Hmm. And so I, I’m looking forward to when we have activation of commercial spaces adjacent to the greenway, which filters out to density of multifamily housing, that’s going to filter out into single family housing. And you get to see the, like, growth, like, kind of like the slow caption of a flower growing and you see it blooming and getting bigger. I look forward to that. I look forward to seeing a mixed use development on grand and knowing that our work and our effort helped stimulate that. I look forward to seeing some of the historical buildings be revitalized like they did at three CDC in Cincinnati where they took old buildings and revitalized them and gave them new life. So it’s so much. I want to see, and, and I’ll be honest, and the, the last thing I want to see is I want to see me unemployed. I want to see that we’ve been successful and that this role is no longer needed because the neighborhoods have the capacity and the ability to fight for themselves and activate their spaces and program their spaces and move things forward. So, but yeah. That, that blight to might, it’s going to be our new saying, Shaughnessy.

Shaughnessy Daniels (52:19):

I love it. And the community that’s there now, they will still be there to see all of this happen and experience it for themselves.

Christopher Peoples (52:27):

That’s I very important. Thank you Shana. Yeah.

Emilia Crotty (52:29):

I know that we all have work to get back to. Is there anything that you, that I didn’t ask you about that you want to share?

Shaughnessy Daniels (52:34):

CRTI should come back to St. Louis.

Emilia Crotty (52:36):

Well, I was going to say, I was going to say, I can’t wait to come back to St. Louis to ride or walk the greenway to see the bustling commercial corridor. I’m looking forward to it, and I appreciate the work that you all do. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me. It, it’s been terrific and good luck with the work, keep bringing in the money.

Shaughnessy Daniels (52:54):

Thanks so much. For updates, visit BricklineGreenway.org.

Emilia Crotty (53:00):

You guys, I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you, Shaughnessy, and thank you, Chris.

Christopher Peoples (53:04):

It’s been a pleasure. Thank you.

Josh Raulerson (53:12):

Emilia Crotty is Director of Trails and Equitable access for the Pennsylvania Environmental Council and guest host for this episode of the Pennsylvania Legacies podcast. She spoke with Shaughnessy Daniels and Christopher Peoples of St. Louis-based Great Rivers Greenway. You can learn more about their work via links that you’ll find in the show notes for this episode on the PEC website. And of course, you can learn lots more about PEC’s efforts in equitable sustainable trail development in the Philadelphia region and across the state. You can find that inclusive trail planning report that was discussed along with the other information on what the Circuit Trails Coalition is doing, not just to build trail networks in greater Philadelphia, but to make them safe, welcoming, and useful to members of the community. That’s all at pecpa.org, peca.org. All past episodes of our podcast are on the website. You can stream them there or subscribe using a podcast app on your mobile device. Pretty much any way you’d like to listen to podcasts, you can access this show and we appreciate that you do. That’s all for this time. Check back in two weeks for the next installment of Pennsylvania Legacies. Until then, from the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, I’m Josh Raulerson and thanks for listening.