What We Believe

STL World Class City Group

Mission: The Mission of our organization, STL--World Class City, is to lay the foundation for St. Louis County to extend its boundaries to include St. Louis City no later than the 250th Anniversary of the City in 2014, and thus become the 91st municipality within St. Louis County. A serious regional, non-partisan conversation will be established by widespread communication to residents in the City and County regarding the advantages of re-entry and to accomplish the legal steps necessary for re-entry.

We believe that in the end, we are all "St. Louis," whether we live in the City or the County. The addition of St. Louis City as the 91st municipality of St. Louis County will position us to compete more effectively in the global economy. It will define more clearly our regional identity as "St. Louis" and allow us to compete with the world outside of "St. Louis" instead of competing among ourselves.
We must ask ourselves this simple question -- why is St. Louis City one of the few independent cities in the USA that are not part of a county? Has this arrangement worked well for us over these past 136 years? We think not.
We are in favor of autonomy and self-determination. We want our communities to keep their local schools and their local governments if they choose to do so. If consolidation of services should occur over time it will be because the people in those areas choose to do so, not because St. Louis City joined St. Louis County.
We are not talking about City-County consolidation. We are not talking about combining St. Louis City-St. Louis County governments. What we are talking about is the expansion of St. Louis County to INCLUDE the City of St. Louis as the 91st municipality contained within the county.
We are not talking about the grand merger of the governments of the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County into a single government. We believe that previous attempts to join the City with the County have been too complicated, too focused on the legal issues of merger, and too focused on a combining of the governments of St. Louis City and County.
Statistical reclassification is needed to truly represent the actual geographical size and population of our community. If St. Louis city and county population were counted together, we would be the equivalent of the 8th largest city in the U.S.
We are committed to undoing the colossal mistake of 1876 -- the separation of the City from the County. It is time to atone for the mistakes of the past and bring our City back to the County that is its namesake -- St. Louis! We should settle for nothing less.