In 1907, St. Louis was the first city in the United States to develop a comprehensive city plan. What are the effects of 100 years of planning? Where is St. Louis headed over the next 100 years? "St. Louis Currents: The Bi-State Region after a Century of Planning" explores these questions and many more. "St. Louis Currents" features articles by many prominent researchers, historians, journalists and leaders from the St. Louis region exploring topics ranging from civic culture to the environment to neighborhood design. "St. Louis Currents: The Bi-State Region after a Century of Planning" takes a critical look at many of the successes and failures of St. Louis in the past and issues that are currently being faced by the Gateway City. A DVD of the book, which includes the original 1907 City Plan for St. Louis, is sold separately.

At first glance, St. Louis, Missouri, seems to have little to do with foreign relations, a field ostensibly conducted on a nation-state level. However, St. Louis, despite its status as an inland river city frequently relegated to the backwaters of national significance, has stood at the crossroads of interna#65533;tional matters for much of its history. From its eighteenth-century French fur trade origins to post-Cold War busi#65533;ness dealings with Latin America and Asia, the city has never neglected nor been ignored by the world outside its borders. In this pioneering study, Henry W. Berger analyzes St. Louis's imperial engagement from its founding in 1764 to the present day, revealing the inter#65533;section of local political, cultural, and economic interests in foreign affairs. He shows how St. Louis business lead#65533;ers, entrepreneurs, politicians, and investors--often driven by personal and ideological motives, as well as the potential betterment of the city and its people--looked to the west, southwest, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and the Pacific to form economic or political partnerships. Many of these attempted imperial activities failed, but even when they succeeded, Berger explains, the economy and the people of St. Louis did not usually benefit. By shifting the focus of foreign relations history from the traditional confines of nation-state conduct to municipal and regional behaviour, this innovative study highlights the domestic foundations and content of foreign policy, opening new avenues for study in the field of foreign relations.

Environmental Activism and the Urban Crisis focuses on the wave of environmental activism and grassroots movements that swept through America's older, industrial cities during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Robert Gioielli offers incisive case studies of Baltimore, St. Louis, and Chicago to show how urban activism developed as an impassioned response to a host of racial, social, and political conflicts. As deindustrialization, urban renewal, and suburbanization caused the decline of the urban environment, residents--primarily African Americans and working-class whites--organized to protect their families and communities from health threats and environmental destruction.   Gioielli examines various groups' activism in response to specific environmental problems caused by the urban crisis in each city. In doing so, he forms concrete connections between environmentalism, the African American freedom struggle, and various urban social movements such as highway protests in Baltimore and air pollution activism in Chicago. Eventually, the efforts of these activists paved the way for the emergence of a new movement-environmental justice.