This repository contains data releases from the Urban Prairies Project. It currently contains tabular data for our 2017 analysis of vacancy in St. Louis, Missouri. There are both high and low estimate files containing the HANDLE identification numbers for parcels we determined to contain either vacant lots or vacant buildings.
On September 15, 2018 we updated the initial data release with a comparison of our data to the STL Vacancy Initiative data from June 2018. Note that these data are from two different time periods. They are released to provide a point of departure for those interested in exploring differences between the two estimates.
Details on our methodology are available in our forthcoming publication in the Journal of Urban Affairs, which is available as a pre-print on SocArXiv. For more information, please check our project website.
If you have found a typo, omission, or have a suggestion, please check the contribution guidelines guidelines before opening an issue. Please note that contributions to this project are governed by a Contributor Code of Conduct and, for Saint Louis University community members, our various University policies.
If you are interested in using our data, please note that it is released without warranty under a permissive license that does, however, require attribution. Citation information including a digital object identifier for the data, can be found via Zenodo. Please also cite our original paper and see our policy on support for additional details.
The City of St. Louis (which is an independent city separate from St. Louis County) has a well documented pattern of extensive vacancy. What is less well documented, however, is the volume of vacancy in the city. A variety of estimates have been made in the last several decades. Most recently, the Mayor's office release an estimate of at least 24,000 vacant properties as part of the City's Preliminary Resilience Assessment. Our Urban Prairies project aims to produce estimates of vacancy at the parcel level in St. Louis. We are particularly interested in how vacant land clusters spatially to produce areas in St. Louis that appear to 'return to nature'.
Christopher Prener, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Saint Louis University. In addition to spearheading the Streets Not Thru project, he is currently working on a book manuscript entitled Medicine at the Margins. The book examines the effect of neighborhood context and conditions on emergency medical services work, particularly with patients who have mental illnesses or substance use disorders. Chris is also part of a research team examining the effects of literacy on mental health service use and recovery. More details about his research and teaching are available at his website and he can be contacted at chris.prener@slu.edu.
Founded in 1818, Saint Louis University is one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious Catholic institutions. Rooted in Jesuit values and its pioneering history as the first university west of the Mississippi River, SLU offers nearly 13,000 students a rigorous, transformative education of the whole person. At the core of the University’s diverse community of scholars is SLU’s service-focused mission, which challenges and prepares students to make the world a better, more just place.