A History of Community Sustainability and Beginning the Elimination of Racial Redlining in the St. Louis Metro Area 1959 - 1975 describes this inner ring suburb of St. Louis’ remarkable achievements in sustaining a middle class (middle income) society while successfully creating a very racially diverse community starting in the early 1960s and still continuing today. Following and even before the UCity council resolution declaring the policy of equal rights to housing in UCity, the community had been demonstrating daily that black middle class families are as or even more willing to maintain their homes and yards in well maintained neighborhoods.  By the 1970s all residential neighborhoods were well maintained and have remained so for the next 40 years and most are multiracial. 


Also in the early 1970s UCity’s Delmar Boulevard and its business district, which extends from the city of St. Louis into UCity, started to and continues to flourish.  UCity had by then completed several renewal projects, and had succeeded in eliminating within its borders racial redlining by the federal government.  By 2007, its Delmar Loop was designated by the American Planning Association to be one of the ten great streets in America.  Thus, for at least the last 30 years, this community has sustained a healthy real estate market with property values within its entire 5.88 square miles appreciating with the national economy trends.

Obviously useful to city managers and other local government officials are the many described programs and techniques for preserving structures, landscaping, entire neighborhoods and the city itself.  The most effective of which has been the Occupancy Permit Program.  Already many cities in St. Louis County have installed such in order to preserve both their schools and city neighborhoods.  Also, in the late 1960s, Pasadena and other California cities adopted, and still use, the Occupancy Permit Program.