Letter to the Editor

To the editor:

The proposed merger of St. Louis County and city would have a population of 1.3 million. On a world scale this is a drop in the bucket and would not even be included on a list of the 150 largest cities.

The current attempt to unify a divided metropolitan area is like trying to drive a car using only the rearview mirror.

To make a megacity you need to combine all the counties in the St. Louis Metropolitan Statistical Area: city of St. Louis, St. Louis County, St. Charles County, Jefferson County, Franklin County and the adjacent counties in Illinois.

The concept of a megacity or city-state is widely used today in many countries. Perhaps it time our planners look to the future instead of the past. Missouri and Illinois counties would have to secede from their respective state and form a new state, much like West Virginia did during the Civil War. It could be called the state of ILMO.

That way we would have a world-class megacity, not merely a drop-in-the-bucket city.

Richard Herzog
Oakville