DeBaliviere Place, at the northern edge of Forest Park, traces the whole arc of postwar American urban decline and reinvention. In the 1940s and '50s, this was a solidly middle-class neighborhood of brick apartment buildings and townhouses, home to doctors, lawyers, professors, and factory workers. The construction of Interstate 40 and suburbanization in the 1950s and '60s triggered what urban planners called 'white flight' — white families moved to the suburbs in massive numbers, taking their tax base with them, while real estate agents practiced 'blockbusting,' deliberately steering Black families into transitioning neighborhoods to stoke white panic and accelerate the process.
By the 1970s, DeBaliviere Place had suffered significant disinvestment and population loss. Community organizing and neighborhood associations fought back, leading to rehabilitation efforts that restored much of the housing stock. Today the neighborhood is a racially and economically mixed community that has maintained its architectural character while adapting to contemporary life.
The story of DeBaliviere Place is the story of dozens of St. Louis neighborhoods: decline, struggle, partial recovery, ongoing negotiation. The forces that shaped it — segregation, highway construction, disinvestment — were not accidental. They were policy choices.