St Louis has changed its dominant statecraft over the years, as the United States has done due to the ideas of political parties. When Saint-Louis was created, the mayors were all Whigs. 1823-1842 (St. Louis Public Library 2001), the Whig Party was created to oppose Andrew Jackson and his ideas implemented in the United States. Between 1842 and 1857, political parties changed. Democrats for Knowing Nothing/American Party and Whigs (St. Louis Public Library 2001). Between 1857 and 1943, St. Louis frequently switched from a Democratic to a Republican mayor, and no party was able to hold office for more than three terms (St. Louis Public Library 2001). From 1953 to today, there has been a change: all elected mayors in St. Louis have all been Democrats (St. Louis Public Library 2001). However, because St. Louis is more of a government machine, the mayor is an important factor, but it is the alderman who is seen as controlling the city and that position is more valuable than that of mayors. One factor that could explain why St. Louis has been Democratic since 1949 is population loss due to suburbia (Mark Groth, 2010), or the fact that most of the population is black and more blacks tend to vote in a more democratic way. Just like most cities. In the United States, St. Louis was affected by racial issues, most of the issues in St. Louis were about equal rights for black people. One of the major problems that arose was that of housing. Housing was an important aspect of the racial divide between whites and blacks. Whites and realtors would not allow blacks to live in certain areas, this not only happened in St. Louis but also in Baltimore and Chicago. These areas would be predominant... middle of document... manner was considered a race boundary. St. Louis is now a hub for rail, road, and air transportation (Worldmark Encyclopedia of the States 2007). This is an attempt by St. Louis to grow its economy and thus become as strong as it once was. Louis has recently been a troubled city with an economy that is not doing well and crime is still present. Therefore, the main policies that have emerged in St. Louis have mainly focused on helping the city and its residents economically, for example by taxing the exercise, moving from a distribution of money between neighborhoods to a points-based system and approving block grants. These new policies were either established by the State of Missouri and affected St. Louis in a negative or positive way, or put in place by the St. Louis government to help their city grow its economy and become the city that 'she was previously..