re: If there was one thing you could pick to make BR a better city

Clear out the section 8 and blight around LSU and between LSU and downtown. That area has so much wasted potential, and negatively impacts the areas around campus.

What Baton Rouge needs is less sprawl, substantially higher population density, a better road grid, an interstate bypass, less litter, and a decent mass transit system that doesn’t share (or take away from) car traffic lanes.

It doesn’t have those things because there’s not enough job growth in the city to support a larger population (much of the BR area’s jobs are in plants and fab shops in the suburbs), a deplorable public school system, and the crime and blight that comes with a massive entitlement-dependent underclass.

The economic issues, crime issues, traffic, schools, etc all feed each other to keep the city shitty since the poor underclass votes to keep the shitty politicians and incompetent bureaucrats in charge that protect the insane regulatory/permitting/tax/bribe system that keeps our economy in the toilet.

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fix the broken curbs, enforce littering, mow the fricking medians

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Most people don’t know this, but according to the city code of ordinances, it is the road-fronting property owner that is responsible for maintaining sidewalks and cutting the grass on the median. If you call the city to ask them to do it, they may eventually do so, but will send you a hefty bill for it.

The nice neighborhoods aren’t better maintained because the city caters to the wealthy. They’re better maintained because the residents maintain it themselves.

Section 8 tenets and absantee slum-lords DGAF about maintaining the appearance of their property. Shocker.

Eliminate drugs. It's the root cause for crime and bad parenting.

raise kids properly and all of the other issues fade over time

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Once those racist bigots are separated into their own entity, Baton Rouge will finally be free to make their city into the utopia it should be.

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Baton Rouge 2030

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Bring in the tech companies and start ups that are moving to Austin in droves.

That would be a catalyst for all the other good things you want in a city.

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Kip tried to do this and I think he had the right vision. I don't know what incentives the current administration is offering or if this is even a priority.

If the city was bustling with young professionals and small businesses opened to cater to them, I think the crappier parts of the city would be more tolerable.

The only answer is Public Education magically improving by a large amount.

St. George +1

People could stop littering and quit being jerks to each other. Free and easy.

All of those things that came from NO after Katrina should go back to the projects they came from.