Kevin Kelly/Key photo State Rep. Ron Auer, right, listens to discussion during a Missouri Catholic Conference workshop on urban sprawl.

"In Missouri, we are losing farmland to (suburban) development 100 times faster than Oregon," said Auer, who lives in the same St. Louis neighborhood he grew up in.

Speaking at a workshop focusing on urban sprawl during the annual Missouri Catholic Conference assembly Sept. 2 in Jefferson City, Auer said that middle class and upper-middle class families have abandoned St. Louis and the inner suburbs of surrounding St. Louis County for the outer suburbs of Jefferson and St. Charles counties at an alarming rate.

The exodus is having a devastating economic impact in both the older cities and the newer suburbs, he said.

"This is a problem going on in all our metropolitan areas," Auer said. "We haven't done anything to stem unrestricted growth without a future. What is the public good for all of us in Missouri?"

Auer said that in 1970, the median income of residents of the city of St. Louis was 73 percent of the national average, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By 1990, it had dropped to 64 percent.

"By 2000, it will drop to 60 percent or even into the 50s," he said.

The same is true for the older suburbs immediately around the city. Maplewood's median income, for example, dropped from 78 percent of the national median in 1970 to 64 percent 20 years later. Bellefontaine Neighbors went from 121 percent of the national median to 89 percent in 20 years. Sappington dropped from 150 percent of the national median income to 118 percent from 1970 to 1990, and might be below the national median by the next census report.

"The middle class is leaving and the upper class is leaving," Auer said. "What is left is low-income people who don't have the resources to move."

Meanwhile, taxpayers are picking up much of the costs of the exodus to the outer suburbs, especially taxpayers in the rapidly growing areas.

Auer said real estate developers, drawn by low land prices, are building huge suburban style subdivisions on farm land, which then demand such costly urban services as schools, police and fire protection, water lines, sewer systems and road construction.

Auer said that taxpayers in Jefferson County, just south of St. Louis County, are facing a bill in the tens of millions of dollars to pay for a county-wide sewer system in a formerly rural area served only by septic tanks.

"It's a waste of taxpayer money for the betterment of a few," he said.

"Our net growth (in population of the St. Louis metropolitan area) is minimal. But the land we are using has grown a hundred-fold," Auer said.

That growth, he said, has had a devastating impact on the environment and on the quality of life in and around St. Louis.

"If we are going to develop stable communities, then we need to re-develop the areas that are being vacated," he said.

Auer stressed that he was not opposed to growth.

"We're always going to grow, regardless of what the legislature does, or municipalities do or the federal government does," he said. "But we want growth that will be there 20 years from now."

Auer has introduced a bill in the General Assembly calling for a regional commission to oversee planning for growth around St. Louis.

Too often, he said, developers can press their plans through elected city councils or county commissions with little input from people.

"These decisions aren't made behind closed doors, but if no one is there, it's as bad as being behind closed doors," he said

"We need a commission to make these decisions, not homebuilders," he said. "It's not just an economic issue. Social justice is involved, too. We're supposed to be good stewards of our resources."