On Tuesday, April 4th, St. Louis has completed a long-overdue right-sizing of the wards that comprise the Board of Aldermen, shrinking the city’s legislative branch from 28 members to 14. This week’s election was “Aldergeddon”—an unforgiving set of showdowns between groups of incumbent aldermen who were redrawn into the same ward, in addition to the usual contests between incumbents and prospective newcomers. Few had the fortune to avoid a challenge in the most consequential aldermanic election in the city’s modern history.

In Houston, there are only three topographic features: the bayous, the freeways, and the skyscrapers. The concept of a natural vantage point from which you can view the city—like the infamous view of Los Angeles from the Santa Monica Mountains—was largely foreign to me as a kid. I’d only catch brief glimpses of the broader cityscape when ascending one of the region’s stacked interchanges.

I’m 27, about five years out of college. I’m young by any reasonable standard, but I’m also not new to adulthood. I’m married; I own a home; I’ve moved past the first stage of my career; many of my friends are completing graduate school, getting married, and seriously considering having children. College is increasingly in the rearview mirror—my social circle has dispersed as each of us further defines our independent adult lives.

My perspective is not the same as it was five years ago. As I’ve discussed previously, I have a far better understanding of my relationship with money and the role it plays in building an adult life. Living and owning property in an adopted city, I’m now heavily invested in local quality of life issues like crime, city services, and taxes—things that I was fully insulated from in college.

Researchers and transit experts have attempted to quantify the “minimum” population density required to justify light rail service in an urban area. Published research suggests somewhere around 19,000 people per square mile (ppsm) within the service area of a light rail system. Noted transit expert Christof Spieler describes a “tipping point” between 10,000 to 15,000 ppsm, at which neighborhoods generate enough trips to justify a higher-capacity transit mode and are complemented by a walkable urban form that discourages driving.