128 Business View Magazine - October 2016
Wildwood, Missouri
By citizens, for citizens
Wildwood, Missouri, once an unincorporated portion
of St. Louis County, and an exurban suburb of the City
of St. Louis, became an incorporated city in 1995. Ac-
cording to City Administrator, Ryan Thomas, the area
was already a very popular one for residential devel-
opment, but development gave very little thought to
preserving the character of the area and the natural
features of the land. “Developers were coming out
here and clear-cutting large sites for residential devel-
opments and not really paying attention to the natural
environment and the impact to neighboring residents,”
he says. “And the regulations under St. Louis County
government allowed for that.” So, the area’s residents
decided it was time to take control of Wildwood’s fu-
ture growth, by becoming a municipality unto itself.
“Shortly after becoming a city, within the first year, we
adopted a number of new standards relating to de-
