all ballpark no village

"They paved paradise and put up a parking lot,"or so the lyrics go. If only! Maybe next year, for the All-Star game. Won't that be a sight. On the verge of three seasons later, there's but a tax-abated ditch where once the real Busch stood. Standing water. Broken concrete. And yet another intended tenant made yesterday's headlines by backing out of the seemingly imaginary Ballpark Village. "Why can't we have anything nice around here?" is one oh, so St. Louis question--we kinda love to have a complex, even more than a downtown "plan"--but mostly I wonder how those hotels in the foreground get away with charging extra for the view.