Sure, the Gateway Arch is spectacular, but there’s more to St. Louis. (Photo: hz536n ^[1] via Core of Discovery Flickr pool)

Today we’ve got news from member blog Dotage St. Louis ^[2] about a sweet new initiative from the National Parks Service (NPS) called "Core of Discovery ^[3]." Aimed at tourists visiting the city’s Gateway Arch (an NPS property), it highlights various attractions of St. Louis’s downtown — historic architecture ^[4], bike rentals ^[5] to enjoy the path along the Mississippi, the new Citygarden ^[6] sculpture park and many others.

The Core of Discovery website is beautifully designed, and the NPS is also using social media — including a Flickr group ^[7] that already has some quite stunning content — to draw visitors into an exploration of what urban St. Louis has to offer. The effort dovetails with a major design competition ^[8] focused on better integrating the Gateway Arch grounds into the city’s urban fabric. Here’s what Dotage St. Louis has to say:

With the ongoing City Arch River 2015 ^[8] design competition, it’s great to see the NPS express its dedication towards connecting the Arch to downtown in the meantime.… It might seem like a small step on the part of the NPS, but clearly much thought has gone into the design of this site and the marketing of our downtown. I applaud this effort and am excited that I’ll be here in person to witness the more radical interventions that will be proposed this fall as a part of the Archgrounds International Design Competition.

More from around the network: Half Mile Circles ^[9] writes about a new report about the effect of compact development on greenhouse gas emissions. Transit Miami ^[10] writes about the threat to some Miami Beach bike lanes. And One Speed: Go! ^[11] has a philosophical meditation on the benefits of riding a tandem.