ST. LOUIS — Yusef Scoggin refers to the divided nature of government in the St. Louis region as our “Achilles heel” — a weak point that often fails, stopping progress in its tracks.

The city of St. Louis is separate from the county of the same name, and that county has more than 80 municipalities. Then there are the surrounding counties of Jefferson, Franklin and St. Charles. And, of course, there’s the other part of St. Louis, across the Mississippi River in Illinois, with its Madison and St. Clair and Monroe counties.

“The fractured nature of our community has plagued us for many years,” Scoggin told a crowd of leaders from those various places on Tuesday afternoon at The Hub in north St. Louis.