St Louis - what’s it like?

it unfortunately matters to prejudice white people

I like to hate them because of the Cardinals, but somehow every single person from St. Louis is in the top tier of kindest people I've ever met. Good Midwestern fellas.

Never been, but it would be near the bottom of my list of big cities to move to.

Crime being a huge factor. The city has registered 260 murders this year with a population of 290,000. That is mind-blowingly bad. Like “actually rivals the worst cities Venezuela or El Salvador for homicides” bad. Unlike many cities, some suburbs are even worse. Yes I know there are upscale areas like Clayton and the far west suburbs, but that level of violence would be tough to accept wherever you live in the metro and would put me on edge if I went into the city.

Weather is another reason. Extremely muggy and hot summers, cold winters. Yuck.

Geographically not much going on either. You have two big brown muddy rivers (Mississippi and Missouri) meeting in the metro. Pretty subpar compared with oceans of the Great Lakes. No mountains or other interesting terrain for hundreds of miles. Isolated from other big cities and attractions, Chicago is 4.5 hours.

Don’t know much about the economy other than there’s a lot of big legacy F500 companies there. Not a center of innovation or tech.

I’m sure the non criminal people are great, as most midwesterns usually are.

But yeah, you’d have to really twist my arm to make me move to St Louis.

spinozza wrote:

your parents wrote:

That’s absurd.

You've clearly never lived in St Louis. I wouldn't want to be white and just driving in my car though certain parts of the city. You will get robbed and possibly shot and killed.

I lived in St Louis a decade ago and regularly return for visits. I have driven or run in many parts of the city which you disparage. Yes, not as safe as the world should be, but this is just flat ignorant. Please, stop fear-mongering.

If it is important for you to have good running programs, I would chose Chicago or Indi any day over St Louis. Running is not good here. Yes, we have roads and we have people with severe muscle spasms shuffle across roads and they call that running - painful to watch.

The decent coaches are at Lafayette, Parkway West and Kirkwood. Add Colleen's dad to that list. If you land at a different school, you are better off choosing Journalism or Debate.

If you want Soccer or Football, your best bets are Kirkwood and DeSmet (private) - often nationally ranked and great team environment.

Kirkwood offers the best small town environment to raise a young family.

The Top5-8 HS graduates from any of the county public schools fare about the same in college admissions. Some schools do better than others in placement but not necessarily in terms of the product quality.

Ferguson loop isn’t a bad running course.

Late to the thread, but something I haven't seen and dependent on where the actual job location is... the Metro-East area in Southern Illinois is a 15 minute drive to downtown St Louis with a lot of good public schools (Edwardsville, O'Fallon, Belleville is okay) and also decent private schools. Those towns are very safe to live in with Edwardsville and O'Fallon having big running communities, both in the high school and grown adult form.

West St Louis has the same vibes (like Clayton and O'Fallon - I know, 2 O'Fallons) but isn't quite as suburban feel.

niceplacetolive wrote:

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.truthandaction.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2014%2F11%2FFerguson-riots-680x365.jpg&f=1&nofb=1

That only happens when there is 1) a police involved shooting anywhere in the country, 2) a Cardinals loss, or 3) a regular weekend.

The deal in St. Louis is that the rich white people in the county don't want to pay any taxes that may, in some small way, benefit someone other than themselves, so pretty much every public institution is woefully underfunded and the people with means send their kids to private schools. So same situation as New Orleans.

pauliewalnuts12 wrote:

The city has registered 260 murders this year with a population of 290,000. That is mind-blowingly bad. Like “actually rivals the worst cities Venezuela or El Salvador for homicides” bad.

This is a bit misleading statistics. The city population is about 1/10 of the metro population. Many crimes in St. Louis are committed by people from adjacent communities, and often against people from adjacent communities. Those count as "murders in St. Louis" although neither the victim nor the perpetrator is counted as the population of the city.

I have been to St. Louis dozens of times, and I have never felt unsafe at any time of the day. There are some unsafe spots, but there is no reason to go to those places.

I was raised in a suburb bording the City. Dump, Brutal summers. No big body of water. Only two sports teams, High crime rate per capital. Very hilly, only park is Forest Park.

No thread about St. Louis would be complete without this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwBoa-NbNL8

Kirkwood, Webster Groves, Brentwood, Lindbergh if you are middle class and want a great school district for your kids.

Lindbergh high school is among top 100 in the country and the after school programs are well funded by the community.

Ladue, Clayton, Chesterfield, Ballwin if you are upper middle class.

The private schools are insanely expensive and most cost more than some higher ranked universities.

Do you like trails? There's a lot of trail systems west and south of st louis. Not too far and really beautiful

I have lived in both in the county and now live in the city (Central West End). Forest Park is fantastic and run there almost every day. Yesterday I ventured out to Lewis & Clark trail for a 5+ mile hike with beautiful scenery. If you are raising a kid, live in the county for good public school options, if not I enjoy city life.

There are some really racist comments in this thread--others have countered with more constructive input, but no one is really pointing out what's wrong with these statements. Please don't interpret this as name calling. I'm not saying the original posters are "racist people"--we all have made racially insensitive or prejudiced statements at some time, rather subtle or obvious, and we all can strive to avoid this as much as possible in the future. Letsrun is a pretty white-dominated community, but the least we can do is try to avoid making it overtly hostile toward black people...

Some examples from the thread:

If you are white, I'd think about living in St. Charles/Lake Saint Louis (Katy trail is good running) or on the south side/Fenton, Arnold and out area- Even west in Pacific. Stay away from North and East- even working blacks don't want to live there.

This post isn't that bad compared to the others I mention below, but it is worth discussing. Given how segregated St. Louis is, I think it's fair to admit that white and black people may find different neighborhoods to be the most comfortable/welcoming. However, the last sentence here seems to imply that black people in the North/East of St. Louis do not work, and furthermore that "working blacks" have lower standards than whites but they still wouldn't live in those neighborhoods. Unemployment may be higher than average in those parts of the city (I haven't found data), but it can't be that bad given that the overall unemployment rate is St. Louis was only 4.3% in October (

https://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.mo_stlouis_msa.htm

). The overall blight of north/east St. Louis can be traced to a long history of underinvestment, poor schools, etc.

Because if you are white and live in N or E St. Louis, you will be probably killed. It's crime ridden and run down and the blacks don't like whites there. Just look at violent crime in the St. Louis area. Pretty well like areas in other big cities where whites and blacks don't mix.

You've clearly never lived in St Louis. I wouldn't want to be white and just driving in my car though certain parts of the city. You will get robbed and possibly shot and killed.

These statements are easily disproved. There are very few instances of white people venturing into black neighborhoods in St. Louis and getting killed. Roughly 90% of homicide victims in St. Louis are African American:

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/2019-homicide-total-is-second-highest-of-decade-for-st-louis/article_c1b0d1e9-8ae8-5025-8130-df8e8e539af6.html

Some neighborhoods are dangerous for all people, most of all those who live there every day. The cause is primarily poverty and desperation, compounded over generations. I'm sure there are some black people in N/E St. Louis who are angry at white people for not giving them a fair shot in life, but the idea that most crime occurs because "blacks don't like whites there" is completely inaccurate.

Now there are blacks and whites in other areas and they get along usually when the % is more whites and people work, take care of their neighborhoods, and are not on welfare. Just how it is here.

Although the poster claims to be just "telling it like it is", this statement is terribly ignorant. It blames black people in poor, high-crime neighborhoods for their predicament rather than acknowledging the historical factors that have prevented them from accumulating wealth and moving into the middle class. There are many good resources about this online (just search for "black/white wealth gap")--here's one example:

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/reports/2018/02/21/447051/systematic-inequality/

For those who would like to learn more about race relations in St. Louis (specfically, how white people are succumbing to racist fear and actively fighting to prevent black people in poor neighborhoods from seeking a better future for their children), this is a good podcast:

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/562/the-problem-we-all-live-with-part-one

And Fortress

Pifer. He was a stud from Illinois. Check out Bowerman and you will find Amos and Colleen Quigley both from STL. Emily Sisson ran her last two years of high school here. Craig Virgin from across the river, Jordan Mann competing for New Balance, and several other great athletes from town.