It’s funny - one of the last times I was visiting in St. Louis, I was talking with my wife and kids about that ranking, and my history of incidents while driving in St. Louis, and the very day we got there, we saw someone blast the horn and flip someone else off. It was at the intersection of Ries Road and Manchester Road. I also had an incident of a guy getting pissy with me and slowing down to block my ability to turn into a shopping center off of Manchester Road, leaving me sitting in front of oncoming traffic.
I was visiting with a professor at St. Louis University later that day and we got to talking about the incident. He agreed; St. Louis drivers drive like it’s all a competition and take things very personally. He grew up in New York City, and felt that drivers were much more angry in St. Louis.
I’ll defend the area in general on this one. Those rankings are for the city proper, which, as has been pointed out, is quite small in area. Really, the violent crime is concentrated in a relatively small area, but because of the size of the city, it becomes a large percentage. The St. Louis metro area (which also includes East Saint Louis, mind) was ranked 103rd among metro areas in the US in 2009 (link (PDF)). In other words, the area on the whole is really not nearly as the news would have you believe. Even in the city, as long as you stay south of Lindell, you’re in pretty good shape.
I hate St. Louis drivers. But in my experience they tend to be timid, oblivious, passive and slow, not angry or aggressive.
There are some nice things about St. Louis. The zoo is very nice, especially for being free. The City Museum is a really cool, creative and unique place, generally oriented more to kids. The Science Center, on the other hand, is a pathetic joke. I also agree that it’s silly to suggest to people that the best thing about St. Louis is Six Flags. I had season passes to Six Flags in the late 70’s and early 80’s. I’m sure it’s changed a little, but it’s nothing particularly special, and it’s a ways outside of St. Louis. You may as well say that Meramec Caverns is a St. Louis attraction.
Lion’s Choice is the best roast beef place I’ve ever encountered. If the franchise fees weren’t so high, I would have opened one here a long time ago. Imo’s Pizza isn’t something I’d regularly eat, but at the same time it’s fun to have it once a year (although leave it to St. Louis to mix together cheddar, swiss and provolone cheese and pretend they’ve invented a new cheese).
And of course, the best thing about St. Louis was my wife, but I took her away with me!
I’m not sure that’s really a defense. First, it’s true of any city that the more densely populated urban areas are going to be relatively higher in crime. Secondly, and more specific to St. Louis, they do not get a pass for establishing perhaps the most contentious city/county government relationship in America. The urban area is struggling so badly because it does not get the resources and support it should. So no, there’s no excusing the fact that St. Louis leads the nation in crime just because some parts of it experience worse crime than others.
Perhaps “defend” isn’t the right word. My point is that the single statistic “#1 violent city in America” falls well short of telling the whole story. Most cities have a densely populated center which has higher crime surrounded by lower density areas that are comparatively safer. St. Louis city is, essentially, just the high density center because of the political division. It wouldn’t be notable if the discrepancy between the city and the metro area were between, say, #1 and #8. However the rate drops to #103. That’s a pretty stark reduction.
I agree that the political division is immensely problematic. The County’s stubborn refusal to consider consolidation is, while perhaps understandable, ultimately shortsighted. Right now the image people have of St. Louis is as a small (ranked 58th), crime ridden city. Consolidating would jump St. Louis into 8th place on the population charts, and the crime statistics would likewise adjust favorably. That alone would, I think, make the area a lot more attractive to people, and, more importantly, businesses.
Unfortunately, there’s a long history here of insisting that other people’s problems are other people’s problems, even if helping solve other people’s problems will help you.
It’s slightly worse than that. There are many dysfunctional city/county relationships in America, but IIRC outside Virginia, only Baltimore has the odd setup that St. Louis does, where the city is not an autonomous entity within the county (as with Chicago and Cook County, Tampa and Hillsborough County, etc.), but completely divorced from the county that it is largely surrounded by – the county’s boundary ends at the city limits. St. Louis County has no authority within or responsibility for St. Louis City. And doesn’t want it – despite the fact that it consists of suburbs of the city.
This obviously neds fixing – but who’s going to force whom to do what?
Maybe, but GEEZ, it’s Manchester Road! Where else would the city fathers cram 50 shopping centers on a single road with no stoplights and decide that a left-turn lane solves all traffic problems?
Besides North Lindbergh, South Lindbergh, Page, Olive and St. Charles Rock Road, I mean.
Hey everyone, got a question for those who live in/around or who previously have lived in/around St. Louis.
My SO is going to law school at WUSTL (Wash U of St. Louis) this fall and he’s not quite sure where to live. We’re going to a “housing day” in June but plan to arrive a day early and sort things out ahead of time. Any advice on areas or even particular building would be hugely appreciated.
He’s willing to live in Clayton, University City and the Central West End. He’s willing to pay 700/month for a 1 bedroom (with most utilities). Here’s what he absolutely needs, followed by what he would like.
Needs: dishwasher, large building (20ish units or more), gated/fenced/garaged parking, security (CCTV, buzzers and/or security guard), most utilities included at the 700 price point, smoke free building, elevator, laundry within building.
Strong Wants: a gym within the building (add up to 50/month in rent) or extremely close to the building.
Mild Wants: A building with grad students and youngish singles and couples, no families. A building largely free of undergrads or just free of underclassmen. 24 hour maintenance. A balcony. Bike racks.
Post doc as Wash U. We lived in U City and loved it. Fun, quirky neighborhoods and pretty inexpensive. It was about 14 years ago, so I don’t have specific buildings to recommend, but there was a lot of nice, older but charming, apartments.
Might I humbly suggest that what your SO really needs is a “needs and wants” adjustment. There are some awesome neighborhoods all around Wash U (I used to live in an extremely spacious 1 br brownstone right off Skinker Blvd., and I loved it). But finding anything nearby in that price range, including utilities and with all those amenities? Not very likely.
As an actual resident of North County for 25 years, excluding college, I would like to dispute this, please.
People LOVE to lump in North St. Louis county in with what is better know as North St. Louis City.
While it is true that what people consider “north county” can be a large area depending on who is using the term, if you actually watch the news and know where they are talking about when you hear of this murder, that shooting, that robbery, etc., those areas are more often than not actually in areas considered to be “north city.” This is a cool website of a guy who took photos of the sadly crumbling architecture of north city, but it has a good map of some of the areas: Built St. Louis: The North Side | Tour map And not all of these areas are bad of course, but if you look at the photos many of these areas have abandoned and falling-down buildings, etc., some whole blocks mostly disappeared.
I live in north county but I live so north these places are 20+ minutes away or more. West county is also 20 minutes away…
The city of St. Louis proper is where the majority of St. Louis’ violent crime is taking place. Many of them appear to be drug/gang related to my untrained but not stupid eye. Yes of course crime is happening everywhere. But please don’t generalize north city to mean north county. It gives us an undeserved bad rap. It sounds like you are from south county (?) and I assure you where I live looks and feels JUST like the areas of soco I’ve been in except more racially diverse. And if you’ve noticed the bank and other robberies and thefts are happening all over now, even in SoCo and West County and Clayton…nowhere is immune anymore.
And provel is delicious I don’t care what anyone says. We buy it and use it at home too for cheese bread, pastas. And I also worked at Imo’s in high school. It was a great job. Cecil’s is better for wings than pizza, their pizza is bleh. I disliked Fortels and they shut down up here. STL Pizza & Wings is a similar joint my household likes for delivery. Mom n pop Italian joints have the best food/pizza though, just have to find your favorite.
lindsaybluth - check out CWE area, close to Forest Park off like DeBalivere etc. My friend had a 2 bdrm over there in a security building, gated parking, in building, laundry for a decent price, on a dead end street (no through traffic) at a good price point, maybe that area will have some 1 bdrms, and it’s down the road from WashU? No idea on building name though, but he lived in 2 different similar ones over in that area. Craigslist?
Just to follow up on this, I am constantly amazed at how intimidated St. Louis drivers are by rain. A little caution is called for in sub-optimal conditions, but today I was behind a guy on I-170 (a six lane highway with a 60mph limit) going 38. Seriously.
The Delmar Loop is a hot spot for Wash U housing, but chances are there will be a lot of undergrads. For Clayton, the DeMun area is nice and within walking distance of some decent coffee shops (particularly Kaldi’s) and restaurants (Sasha’s wine bar is always nice).
There are also some pretty decent apartments immediately east of campus in the Skinker/Waterman area. Not too far from campus, reasonable distance to the Loop, walkable distance to Forest Park. I lived there my senior year.
As far as gym facilities go, if he can’t find a building with a gym, there are workout facilities available at the Athletic Complex on campus (which is right next to the law school). It looks like membership for grad students is $55/year (link (pdf)). There’s also a pretty good gym (Club Fitness) on the Loop if he ends up in that area.
Seconded. The areas your SO is considering were mostly built up around the 1904 World’s Fair and shortly thereafter. Lots of comfortable, even stately, buildings, great neighborhoods. But not what he’s looking for.
He’ll find newer buildings with more amenities in Clayton, but at a correspondingly higher price.
Although St. Louisians are shocked – shocked – every time it rains and they’re expected to drive in it, that is as nothing compared to what happens when they see the sun.
I work in Sauget and live in Fenton; every day I’m driving East-West. If it’s not cloudy, I can’t take 44 or 55: sun in the east heading to work, sun in the west going home. And not one damn driver in all of St. Louis can put that together with driving at sunrise/sunset to wear some goddamn sunglasses.
Instead, they randomly slow down every time the highway curves back directly east or west, causing everyone to pile up behind them as they creep along until zooming away when the sun is not directly in their eyes.
OK, why is it that the Blues suck so bad that I never even realized it was a hockey team in St. Louis. Actually, somewhere in the back of my brain I would have guessed that it was a hockey team. Being a Kings fan, I thought I would’ve realized that Gretsky played for the Blues at some point in time. I guess not, until now.
It does seem like a nice place. People…talk a little slowly for my taste but they all seem extremely nice and there’s plenty to do.
Actually we’ve found 2 or 3 places with all of those “wants” at the price range in those areas, we were just looking for more input. I forgot to include that parking is extra too, so that changes the price a little as well. I assumed that if I, with only the internets could find 3 places in safe areas within 15 minutes of driving to the school that others could find many more. Gated parking and security is so important because there are insane numbers of car thefts. Many of the students we talked to have had their cars stolen or at least broken into. I’m living in an up-and-coming, trendy but gentrifying neighborhood next year but I’ve lived in this city for 5 years now. There’s no reason to roll the dice in a place you’re unfamiliar with.
This is very useful. Thank you! I’ve already written it down as a location we’ll check out.
Yeah, he’s not interested in the Loop w/ undergrads. He’s extremely quiet and wants a pretty quiet building. I’m taking note of DeMun as well as Club Fitness - thank you!
I dunno when you graduated, but the Athletic Complex is truly a piece of garbage now. We checked it out on visiting students’ weekend. I’m talking 1980’s gym funk smell to it, no ventilation to speak of. Easily the dirtiest gym I’ve ever been to in my life. Certain parts like the bball court and the climbing wall were nice but the weight room and the cardio room were small and truly filthy. I thought I was gonna get MRSA from walking around it. What was so bizarre is the rest of the campus is amazingly well maintained and flat-out gorgeous. The gym is this sad, neglected little thing.
For those of you who don’t like St. Louis pizza, there is an outstanding pizza place right here in Wellston. It is truly divine, name is a little crazy though, “Watchamoufs”…
Good Luck, you might have to move to the hood with that price limit. You could probably settle at the end of 170 somewhere (Florissant & Hazelwood)…
Which areas are you talking about specifically? What classifies as North City?
I’ve always looked at North City being Lucas & Hunt on down towards downtown but only on that side of 70. Do you consider Pine Lawn as North City?
I’m not sure about Baden though but I’m pretty sure Jennings is North County… Which is the same North County that has Ferguson, Florissant, Hazlewood, St. Ann. I’m guessing you live at the end of Halls Ferry or something but still, there is a highway everywhere you look and getting to North City doesn’t take too long for anywhere you may live in North County… 20 minutes isn’t a bad maximum time though…
These curves may not look like much on the map but in the real world, no one likes these damn curves especially in the rain… That highway sucks though, police posted all they way down to page, the damn Charlack automatic speed radar thing on the overpass, then you gotta deal with curves and people who need ritalin, people who are getting off merging from 70 who feel you have to get over IMMEDIATELY (yeah you), oh and lets not forget that hump (drop?) right behind Quit Trip in Berkeley (Frost) going towards 270, try speeding over that and your car will have a change of direction…
But nothing makes sense about your complaint, you had 6 lanes and you were stuck behind him long enough to match your speedometer with his? Surely there had to of been some traffic if you couldn’t get over… 38 though? You could of made a citizens arrest…
I know, right? That’s why it’s helpful to have someone take a more empirical approach. Like all those city rankings I linked to before. It helps to cut across the individual differences.
What amazes me is that every time I go back (pretty much annually, and in the summer too!) there’s always a whole new development, with a big box anchoring a collection of smaller stores. Even as other places stand empty, they seem to keep building new ones. Last year, I was over by Clayton at 141, and that’s being overdeveloped. How can that area support so much retail?
When I was growing up, we had Chesterfield Mall, and a Target, a K-Mart and Grandpa Pigeons. If you wanted hardware, you went to Central Hardware. If you wanted music, you went to Peaches. And we liked it!
In the early to mid 80’s, there was a small chain called Pantera’s, and they did this pizza that was thick and loaded with cheese. It was really good stuff, but I suppose ultimately in an Imo’s type town, they were ill-fated.
Nothing makes sense of your complaint. No, there is nothing remarkable or dangerous about any of the curves on 170, even in the rain. I’m talking about people going at least somewhere near the speed limit, not over, so I have no idea why you’re bringing police and speed cameras into it (especially speed cameras that no longer exist). To say nothing of the fact that I was at 170 and Forest Park which is quite a ways from the areas of your complaint.
And yes, believe it or not, it took me a while to find a space to get over into the next lane while being stuck behind a guy going under 40. Shocking that.
