I live in Kansas City (actually Overland Park - a Kansas suburb) but have visited St. Louis often.
There are more things to DO in SL like the arch, zoo, museums, botanical garden and such. Its also closer to Chicago. I think housing is a bit cheaper here though and less traffic. Most times you can get all around the KC metro area in 30 minutes.
Frankly if I had a choice of a town in Missouri I’d choose Springfield.
I’m not eminently qualified to answer this, as I’ve spent all of a grand total of a few hours in Kansas City, whereas I’ve spent much of my life within about 100 miles of St. Louis and spent quite a bit of time there.
To me, St. Louis is one of the most beautiful and amazing cities in the country. Yes, it has its issues, including godawful traffic, generations-old racial issues that have been coming to the surface with more frequently recently, and neighborhoods that you simply Do Not Go Into. But in the main, I think its positives outweigh its negatives.
In particular, you can’t go wrong at the Soulard Market when it comes to a wide variety of fresh, locally-sourced food. Right across the street is Bogart’s, which supposedly has some of the best BBQ in the world, as attested by the continuous line out the door (one of the reasons why I’ve never been there).
Also, within about an hour’s drive of the city’s suburbs are the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. If you’re into nature, hiking, boating, fishing, and that sort of thing, you’re in the right place. Kansas City, on the other hand, is on a flat plane surrounded by more flat.
Sadly, we here in Kansas City often travel to St. Louis for things to do.
Ever heard “nice place to visit but not a good place to live”. Kansas city is a nice place to live, bad place to visit.
Take this with a grain of salt.
I live just outside of St Louis but have worked in St Louis County most of my life. Of the four houses you posted, only the one on Gimblin is in St Louis City proper, (if it matters to you). The two on Corbitt are in University City, and the one on N Hanley is in Bel-Ridge, both of which are in St Louis County. Both towns are small municipalities located in St Louis County. One poster mentioned the 1% income tax of St Louis City, just to clarify that a little more, it’s 1% income tax if you live or work in St Louis City.
I know I’m local, but I really think the “racial divide” in this area is blown out of proportion. Sure we have had some issues that made the national news, but it has been my experience that as long as you don’t go looking for trouble, treat people like you want them to treat you, you won’t have any issues.
If it’s possible, try visiting the area(s) you are interested in and see it for yourself. The only caveat I would give you is that the homes you posted are older homes, so the chances of asbestos and lead paint are very high and may be a reason the prices are so low.
Everything’s up-to-date in Kansas City…
St. Louis has better pizza.
It’s been decades since I spent time in KC, and at the time I wasn’t concerned about taxes, schools, housing, and other adult issues. (I’m still not much concerned about taxes, and am a little puzzled by the OP’s emphasis on them, but that’s a sidetrack)
St. Louis seems more racially divided, and also more socially divided. It’s a older town with much more history and more “old money”. There are more lovely old buildings, but they are likely to be abandoned and neglected due to White Flight. There are more probably more tourist attractions in StL, but those don’t matter much unless you’re hosting company. StL is a very bad town for urban bicycling, with narrow irregular streets.
I prefer KC BBQ. It’s a signature city food in KC, and St. Louis doesn’t really have a matching feature (but probably has an overall better food scene, including Ted Drewes custard, and the Italian restaurants on The Hill. You won’t starve in either city.)
Toasted Ravioli!
Gooey butter cake!
Pig snoots!
-And provel cheese is a crime against cuisine.
A few general questions:
-Is the crime in saint Louis as bad as the stats suggest? According to the stats, St Louis has a similar violent crime rate and a much higher homicide rate than Detroit, a city renown for its violent crime.
I’ll have to take a road trip to St Louis one of these days. It’s nearly a 6 hour drive away, which is why I haven’t already.
I’ve talked to about 3 people who have visited both Kansas City and St Louis- they all said they preferred St Louis. One of them is my roommate, who is from St Louis, so he might be biased.
Boy, I’d hate to see how bad KC pizza is.
The problem with the crime rates is that St. Louis is an independent city - which means it’s basically its own very small county. So statistics for “St. Louis” only cover a small area. In other regions people might call that area the “inner city.”
So yes, there are a few bad neighborhoods in the City, and because the City is small, that skews the statistics. But even in the bad neighborhoods, most of the crime is drug/gang related and not “random.”
While I’m here, I’ll even stick up for St. Louis traffic. It’s really only godawful on the I-70/I-64/I-270 triangle (and around the Mississippi River bridges) during rush hours. When I worked in south St. Louis and lived in Kirkwood, I skipped the highways, drove the pre-WW2 city streets, and made it to and from work in 20 minutes. Everyone knows a shortcut to everywhere.
You have to be very careful with crime stats for St. Louis. As has been mentioned, Greater St. Louis is balkanized into a bunch of itty-bitty municipalities around the City. Crime stats are usually reported for the “Greater St. Louis Area” – and then sometimes applied to the population of the City of St. Louis, which ridiculously inflates the apparent per capita crime rate. There are sections of the St. Louis area that are higher-crime, generally economically disadvantaged and racially segregated because of StL’s bad race history stuff. There are also sections that are quite low-crime, generally economically expensive and racially segregated bastions of white flight.
Most of the places you’re likely to live or work won’t be at either extreme. And some of this is exaggerated – I work at a chemical plant in Sauget IL, just next to East St. Louis. It’s regarded as a high crime, low rent area, but I don’t feel at risk going out for lunch. Lots of drunks wandering home from the strip bars, though, and cars in parking lots being broken into in broad daylight isn’t uncommon.
It is possible to bike around St. Louis… if you’re nuts. Narrow twisty roads aren’t uncommon, and bike lanes are rare. Lots of rivers and highways make bridges chokepoints, so you need to plan your route for one that’s safe for bikers to share with traffic. Hills, hills everywhere. And it would not be unlikely that your job isn’t going to be close to your residence. One of our lab techs, in years past, would bike from South County to IL for work – that drive takes me 30+ minutes in a car. Nuts. Biking in St. Louis is better suited for recreation than for transport – there are some great bike trails like the Katy Trail which are good day trips.
I haven’t biked around KC much, but the streets seem more bike-friendly, flatter, and not chopped up by as many waterways.
edit: to add to kunilou on traffic, AVOID Manchester road, particularly out past Kirkwood on to Wildwood. It’s a parking lot. But for natives, our rule of thumb is “it takes 20 minutes to get anywhere in St. Louis”. No matter how close, or how far. If you’re taking those major highways, tack on 10-20 minutes traffic time.
Amen to that.
To the OP, I’ve got fairly limited experience with KC, but moved to St. Louis about 20 years ago. It’s a nice town. The county has some decent neighborhoods, but if you’re single, certain pockets in the city are really interesting. Plus, if you work downtown and have access to the MetroLink, you’d have cheap public transport. Living outside city limits generally does require a car.
Several major corporations have their corporate HQs out here; there are lots of tech sector jobs. Entry level seems harder to come by. It’s probably a good idea to drive out and visit for as long as you can in each town and figure out which one feels right-est to you.
I grew up in South County and lived there till my early 20’s.
(Not to confuse but St Louis is it’s own county. St. Louis County surrounds St. Louis in the Missouri side of the Mississippi. St. Louis County holds most of the population in that metro area.)
I’ve been in the Kansas City metro area the 40 years since then. I visit St. Louis often to visit family and friends.
I think, given your priorities list, either town would have the same benefits.
My personal and anecdotal observations.
If you are a sports fan you can become one of the St Louis rabid crowd that lives and dies by Cardinal baseball. It puts the fan in fanatical. They also have the Blues pro Hockey team if you like that. If you’re a pro football fan fan too bad. They can’t hang on to a team. Div 1 college sports is within easy enough drive to Illinois or Mizzou.
In Kansas City you have a pro Baseball team in the Royals. Not a dynasty like St. Louis but still has a venue. They also have pro football which I would say has a more fanatical following. Only Hockey is semi pro. KC area has a speedway that holds NASCAR and Indycar events. Div 1 college sports is Mizzou, Kansas, Kansas State, Nebraska all within 3 hour drives. KU is a perennial basketball power.
I raised a family in an outer suburb of KC and have no regrets. It’s not hard to find affordable housing and good schools in the same area. I love KC BBQ. There are 6 different kinds within 20 minutes of my house and it’s hard to decide sometimes. I miss South St. Louis Pizza (Cusanelli’s) and the Hill restaurants although one local one in KC has brought the Hill style with them. For years I missed Ted Drewes frozen custard in St Louis but KC now has a few good creameries that compete.
Both cites get top level entertainment acts to visit so you have a good chance of concerts by your favorite artists.
I think that car travel around KC is easier than St. Louis but St. Louis has an adequate mass transit. KC is more spread out than St. Louis which you may not appreciate if you want to live somewhere that is convenient for pedestrian and bicycle traffic. Still some pedestrian/bike areas of the metro can be found. Both cities still have major arteries that clog up during rush hour.
I got more but right now I’m out of time.
Not unless St. Louis got a Minsky’s Pizza of their own.
I’m not going to recalculate the numbers, but I did it once before. There are more former big league baseball players who died in St. Louis than any other city, even more than the five boroughs of New York. This is a testimony to the fact that ballplayers who wind up playing part of their career with St. Louis, love the city so much that they make it their permanent home and die there. The raw data can be found here: Player Place of Birth and Death | Baseball-Reference.com