Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The problem is most of us would consider many of those areas ghetto. Every midsized city has strips like Cherokee...that is VERY run down and you sent the best block.
Take Grand Center...cool area around the Fox then go 3 blocks north and there is urban prairie, shuttered 1960 ghetto gas stations, and homeless and hookers everywhere. These poor cities like STL have seen much better days and there is just too much to clean up!
Soulard is the best gem and the most cleaned up IMO.
Talk about over dramatizing something. The only area in actual bad shape is the northern portion of Grand Center, but considering the neighborhood's rebirth as an arts district and SLU's continued building campaign, the northern section of the neighborhood will likely turn around sooner rather than later.
The rest of the areas are fine. The streetview of The Grove, for example, being from summer 2017 is already out of date due to the infill that's been taking place.
You're also kidding yourself if you think KCMO doesn't have racial issues or crime. The difference is that it annexed its way to being a geographically large city, whereas the original core's history isn't far off from what happened to St. Louis. Ignoring KCMO's history would be about as useful as people pretending all of St. Louis' issues will go away by merging with the county because that will take the city off all of those crime lists.
Talk about over dramatizing something. The only area in actual bad shape is the northern portion of Grand Center, but considering the neighborhood's rebirth as an arts district and SLU's continued building campaign, the northern section of the neighborhood will likely turn around sooner rather than later.
The rest of the areas are fine. The streetview of The Grove, for example, being from summer 2017 is already out of date due to the infill that's been taking place.
You're also kidding yourself if you think KCMO doesn't have racial issues or crime. The difference is that it annexed its way to being a geographically large city, whereas the original core's history isn't far off from what happened to St. Louis. Ignoring KCMO's history would be about as useful as people pretending all of St. Louis' issues will go away by merging with the county because that will take the city off all of those crime lists.
You're creating a false equivalency. Using hyperbolic statements to undermine an argument is weak. You really believe that St. Louis and Kansas City are equal in terms of racial issues, crime, run down areas?
Metro KC has a higher crime rate than Metro STL. The city has a slightly higher body count for the year at 36 STL at 34.
Racial issues I can't comment on because I haven't had the experience in KC.
I know people like to use city stats to compare safety of an area and that isn't always apple to apples.
I would agree that the area from the Plaza to DT KC is very nice. Both cities are very under rated and have a lot going for them. There is nothing wrong with preferring KC over STL.
Recall my remarking on the significance of Troost Avenue?
Race relations in Kansas City are fairly harmonious but the city is very segregated; Mayor Sly James was quoted in The New York Times a few years back as saying black and white Kansas City were like a cohabiting couple who slept in separate rooms but were reluctant to head to the altar.
On my last visit back home, last year, the city had just instituted a ban on car traffic in the heart of Westport, the city's chief entertainment district, from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. on weekend nights because the crowds were getting out of hand. They also set up barrier fencing on the streets for one block in each direction from Pennsylvania Avenue and Westport Road and checked ID of all who entered the zone.
Some incidents of crime in the Plaza also set some local teeth on edge the year prior.
Since you saw shots of St. Louis' more urbane neighborhoods, here are some of Kansas City's. I'm going to include one of the East Side's main commercial thoroughfare, Prospect Avenue, just to show you what my hometown's "ghetto" areas look like. But I'll start with that central intersection in Westport. The building I have the view oriented towards is Kelly's Tavern, the oldest building standing in Kansas City, built in 1855:
The Country Club Plaza is the nation's oldest planned shopping center (begun 1921) and the city's toniest shopping district. Its Moorish Revival architecture is also distinctive:
*The Rev. Emmanuel Cleaver II was Kansas City's first black mayor. Sly James, the current mayor, is its second.
Kansas City doesn't have a district of midrise apartment and office buildings like Grand Center in St. Louis; Broadway and Armour boulevards come closest:
But speaking of boulevards: Kansas City's boulevards are among the most beautiful residential thoroughfares in the country. Even in the not-so-nice neighborhoods, they look pretty:
And I haven't even shown you Cliff Drive yet. This road that hugs the bluff overlooking the Missouri River floodplain on the city's north side is the only scenic byway in Missouri that's located in an urban area.
Maybe I haven't shown you much urbanity, but since Kansas City's boulevards are linear parks (they're part of the park system), I'm not sure I'd say with confidence that St. Louis has better parks.
Recall my remarking on the significance of Troost Avenue?
Race relations in Kansas City are fairly harmonious but the city is very segregated; Mayor Sly James was quoted in The New York Times a few years back as saying black and white Kansas City were like a cohabiting couple who slept in separate rooms but were reluctant to head to the altar.
On my last visit back home, last year, the city had just instituted a ban on car traffic in the heart of Westport, the city's chief entertainment district, from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. on weekend nights because the crowds were getting out of hand. They also set up barrier fencing on the streets for one block in each direction from Pennsylvania Avenue and Westport Road and checked ID of all who entered the zone.
Some incidents of crime in the Plaza also set some local teeth on edge the year prior.
Since you saw shots of St. Louis' more urbane neighborhoods, here are some of Kansas City's. I'm going to include one of the East Side's main commercial thoroughfare, Prospect Avenue, just to show you what my hometown's "ghetto" areas look like. But I'll start with that central intersection in Westport. The building I have the view oriented towards is Kelly's Tavern, the oldest building standing in Kansas City, built in 1855:
The Country Club Plaza is the nation's oldest planned shopping center (begun 1921) and the city's toniest shopping district. Its Moorish Revival architecture is also distinctive:
*The Rev. Emmanuel Cleaver II was Kansas City's first black mayor. Sly James, the current mayor, is its second.
Kansas City doesn't have a district of midrise apartment and office buildings like Grand Center in St. Louis; Broadway and Armour boulevards come closest:
But speaking of boulevards: Kansas City's boulevards are among the most beautiful residential thoroughfares in the country. Even in the not-so-nice neighborhoods, they look pretty:
And I haven't even shown you Cliff Drive yet. This road that hugs the bluff overlooking the Missouri River floodplain on the city's north side is the only scenic byway in Missouri that's located in an urban area.
Maybe I haven't shown you much urbanity, but since Kansas City's boulevards are linear parks (they're part of the park system), I'm not sure I'd say with confidence that St. Louis has better parks.
Kansas City has a lot to offer in my opinion. My preference for STL is due to the fact of familiarity and it feels more like a large city. It is strange how some of the pictures remind me of neighborhoods in St. Louis like the Grove and Bevo.
You're also kidding yourself if you think KCMO doesn't have racial issues or crime. The difference is that it annexed its way to being a geographically large city, whereas the original core's history isn't far off from what happened to St. Louis.
This is true.
Had Kansas City remained within its post-World War I boundaries, its population would be somewhere around 200,000 now, maybe even lower - much of the old black residential district east of Troost from 12th Street south to 31st has reverted to prairie much as St. Louis' north side has.
But I do think that race relations are better in Kansas City than they are in St. Louis. I attribute the difference to the Pendergast machine. Granted, it didn't allow blacks to hold elective office either, but it did court black votes in a way St. Louis' political leadership did not. On the contrary, that city, in a more Southern fashion, tried to freeze blacks out of the political system.
I remember hearing stories as I was researching a college paper I never wrote from blacks who lived in the emptied-out area describing how the Pendergast ward heeler would come by with turkeys on Thanksgiving. One of the schools in the black middle-class district that was named for (Sen. Thomas Hart) Benton when it opened in 1903 was renamed for the Rev. D.A. Holmes, a local minister who played a key role in mobilizing blacks for the Pendergast organization.
I don't mean to imply by all this that KC had no racial strife; after all, part of the East Side went up in flames after Martin Luther King's assassination, and many blacks were incensed that Gov. Warren Hearnes sent the Missouri National Guard to the Plaza instead of to the riot zone. But KC has now elected two black mayors and elected its first two years before St. Louis did. St. Louis, I think, still has yet to elect its second.
So 2/14 areas i listed, have areas around them that aren't that nice? Pretty high percentage there. In another 5-7 years the area around Cherokee will be much improved, north Grand Center may still be rough.
No more than that are rough. Even Tower Grove is sketchy in many parts and its very block by block. I mean STL has the LOOK of a big city like Chicago in those neighborhoods but not nearly the vibrancy. Even Indianapolis has more vibrant areas that don't get credit like Fountain Square which is like a more vibrant Tower Grove. Granted the urban look is not as cool but safety and functionality wise to a young urban millennial, its better living in Fountain Square in Indy vs Tower Grove in STL (more basic amenities nearby too like urban Whole Foods)....thats why Indy is growing those area and STL is not. Same can be said for lots of mid sized cities.
No more than that are rough. Even Tower Grove is sketchy in many parts and its very block by block. I mean STL has the LOOK of a big city like Chicago in those neighborhoods but not nearly the vibrancy. Even Indianapolis has more vibrant areas that don't get credit like Fountain Square which is like a more vibrant Tower Grove. Granted the urban look is not as cool but safety and functionality wise to a young urban millennial, its better living in Fountain Square in Indy vs Tower Grove in STL (more basic amenities nearby too like urban Whole Foods)....thats why Indy is growing those area and STL is not. Same can be said for lots of mid sized cities.
Why do you care what someone says on an Internet forum? Not coming down on you at all I just see this trend over and over. Just put them on ignore. Unless you like to argue with strangers, you’re probably not going to change anyone’s mind. I live in the NY area and if something insulting is said I really don’t care. Just my .02.
No more than that are rough. Even Tower Grove is sketchy in many parts and its very block by block. I mean STL has the LOOK of a big city like Chicago in those neighborhoods but not nearly the vibrancy. Even Indianapolis has more vibrant areas that don't get credit like Fountain Square which is like a more vibrant Tower Grove. Granted the urban look is not as cool but safety and functionality wise to a young urban millennial, its better living in Fountain Square in Indy vs Tower Grove in STL (more basic amenities nearby too like urban Whole Foods)....thats why Indy is growing those area and STL is not. Same can be said for lots of mid sized cities.
Are we doing this again? At least it's better than the Hill comparison last time... what is it with cherry picking one of Indy's best against any random St. Louis neighborhood? Seems to me that's a point for St. Louis if posters have to keep doing that... St. Louis has way more livable urban hoods than Indy and you know it.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
