Moving to St Louis...... (St. Louis, Florissant: middle-class, section 8, salon)

[fo25144]

My family is moving to STL area soon. I will be working at Barnes-Jewish hopsital in STL and my husband will be working south, in Crystal City, MO. We are wondering if anyone has any opinion on the most academically rigorous, diverse private schools in the area. Our kids are 8 and 4 yrs. We are not sure where to live either. We are both black from Africa and will prefer to live in a diverse neighborhood. Driving distance or home costs are not a big issue.
I appreciate your opinion on schools and areas to live...........

[billiken]

In terms of living, University City is about as diverse as it gets in the St Louis region. Hazelwood and Florissant are also popular options for middle-class black people in my experience--although that's in the opposite direction of your husband's job. You could also check out Tower Grove South in the city. I'm fairly clueless on elementary schools that could be considered diverse--though I would check out this thread for some discussion of excellent private schools in the area: Best Private Schools in St. Louis?

You should be aware that Catholic education is very popular in St Louis--I think the thread linked above does a good job of seperating out the Catholic and non-religious schools.

[Richmond_Heights_Fella]

Crystal City is probably a half hour south of St. Louis in good traffic. I wouldn't recommend anything in south County (southern St. Louis County) or Jefferson County if you want to live in a diverse area. There is nothing wrong with living in those places, just very suburban and there is not a lot in the way of diversity.

You should take a good look at south St. Louis City. Plenty of excellent, diverse neighborhoods. Also check out University City.

[fo25144]

thanks a mill! do you have any idea of how far university city will be from jefferson memorial hopsital in crystal city in traffic, it looks like it might be too far of a drive, do you folks know much about other good diverse middle-high class areas that might be in between?

[flynavyj]

To really find "middle" ground you're going to be on the far southern edges of St. Louis, or St. Louis County. There are plenty of nice middle class neighborhoods down that way, however they'll typically be lacking in diversity. You have the ability to stay in South City, however the homes there are typically small, and affordable...not large, and lavish. If you dig a little further into South City you might be able to come up with some nicely renovated two families that have been converted to single family, and as such have significantly more space than most South City homes...

Depending on how long you're willing to commute, downtown to Crystal City is only showing about 45 minutes, and those times are typically pretty liberal. If you're down in Arnold (about 15 minutes closer) you'd be looking at ~ 30 minute commutes. Depending on when the commute is taken will really make the difference on traffic. The traffic will never be as bad as some other cities, however it will be noticable if you're leaving the city and heading towards Crystal City at evening rush hour...if you're leaving the city and going towards Crystal City during the morning rush hour, and returning closer to the evening rush hour it really won't be bad as your commute will be opposite of the major inflow of motorists. (Most traffic is towards the city during the day, and away from the city at night).

If you're other half is ok with a 40-45 minute commute, i'd recommend any location close to I-55. Maybe Soulard, Benton Park, or even better than either Lafayette Square. You can even get remarkable bank for your buck in Compton Heights off Grand Ave. It's just off I-44, and would be a couple minute drive to I-55, but even still won't add much to your commute...and driving 5-10 mph over the speedlimit won't draw you any attention, and will cut several minutes off your drive.

[wustu87]

Webster Groves near I-44 would be a reasonable commute to Crystal City (44 to 270 to 55 all interstate). It's a great area and you could even consider the public schools there since they are very strong academically and actually fairly diverse (more diverse than most of the mid-county private schools). The more racially mixed neighborhoods of the school district are unfortunately on the northern side of Webster into Rock Hill and further from 44, but even central and southern Webster are accepting and somewhat diverse (although not nearly as mixed as someplace like University City).

[Chicago76]

Our family was in a similar position a few months ago. My wife is an MD at Glennon, I'm in finance, and we are of different races with a biracial child. We wanted a diverse area in the city proper with a sizeable professional class but with some economic diversity as well.

Looking strictly at places that are somewhere between BJC and Jefferson, certain parts of south city may fit the bill for you. There aren't really any areas that I would term "diverse" in the part of St. Louis county between Jefferson Hosp and BJC. Good elementary schools in the S city area:

-St. Margaret of Scotland, which is the first (and possibly only) parochial school awarded the national blue ribbon for excellence in the St. Louis area.

-Kennard Classical Junior Academy, which is a public magnet for gifted children. Testing and application required, and selection based upon lottery. It will be tough considering you're not here yet and the applications are due in the next couple of weeks. Also: getting your 8 year old in may be difficult as most of the kids enter as 4 and 5 year olds and hang on to those spots for dear life through 5th grade graduation. There are very few spots available for new kids entering in the middle of the K-5 cycle.

As far as neighborhoods go, most of the neighborhoods can be broken into a few categories:

-solidly middle class, but not very diverse (SW part of the city)
-middle/working class areas that are predominantly white
-working class/poor areas that are predominantly black
-neighborhoods somewhere in the process of gentrification, some further along than others, with varying degrees of diversity. These include Lafayette Square, Soulard, Benton Park, Tower Grove, Shaw, etc.

The most diverse area within the latter group is probably the Tower Grove Heights section of Tower Grove S (the area between Gustine and Grand immediately south of Tower Grove Park). Courtesy of US census: 63% white, 21% black, 5% Hispanic, 8% Asian, 3% multiracial. The greater area from Morganford to Grand, Arsenal to Utah is pretty much the same.

The other area that I might term diverse is Benton Park. It's roughly 60-65% white, 30% black, with smaller portions of Hispanic, Asian, and multiracial populations. Benton Park gives your husband a better commute than Tower Grove by maybe 5-10 minutes: he would jump on 55 at Arsenal and head directly south. Door to door, it's maybe 45 minutes.

Both neighborhoods have a strong middle class presence (with Tower Grove Heights being the more established of the two), but they aren't uniformly middle class. Within a couple of blocks, you'll find: an established professional couple making $200,000+ a year, a retiree on a fixed income, two 20 somethings right out of school living modestly, a poor family living in Section 8 subsidized housing, a wealthy retiree living in the nicest home on the block, a working/middle class couple with 2 kids living on 50 to 100K per year, a divorcee school teacher raising her kids alone, and a vacant boarded up home with no one living in it....you get the idea.

One unfortunate thing is that there is a fair amount of economic and racial segregation in STL. A byproduct of this is that a significant number of the African American community living in S. City are displaced poor from N. City that left neighborhoods that were in complete disarray. Unfortunately, even in these diverse neighborhoods, there is a very perceptible class difference. The white population tends to be more heavily skewed toward working and professional class households, while the African American population tends to have many more poor living in section 8. I mention this, because I think social class is probably more determinitive of your kids' friends than race, and the professional class in these neighborhoods is skewed more heavily white. If I were to guess, the AA community in these two neighborhoods is probably 40%-50% poor, 30-40% working, 15-20% professional and the white community is probably 10% poor, 30% working, 60% professional. Other races tend to either be professional families working at places like BJC or immigrant families who own the ethnic restaurant or nail salon on the neighborhood.

St. Margaret is pretty aggressive about maintaining some semblance of racial and economic diversity to combat the economic segregation, so you will see a lot of bright kids at the lower end of the economic ladder who are motivated to do the work of all races sitting alongside kids from more privileged backgrounds.

One more thought: if you're looking for a suburban oasis in the city, I'd suggest Compton Heights, which is north of Tower Grove. It's probably uniformly more middle class than the other two, but it doesn't seem to me to be quite as diverse. The middle class in Compton Heights probably is more diverse, however.

A short photo essay of all three places to give you an idea of what they look like:

http://www.stlouiscitytalk.com/2010/...ghborhood.html

St. Louis City Talk: The Tower Grove South Neighborhood

St. Louis City Talk: Compton Heights Neighborhood

Regardless of where you decide, I'd encourage you guys to rent for a year before buying. St. Louis is a bit quirky in that good neighborhoods seem to run into bad ones very, very quickly. Between my wife and I, we've lived in LA, NYC, London, Chicago, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis (prior to our move back to STL). We both agree the St. Louis neighborhoods are harder to "get a handle on" than anywhere else we've lived, so it really helps to experience them firsthand before buying.

[stlcitygirl]

^ Good breakdown, however I wouldn't call Compton Heights middle class. I would say the cheapest house you could find will run you about $500,000. You may be confusing it with Compton Heights (to the North) or Tower Grove East (To the South)

[Chicago76]

Originally Posted by stlcitygirl

^ Good breakdown, however I wouldn't call Compton Heights middle class. I would say the cheapest house you could find will run you about $500,000. You may be confusing it with Compton Heights (to the North) or Tower Grove East (To the South)

Class and income are separate things, which is why an economist uses the term middle or upper income while a sociologist uses middle or upper class. I kind of assumed that the OP was after the latter because they mentioned they wanted a middle class neighborhood w/ price not being an issue. Class is more about shared values in terms of vocation, education, shared culture, etc.

Underclass: HS dropouts with minimal job opportunities outside of manual labor and unskilled work.

Working class: HS grads often with trade or technical accreditation, paraprofessional degrees, etc. Think administrative assistants/clerical work, tradesmen, manufacturing jobs, bank tellers, etc. Worker bees with generally low work autonomy. You could even be a contractor pulling in over a million a year and still be working class in many ways.

Middle class: families that generally have one or more college grads and often advanced degrees. Social workers scraping by on 20K to partners at law firms.

Upper class: generally families with a huge amount of multigenerational wealth. The guy that gets into Burroughs or MICDS not because he's really bright, but because his daddy and granddaddy went there. They might be extraordinarily bright, but they're going to a prestigious school on their last name regardless. Busch, Danforth, etc. People with significant political clout. If you make more money on your inherited stock portfolio than you pull in on your 6 or 7 figure job as an attorney most years, and if your grandparents' name is etched in bronze on the armrest of a seat at the opera house, this is probably you.

It's a bit ambiguous. Guys like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Mark Cuban are mega rich, but they have a lot of middle class values too.

CH is an upper middle, but a middle class neighborhood generally with a couple of well connected families in the area, no doubt.

FWIW on home prices there, listings within Compton Heights neighborhood boundary right now:

2 properties between 325 and 375 between 2700 and 3500 sq feet that appear to be in solid shape, 2 more in the 500s, 1 in the 600s, and 1 in the 800s.

Those are only asking prices, so there's a chance that over 1/2 of the homes available right now in the area could be had for less than 500K.

[flynavyj]

Not to mention the compton heights home needing rehab for 145k...looked earlier today to get a better feel for prices...but you could EASILY get in for 350-400k and i work with numerous individuals who've spent that on their upper end suburban home!