What's going on in Ballwin ? (Springfield, St. Charles: sales, apartment complex, lease)

[MUTGR]

Originally Posted by zach_33

Yeah, the OP frames the question as if they are a racist, but I wouldn't be surprised if Ballwin is becoming poorer and more diverse. Economically speaking, people will seek out the best life they can attain for whatever amount of money they can afford. Ballwin is relatively inexpensive for southwest county. The schools are still good. You can conveniently get to Target or Wal*Mart or Home Depot to buy cheaply manufactured stuff made in China or get in your car to drive to your fast food restaurant of choice, all at an extremely low cost. If that's not the lifestyle for you, don't move there. I sort of see most of suburbia this way-- inevitably, 10, maybe 20 years down the road people of lower income strata will come moving in to all these areas. They will be mostly poor, non-white and non-Christian, so you better get used to it.

I can't speak to the ethnic diversity of Ballwin, or the lack thereof, but the housing stock is among the oldest of west county. Some of it is surprisingly small and getting a bit shabby, so it is going to cost less and get lower income folks compared to the "newer" burbs. Kirkwood, my home town, is considered an affluent burb and you might be shocked at some of the housing here.

[ll0OoO0ll]

Originally Posted by JoeyChamp

well this thread tells me all I need to know about race relations in St. Louis. Won't be moving there. Later folks.

Please don't interpret the thread that way.
Currently I live in New York City which is perhaps one of the world's most diversified cities. I have no problem with race, color, religion, gender, or ethnicity and I am all for diversity BUT if the diversity brings increased crime rate, unsafe neighborhoods for my kids and decreased value in my assets then you can keep it.

Back in 2009, Ballwin featured in money magazine's top 100 cities to live in USA, and now it's no where near to that list. Being a Ballwin resident I think I do have a right to be curious and find out how did it happen and what can be done to resurrect it to a point where I get the sense of assurance of raising my kids in a safe and pleasant environment.

[flynavyj]

Originally Posted by ll0OoO0ll

Please don't interpret the thread that way.
Currently I live in New York City which is perhaps one of the world's most diversified cities. I have no problem with race, color, religion, gender, or ethnicity and I am all for diversity BUT if the diversity brings increased crime rate, unsafe neighborhoods for my kids and decreased value in my assets then you can keep it.

Back in 2009, Ballwin featured in money magazine's top 100 cities to live in USA, and now it's no where near to that list. Being a Ballwin resident I think I do have a right to be curious and find out how did it happen and what can be done to resurrect it to a point where I get the sense of assurance of raising my kids in a safe and pleasant environment.

So I decided to use the demographics data on this site to see what's happening the demographics in Ballwin...For the most part, the African American population in Ballwin has increased by only a couple of percent since 2000, roughly 2%, while the white population in Ballwin has decreased by approximately 4-5%. The largest pockets where African Americans have moved in, appear to be East of 141 and South of Manchester, bordered to the East by Weidman Rd, and the area just West of 141, East of Burwick and North of Big Bend (even though this may not be Ballwin anymore).

Essentially, based on the data, there isn't a very large increase in the black population, however there is a slightly more substantial decrease in the white population.

Median household values appear to have increased by ~10% since 2000. I don't see any information regarding the crime indexes for the area, if you're curious I'm sure you can find those details yourself. But examining the poverty levels, the largest group of people below that level are in the 1st area I described South of Manchester, East of 141, West of Weidman...this also is directly across the street from the Walmart, and has the largest increase of African Americans...If memory serves me correct, this area houses a lot of apartment complexes, which are likely low income properties. And might explain why you saw a significant population of African Americans at Walmart directly across the street.

As an aside, I don't think this small little pocket will do anything to effect the home values for Ballwin, as most residential properties are located in other areas away from this small enclave. And it definitely didn't kick Ballwin off the top 100 places to live list, best guess, the criteria to get on the list has either changed, or the competition has increased...If Ballwin city leadership was striving to get you on, or keep you on that list, they'd be promoting efforts to do just that, and the residents would as well.

[AJohnston_STL]

Originally Posted by billiken

Exactly. Embaressing.

As embarrassing as you misspelling embarrassing?

[AJohnston_STL]

This is one of the dumbest threads I've come across on this forum..and that's saying a lot.

First of all, the crime index for Ballwin per city-data.com was 65.1 in 2011. It has dropped every year since 2008, but hasn't been over 100 since 1999. By comparison, the crime index was lower in 2011 in Ballwin than it was in Town & Country, Ladue, and Chesterfield - 3 cities with insanely low crime rates.

Race in Ballwin: According again to City-Data, Ballwin is 87.7% white and 2.4% black. Yeah, it's a regular ol' chocolate city like New Orleans (Google it).

Why, again, are we even entertaining the questions/comments posed by the OP?

[marigolds6]

You cannot take crime indexes of individual St Louis County cities in comparison. They are only useful for internal comparison of the same city from year to year.

[Caesarstl]

Originally Posted by JoeyChamp

well this thread tells me all I need to know about race relations in St. Louis. Won't be moving there. Later folks.

Really? This says quite a bit about your reasoning ability as well... Deduction... induction... Hmm...

[Chicago76]

Originally Posted by marigolds6

You cannot take crime indexes of individual St Louis County cities in comparison. They are only useful for internal comparison of the same city from year to year.

You can compare across municipalities/neighborhoods but only up to a certain point. The problem is that people like to fixate on a single "magic number" without putting things in context. Areas with large concentrations of retail, nightlife and employment tend to have exaggerated crime rates because there are more people interacting in those areas than a standard bedroom community with a few strip malls.

To make any sort of useful comparison, one needs to find another community/neighborhood with a similar mix of these things. To use STL city neighborhoods as an example: without making these sort of careful comparisons, someone would assume that DT and DT west are two of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city, or someone would assume that Soulard is more dangerous than the Gate District. They aren't.

[silibran]

Originally Posted by MUTGR

I can't speak to the ethnic diversity of Ballwin, or the lack thereof, but the housing stock is among the oldest of west county. Some of it is surprisingly small and getting a bit shabby, so it is going to cost less and get lower income folks compared to the "newer" burbs. Kirkwood, my home town, is considered an affluent burb and you might be shocked at some of the housing here.

Kirkwood's housing stock is pretty old.

[marigolds6]

Originally Posted by Chicago76

You can compare across municipalities/neighborhoods but only up to a certain point. The problem is that people like to fixate on a single "magic number" without putting things in context. Areas with large concentrations of retail, nightlife and employment tend to have exaggerated crime rates because there are more people interacting in those areas than a standard bedroom community with a few strip malls.

To make any sort of useful comparison, one needs to find another community/neighborhood with a similar mix of these things. To use STL city neighborhoods as an example: without making these sort of careful comparisons, someone would assume that DT and DT west are two of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city, or someone would assume that Soulard is more dangerous than the Gate District. They aren't.

It is more than that. Each city individually makes the determination of how to count crimes. Although state law dictates some aspects, there is an enormous amount of variability from city to city. And remember, crime reporting is voluntary in the first place. A lot was made out of St Louis City's decision to count multiple incidents as a single incident (e.g. 20 car breakins in one location because a single theft from motor vehicle incident instead of 20 separate), but nearly all other cities in the region had always been reporting crime this way.
Burglaries can be initially reported as vandalism, aggravated assault as simple assault, robberies to larcenies, larcenies to missing property. The prosecutor can upgrade those charges later, but the crime reports stay at the lower crime level. It all depends on how individual cities process their reports.