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.
Correct. You're in the transition zone in those places. Along US 50 mid MO and south of St. Louis. A mix of Midwest and south blend that gets more southern the more south you go until you're around Rolla and then it pretty much is southern south of Rolla. St. Louis is the southernmost big Midwest city that is just outside the transition zone.
I grew up in St. Louis but I've also lived in Houston, and on the east coast near D.C. and St. Louis does give a more "east coast" vibe. I've had friends from New York that say the Central West End near Forest Park reminds them of upper Manhattan and the rest of the city feels like Brooklyn. After visiting New York, I'd have to agree with them. St. Louis is definitely the last" Eastern City," headed west.
It's not the city that holds up well as much as it is the Metropolitan area at large. St. Louis ranks 20th in metro populations. And the city doesn't do too bad. It recently landed a 1.7 billion deal with NGA to build it's headquarters in N. St. Louis, working on a bid to land Amazon's 2nd headquarters. Just landed it's first trans-Atlantic flight since the days of TWA, still holds 9 Fortune 500 companies, so for a city that's lost a lot of it's population, it still seems to maintain a national presence.
I cannot find ChicagoBear's original post. Just wanted to say "and here I always thought St Louis reminded me of Chicago. Not its physical layout so much as its atmosphere. And, yes, definitely an eastern tone to it.
I agree that a newcomer's reaction to St Louis has a lot to do with where they came from. "Wherever you go, there you are." My biggest problem with St Louis is that I can't find my way around in it. I've not yet figured out what my confusion is. So I blame it on the winding roads and call a cab. My problem with the newcomers (and I am one of those) is their constant harping that St Louisians are unfriendly. I find them to be much more friendly than people in Kansas City or Indianapolis, for example. Not that those are actually unfriendly. They are just more reserved. They don't see you. Here it seems like every stranger who passes has a smile and a 'hi'.
St Louis is not one of my favourite cities but it is certainly an open, welcoming city. I'm thinking you have to be a Cardinals fan and love beer to be happy here. :-)
New York? I lived in New York City all through the war years and I'd never see St Louis as a copy of New York City. You have me thinking on that one.
I think that's a pretty fair assessment. Having lived in 3 Midwestern cities and having been to all of them:
-Chicago: definite sense of place. On another level compared to other Midwestern cities. A lot of the history has been removed with all of the new development. The Twin Cities are similar in terms of the latter.
-Detroit: more of an automobile era city. Far less of it has a 19th Century feel and far more of it has the 1930s to 50s feel you get in areas of STL like southwest city.
-Milwaukee and Cleveland: feel like smaller versions of STL. The historic feel is different though because both have far less brick/stone architecture, which is something we associate with large older urban areas.
-KC/Columbus/Indy: different feel altogether. They are "newer". One (Indy) less urban than the other 2.
-STL/Pittsburgh/Cincinnati: the trio that feel more connected to their past to me. Pittsburgh is sorta MW. Has less of the brick thing, but is more dense. The neighborhoods definitely feel as if you stepped back in time.
Same with Cincinnati. Smaller than STL, and they have more modern infill, but not so much that it takes away from the historic qualities. It's smaller than STL, but in some ways it has a more comprehensive old urban feel. The didn't lose as much in the core of the city itself (think their equivalent of Downtown to CWE), so those areas tend to blend together better and feel more "complete". Over the Rhine and its surrounding areas IMO feel more old/East Coast than any other neighborhood in the MW.
There are valid reasons that any of those 3 could be called more historic/older in feeling than the other 2.
Growing up in St. Louis, it felt like the city, (at least in the Central West End, Clayton, Ladue) was sort of an East Coast colony. Wash U was founded by Eliot of Massachusetts. The private school grads from Country Day and Burroughs historically went to Ivy League schools. People vacationed on Nantucket (in addition to Charlevoix and Harbor Springs in Michigan). There were people from New York, Connecticut, and Philadelphia who moved to St. Louis when they married people from St. Louis and they fit right in. I knew a guy from Des Moines who said that St. Louis felt more like an East Coast city than a Midwestern one.
Last edited by chicagobear; 09-11-2017 at 08:55 AM..
There is a wealth of history in St Louis city. In fact, along the entire eastern side of Missouri. Far more than i had realized before moving here. Also, a wealth of old architecture. It's worth driving around just to see the architecture. Well, for me anyway. Architecture is one of my favorite forms of art appreciation.
But the grocery stores? Of course, that's a modern issue that everyone talks about. So many of the familiar foods have gone missing. I just got home from one such store. I had about 12 items on my list. Found exactly two of them. Seems like I have to go from one store to another to find everything on my list. Friends say they do the same thing. Keeps the oil and gas industry in business. <G>
Indianapolis and St Louis had (past tense) one thing in common. At one time the two were vying for first place on environmentalists' lists of polluted cities. Certainly was not anything to brag about. Both have cleaned up since them.
Hazel, I agree that St. Louis has some truly exceptional architecture. We also have some extraordinarily beautiful neighborhoods.
Out of curiosity, what are the items you have difficulty finding? I too sometimes have to go to a few stores to get everything I need, but that's mainly because my pantry needs certain Australian/British/New Zealand items!
Hazel, I agree that St. Louis has some truly exceptional architecture. We also have some extraordinarily beautiful neighborhoods.
Out of curiosity, what are the items you have difficulty finding? I too sometimes have to go to a few stores to get everything I need, but that's mainly because my pantry needs certain Australian/British/New Zealand items!
Oh, dear. That would take some long-term thinking as it's one thing here and one thing there. Shop 'n Save, for example, discontinued Cream of Rice. Then they discontinued Nonni's Biscotti. Today it was Special K's cracker chips. At other stores it will be other things. It's almost as if they banded together and said 'You sell this; we'll sell that". Schnucks discontinued some McCormick's products which included my favorite gravy mix.
So life goes. I still eat but it isn't always what I wanted to eat. Isn't life rough?
This is true but Denver, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati don't have two downtown districts in their metropolitan area either. St. Louis has downtown Clayton as well. Put the two together and you'll get the same thing.
If you added STL+Clayton there's still less office than Denver and Pittsburgh, but there would be more than Indianapolis or Cincinnati though. The issue is more than just that though. There's quite a bit of commercial job sprawl. St. Louis has a ridiculous amount of office space along the 40 corridor. Looking at the CBDs themselves, the others are just more coherent. Indianapolis and Cincinnati don't have that much more office space than downtown STL currently, but it is assembled better. Two assembly problems here:
1) the green belt cuts through the middle of downtown, so we have commercial north and east and then govt + entertainment (Kiel, Scottrade, Busch, Union stadium) south. Things don't really mix and the vitality dies south of Market just a bit west of the riverfront. It just feels dead down there.
2) The campus buildings (Wells Fargo, Purina, Ameren, Bolton) on the edge of the CBD are still baked into the CBD numbers, but they don't really add anything. That's roughly 4 million square feet of office that would make downtown feel much bigger if it were all between Olive and 40 east of 20th. As it is, downtown kind of sprawls so it lacks the energy/compactness. Imagine if all of that office was actually in the CBD, Union Station was more appealing because of the office presence, the aquarium was already in there and the land where Purina, Ameren, etc sits was part of the visioned Chouteau Greenway. There would be a completely different feel. Or if back in the day when they cleared all of the land out where all of those campuses sit on Chouteau, instead of putting UMSL where they did, they dropped it right there.
If you added STL+Clayton there's still less office than Denver and Pittsburgh, but there would be more than Indianapolis or Cincinnati though. The issue is more than just that though. There's quite a bit of commercial job sprawl. St. Louis has a ridiculous amount of office space along the 40 corridor. Looking at the CBDs themselves, the others are just more coherent. Indianapolis and Cincinnati don't have that much more office space than downtown STL currently, but it is assembled better. Two assembly problems here:
1) the green belt cuts through the middle of downtown, so we have commercial north and east and then govt + entertainment (Kiel, Scottrade, Busch, Union stadium) south. Things don't really mix and the vitality dies south of Market just a bit west of the riverfront. It just feels dead down there.
2) The campus buildings (Wells Fargo, Purina, Ameren, Bolton) on the edge of the CBD are still baked into the CBD numbers, but they don't really add anything. That's roughly 4 million square feet of office that would make downtown feel much bigger if it were all between Olive and 40 east of 20th. As it is, downtown kind of sprawls so it lacks the energy/compactness. Imagine if all of that office was actually in the CBD, Union Station was more appealing because of the office presence, the aquarium was already in there and the land where Purina, Ameren, etc sits was part of the visioned Chouteau Greenway. There would be a completely different feel. Or if back in the day when they cleared all of the land out where all of those campuses sit on Chouteau, instead of putting UMSL where they did, they dropped it right there.
I agree, and I'd add...
Downtown is surrounded by two outdated freeways and multiple public housing projects. With the exception of the Arch grounds, the riverfront is abandoned and severed. It also lacks rail connections to most of the Metro area. For better or worse, the "heart" of StL is actually the area from the CWE thru Clayton.
St Louis is not one of my favourite cities but it is certainly an open, welcoming city. I'm thinking you have to be a Cardinals fan and love beer to be happy here. :-)
That would be too bad, because the region has a long wine history as well. Before Prohibition, Missouri (centered on Hermann) was the second-largest wine-producing state in the country (after California).
By the turn of the century, Stone Hill Winery, which the German immigrant Michael Poeschel began building in 1847, was the third largest winery in the world (second largest in the U.S.), producing more than a million gallons of wine a year. Its wines, such as Hermannsberger, Starkenberger and Black Pearl, won eight gold medals at world fairs between 1873 and 1904.
[...]
As trellises spread across the landscape, Missouri viticulture soon raised another flag of worldwide acclaim. In 1876, an insidious louse began a relentless assault on vineyards throughout France. The parasite had come from America and found the France roots particularly appealing-pushing the French wine industry to the brink of ruin.
Fortunately, Missouri's first entomologist (bug scientist) Charles V. Riley made an important discovery. In 1871, at the invitation of the French government, Riley inspected France's ailing grape crop. He diagnosed the problem as an infestation of phylloxera, an American plant louse. He found that some Native American rootstocks were immune to the advances of the dreaded louse. By grafting French vines onto them, healthy grapes could be produced. Millions of cuttings of Missouri rootstock were shipped to save the French wine industry from disaster. Statues in Montpelier, France, commemorate this rescue.
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.
