What to expect from St. Louis (Kansas City, University City: cliquey, apartment, loft)

[aceakshat]

Hello All,
I am moving to St. Louis from Stamford, CT.
After my initial research i found out that, living cost is way cheaper in St. Louis, It's not as cold as CT. But the crime rate is way high.
I have the following questions:
1. Single man in mid 20's, best place to stay.(I was staying in downtown before)
2. How is the traffic and cops, are they strict about speed limits and other things.
3. Attitude of people towards different races (I am brown).

Cheers.

[STLnative]

Cost of living cheaper? YES Not as cold as CT? YES Crime rate high? NO
That crime rate stat is way off unless you plan to live in the inner city. Those stats are based on the inner city downtown area and there's lots more to St. Louis that is quite safe. Has something to do with how the city vs county are slated here as opposed to other cities and that stat refers to a very small area, not St. Louis as a whole.
Attitude toward different races can be wide open if you choose area well. University City is excellent in diversity that way, a wonderful melting pot of all sorts of folks w/o racism. 2ND choice Webster Groves. Shoot for the Loop area in U. City and especially west of there and you will love it.

[wustu87]

I agree with everything STLnative says (cost of living, weather, crime) and will expand upon it. U City and Webster Groves are great areas for diversity, but I would pretty much include all of mid-County (Richmond Heights, Maplewood, Clayton, Brentwood). The further away you move from the core of the county, the less diversity you will find. Unfortunately, if you are talking about traffic and police officers ticketing speeders, some of the mid-County municipalities like Rock Hill and Brentwood are among the most prolific ticketers around (watch out on Manchester and McKnight, especially once 40 west of 170 is back open and the traffic thins out there more.) As for crime, it seems like random crime occurences pop up everywhere now, but in general most of St. Louis county is quite safe.

[CoffeeAndBeer]

1. Single man in mid 20's, best place to stay.(I was staying in downtown before)

U-City is interesting because it is a smaller municipality that runs the gamut from early twentieth century apartment blocks to 1960s-70s ranch houses on the west side, depending on your tastes, yet does not come with some of the weirdness of louis st. outer suburbs. It is mostly walkable and chock full of restuarants and other things on Delmar, has access to two light rail lines on its eastern edges, and is 1960s suburban on its west side.

University City, MO - Official Website
The Loop - www.VisitTheLoop.com - 314-727-8000

The Central West End in St. Louis is very walkable, and has access to one light rail line, and is physically very urban and full of amenities.

Welcome to the Central West End Online

Also, Skinker Debalivere (just in the City limits) is walkable to Delmar (and light rail), but is also adjacent to Forest Park, which is an amazing park by any measure.

I'd recommend these areas with zero hesitation as a start and as a base to further explore and feel out other areas.

2. How is the traffic and cops, are they strict about speed limits and other things. depends HIGHLY on the jurisdiction. typically, middle and
outer suburbs are much more nit-picky about speeding and are more likely to be an annoyance to perfectly fine citizens.

3. Attitude of people towards different races (I am brown). I can't speak for areas west of U-City, but i'll vouch for the areas I mentioned it being a non-issue.

Overall, the Central Corridor from Downtown to Clayton (though maybe not including all of Clayton) has a large amount of people from outside St. Louis and a good diverse mix of people overall (not homogeneous in any way). Parts of South City demonstrate this as well, though. People can be cliquey the further away from this area you go, especially due west.

[aragx6]

My SO is "brown" too -- he's actually Filipino, but people think he's everything from middle eastern to Mexican -- and he has never experienced any problems in St. Louis, even in the outer ring suburbs, so I believe you will be fine anywhere you choose to live.

Essentially, there are 5 neighborhoods I suggest for the 20-something crowd in St. Louis. You can do a search of this forum to find out more info on them; we talk about them all the time.

Central West End
Soulard
Washington Ave. loft district (not sure where you were downtown last time you were here, but I highly suggest giving this place a look. It's a very cool area these days.)
Tower Grove South/Heights

and University City (which is actually an inner-ring suburb, not a neighborhood)

As others have mentioned there is a key reason why St. Louis' crime rate, at first glance, looks so horrendous. Crime is a problem in parts of St. Louis and to gloss over that would be unfair, but it's very localized to some very sad depressed areas. Most cities have this of course, but the reason it affects the crime rate in St. Louis so adversely is because St. Louis City is teeny tiny in square footage when compared to other cities.

Kansas City -- 319
Chicago - 228
New York City -- 305
Milwaukee -- 97

St. Louis? 61.9

St. Louis City is completely separated from St. Louis County, this happened long ago because the city folks were sick of paying taxes to take care of the county bumpkins. Because of this, as the county grew, the city wasn't able to annex areas as easily as it would have been able to otherwise, as happens in other major cities. So St. Louis remained teeny tiny.

So, if you consider that St. Louis would probably have annexed such wealthy and safe inner-ring suburbs such as U City, Clayton, Richmond Heights, Maplewood etc. and added to it's square footage, the crime rate for the city wouldn't even be in the top 10 most dangerous.

So take those stats with a grain of salt, and ask us for advice. There are vast swaths of the city that are very safe indeed.

[ucfjtm]

Originally Posted by aragx6

As others have mentioned there is a key reason why St. Louis' crime rate, at first glance, looks so horrendous. Crime is a problem in parts of St. Louis and to gloss over that would be unfair, but it's very localized to some very sad depressed areas. Most cities have this of course, but the reason it affects the crime rate in St. Louis so adversely is because St. Louis City is teeny tiny in square footage when compared to other cities.

Kansas City -- 319
Chicago - 228
New York City -- 305
Milwaukee -- 97

St. Louis? 61.9

St. Louis City is completely separated from St. Louis County, this happened long ago because the city folks were sick of paying taxes to take care of the county bumpkins. Because of this, as the county grew, the city wasn't able to annex areas as easily as it would have been able to otherwise, as happens in other major cities. So St. Louis remained teeny tiny.

So, if you consider that St. Louis would probably have annexed such wealthy and safe inner-ring suburbs such as U City, Clayton, Richmond Heights, Maplewood etc. and added to it's square footage, the crime rate for the city wouldn't even be in the top 10 most dangerous.

So take those stats with a grain of salt, and ask us for advice. There are vast swaths of the city that are very safe indeed.

I explained in detail this aspect of St. Louis to a friend a few months ago when the "Worst Crime Cities" report came out. For how bad north STL city is, the county is almost a polar opposite. I'm still looking for the link to source this statement I read a couple months ago, but I believe for counties with population over 500,000 people(? I think that was the number), St. Louis county is ranked the safest per capita in the entire country, and there are a lot of major counties in this country with that many people.

[aceakshat]

Hello All,
Many thanks for all the helpful replies. For the initial period (1 month) I have booked a place in Richmond Heights. I am looking forward to having a great time in st. Louis.


Akshat