Is St. Louis more like Missouri/KC or Illinois/Chicago? (map, largest)

[Craziaskowboi]

Originally Posted by STLgasm

Actually Baltimore and St. Louis have a long history of interconnectivity, both literally and figuratively. Much of the eastern trade that built St. Louis originated at the Port of Baltimore, and with that came a great deal of Baltimore/mid-Atlantic influence in St. Louis. Furthermore, both Baltimore and St. Louis are the only two major independent cities in the country, distinctly separate political jurisdictions from their adjacent suburban counties (which also bear their names). They also both suffer from a fragmented identity crisis, with influences from both north and south and all the historic tensions and dichotomies that go with that.

And I stand by my statement earlier that St. Louis and Kansas City feel like two VERY different cities. The mood, the culture, the attitude, the built environment, the history, the politics, etc. are just very different. Not sure how that's arguable.

Both cities definitely are different. St. Louis is Baltimore's Midwestern cousin, while Kansas City is Dallas's little brother.

[Ball freak]

Originally Posted by Gnutella

Both cities definitely are different. St. Louis is Baltimore's Midwestern cousin, while Kansas City is Dallas's little brother.

KC is not Dallas' little brother. KC is Midwestern in culture linguistics and for the most part history post Civil War and demographics. Dallas is Southern. KC is more like Omaha's big brother and shares the meat packing industry characteristic with Chicago and Omaha.

[Ball freak]

Originally Posted by STLgasm

St. Louis and Kansas City are as different as any two cities in this country. St. Louis is older than both Chicago and KC, so therefore has a distinctly eastern/river city flavor that is rare in the interior Midwest. The city's dialect is northern/more Great Lakes-influenced than any other place in the Midland/Missouri vicinity.

Wrong. Both KC and STL are Midwestern but represent different sides of the Midwest. Also St. Louis and Baltimore don't suffer that badly from identity crisis. St. Louis is solidly Midwestern while Baltimore leans decidedly Northeastern. KC and StL don't have terribly different speech patterns, have similar demographics, both were cities benefiting from the Great Migration, etc. they're more similar than different.

[Tex?Il?]

Originally Posted by Gnutella

Both cities definitely are different. St. Louis is Baltimore's Midwestern cousin, while Kansas City is Dallas's little brother.

Good comparison! lol.

[Tex?Il?]

Originally Posted by Toxic Toast

This is like asking if Australia is more like New Zealand or Indonesia.

?? No its not. This is a strange analogy and I have no idea the point you are trying to make.

The best analogy comparing Austral-Asia to North America would be:

Indonesia = Mexico
Australia = US
New Zealand = Canada

[STLgasm]

Originally Posted by Ball freak

Wrong. Both KC and STL are Midwestern but represent different sides of the Midwest. Also St. Louis and Baltimore don't suffer that badly from identity crisis. St. Louis is solidly Midwestern while Baltimore leans decidedly Northeastern. KC and StL don't have terribly different speech patterns, have similar demographics, both were cities benefiting from the Great Migration, etc. they're more similar than different.

We'll agree to disagree. The two cities feel very different to me. St. Louis much more like the Rustbelt/historic Midwest/northeast, and KC more western in character. Whatever.

[Caesarstl]

Originally Posted by Ball freak

KC is not Dallas' little brother. KC is Midwestern in culture linguistics and for the most part history post Civil War and demographics. Dallas is Southern. KC is more like Omaha's big brother and shares the meat packing industry characteristic with Chicago and Omaha.

Originally Posted by Ball freak

Wrong. Both KC and STL are Midwestern but represent different sides of the Midwest. Also St. Louis and Baltimore don't suffer that badly from identity crisis. St. Louis is solidly Midwestern while Baltimore leans decidedly Northeastern. KC and StL don't have terribly different speech patterns, have similar demographics, both were cities benefiting from the Great Migration, etc. they're more similar than different.

Depends a bit on how/what you're looking at to be honest. There are things today that seem very, very similar between STL and KC, and other things that are literally polar opposites. Since it's almost 1 here and I'm feeling lazy (will check back to this resurected thread, despite the known negative reason for the resurrection...), here's what another informed poster had to say on the two:

Originally Posted by Old Trafford

So here is my breakdown of the two – fundamentally different due to separate histories, each valid in their own way, but maybe not understood by others – This is the physical breakdown

St. Louis

Street layout –

St Louis is a beautiful mess damaged by urban highways, chaos reigns in its best possible form in the historic layout, the grid shifts several times responding to the curvature of the river, with farm to market roads slashing through the rotating grid like a laser. These collisions created boundaries, natural shopping districts, and neighborhood identities along ethnic lines, parishes and congregations, your world was six blocks by fourblocks, and that is all it needed to be. The downtown blocks are sized according to the French Colonial grid as mapped out 250 years ago, the Arch grounds were once a Star Fort, a large stonetower on the riverfront fended off British invasion during the revolution, and Lafayette Park was a militia parade ground. Of course there has been considerable damage to all of this, still its remarkable how it survives given the prevailing attitudes of post war America

The grid is highly permeable, even given the block morphology and shifting orientation, this gives way to its urban form. Corners are reserves for storefronts, predating Euclidian zoning, there were dozens of neighborhood centers (many are reawakening, ideal for an emerging more independent entrepreneur system) it was a city built for you to live in not just predating cars, but predating public transport and street cars, as stated earlier everything you needed was a short walk to the corner, just like the country you came from. Parks are deliberately planned so no home would be further than a quarter mile walk from one, this practice was initiated in themid 1800’s and faithfully executed to the completion of the city’s build out in the 1960’s

Architecture -

And come they did, while the French were the first settlers and gave us street names and some early templates for block and architectural development, St Louis was built by immigrants , Germans,Italians, Poles, Czechs, Greeks, Irish, Slovaks, English, Spaniards, Swedeseven an early Chinatown, in 1860, half of the cities 160,000 residents were foreign born. They brought their heritage, religion, music, social societies and, maybe most importantly because it’s the physical evidence that still exists, their building abilities and traditions.

There are parts of St. Louis that could be mistaken for the suburbs of Frankfurt or Berlin, or the quite corners of London’s West End, Lafayette Square would be comfortable in a Parisian Arrondissement. There are alot of examples of German Fasching brickwork, rare in the US. The detail of delight and beauty built into the most ordinary buildings, row homes that at first glance that look the same that reveal different patterns like snowflakes. Rows of homes built to the side walk (or very small yard), keys (passages between buildings) that lead to alleys and carriage houses, and no curb cuts St. Louis built alleys till the 1950’s. Ornate buildings and local monuments, 3 story homes, flats, town homes, stained glass windows, chimney pots, transoms, clerestories, high nave churches, Neo Gothic, Federal, Romanesque, Flemish roofs - a tapestry of mixed income and mixed use where the ordinary was celebrated.

KC

Street layout –

As stated KC is the American machine a mostly regimented grid iron marching north to south seemingly on to infinitely (I found myself on like 207th street visiting a client on one occasion) The grid is punctuated by grand boulevards. KC embraced transport and the car early. They streets were built with the intent of celebrating movement, enjoying the ride, and this is still the case along Ward Parkway, Troost, Paseo and parts of Main. Driving down these streets is like rolling through a sea with layers of the city washing over you like waves. Moving north to south can be like a trip in time as the city rises and lowers in scale from downtown to the Plaza, lawns are big; fountains seem to pop up everywhere the median becomes a garden that transitions to public space that morphs into a water feature then public art. The space feels open and large as table setting for the architecture that dots it. This is the American dream built out- movement, space and efficiency

There are alleys in the older parts, but KC was built to celebrate movement – curb cuts and drive ways are more liberally used, garages are attached or located in proximity to the buildings, parking is intergraded into neighborhoods. When the grid softens away from the thoroughfares the streets take on a Garden City quality (often mistaken for City Beautiful). Gentle curves, center islands and chevrons, Moorish columns and axis terminations. The city flows between all of these things, it’s comfortable.

Architecture-

The buildings refelect the American machine – heavy influence of Craftsman and Art Deco – Styles that are not purely American but definitely perfected here. Shirtwaists, 4 Squares, frame bungalows, heavy on wood detailing, stone as an accent, lawns, front curb cuts and driveways, stone retaining walls, large porches. Often not as highly detailed; as the strength of Craftsman movement was the beauty of simple honest materials. The Art Deco movement is reflected in the high rises of downtown and smaller commercial buildings in midtown, Brookside has its Tudors and that great commercial district that weaves into the neighborhood in a relaxed deliberate fashion.

The Plaza is completely unique in concept, it actually looks and feels more like Spanish Colonial than its model Saville – Though theTorre and some of the dome entries are pretty much a copies, the streets and detailing on the buildings is more reminiscent of what the Spanish built in the new world, its architect, Delk, was known for Spanish Colonial, which was a style that had been popularized in So Cal in th early 1900’s. The wide streets and sweeping vistas add to the open airy feel of the city in general and provide a natural transition point to the suburbs that lie to the south and west. To me the Plaza actually adds to the “New World” feeling of KC rather than harkening back to the old. Its streets are wide for the scale of the buildings, and, at its heart it’s a pure retail district with well integrated parking, which is an American concept, invented right there in fact, by JC Nichols.

As I stated in the previous post – 2 different places, differentlooks, feels and strengths appreciate them for what they are, both are unique in this country where sameness is taking over.

[Shakeesha]

Originally Posted by Ball freak

KC is not Dallas' little brother. KC is Midwestern in culture linguistics and for the most part history post Civil War and demographics. Dallas is Southern. KC is more like Omaha's big brother and shares the meat packing industry characteristic with Chicago and Omaha.

I like your comparison. St. Louis is Baltimore's Midwestern twin, but I have to disagree about Dallas. I see Dallas as Oklahoma City's big brother, as the two share similar culture and industries than Kansas City. As for the OP's question, I see St. Louis decidedly more similar to Kansas City than Chicago. Kansas City and Omaha share similar industries, in addition.

[kcmo]

KC is nothing like Dallas. The only things those two have in common is "some" of the suburbs have a similar feel, but that could be said about any metro. People seem to think that KC is similar to southern sprawling sunbelt cities and it's just not. It's certainly not like those cities culturally.

StL and KC are very different, but in pretty much the same tier "today". Chicago is a totally different league and is nearly impossible to compare to KC or StL although both KC and StL have some Chicago characteristics.

But StL is a Missouri city, not Illinois. It's more Missouri than people in StL want to admit.

I don't see the Cleveland/StL thing near as much as I see Baltimore/StL.

KC is sort of an oddball city. I can't think of many cities like it. There are many cities similar in size and feel, but KC is a mixed bag and then you have wildcards like the country club plaza and kck that just make it hard to compare.

[Tex?Il?]

Originally Posted by kcmo

KC is nothing like Dallas. The only things those two have in common is "some" of the suburbs have a similar feel, but that could be said about any metro. People seem to think that KC is similar to southern sprawling sunbelt cities and it's just not. It's certainly not like those cities culturally.

StL and KC are very different, but in pretty much the same tier "today". Chicago is a totally different league and is nearly impossible to compare to KC or StL although both KC and StL have some Chicago characteristics.

But StL is a Missouri city, not Illinois. It's more Missouri than people in StL want to admit.

I don't see the Cleveland/StL thing near as much as I see Baltimore/StL.

KC is sort of an oddball city. I can't think of many cities like it. There are many cities similar in size and feel, but KC is a mixed bag and then you have wildcards like the country club plaza and kck that just make it hard to compare.

To me St. Louis feels more out of place where it is geographically than Kansas City does.

Kansas City feels like others mentioned a larger Omaha. St. Louis feels more like the Chicago that never was.