Is St. Louis more like Missouri/KC or Illinois/Chicago?

[PerseusVeil]

Originally Posted by CCrest182

Another thing is, Kansas City, St Louis, and Chicago are all in different subregions. Kansas City is basically in the plains, St Louis is in the Heartland, and Chicago is in the Great Lakes region. Honestly each area is different. Kansas City shares more in common with Kansas, Nebraska, and southwestern Iowa, while St Louis shares more in common with central and eastern Missouri, central and Southern Illinois, and even the far western portion of Tennessee. Chicago shares more in common with Wisconsin and Michigan.

I would not agree with this.

St. Louis is already an island unto itself in terms of dialect, religion, and politics. This is part of the reason why the rural interests that dominate Missouri politics dislike St. Louis so much.

Speaking generally, St. Louis has more in common with the other old river cities than this nebulous idea of the "Heartland" due to when it boomed in the 19th century. Additionally, in terms of commerce and dialect, St. Louis, via the I-55 corridor, is undergoing the Northern Cities Vowel Shift similar to Chicago, whereas other lower Midwestern cities are not. They've come to refer to this as the St. Louis Corridor.

Now this isn't to say that St. Louis isn't the primary city in eastern Missouri and most of southern Illinois, but there definitely are distinct differences. Get about an hour or so away from the core of metropolitan St. Louis and the differences start becoming stark.

[IowanFarmer]

I've only been to St. Louis once, but it struck me as much more like the eastern US than any other large Midwestern cities west of the Mississippi. From the architecture, and general urbanity, to the rebounding former Rust Belt feel, it seemed to have more in common with Milwaukee or Cleveland than it does Kansas City or Des Moines. Chicago is kind of in it's own class due to it's size, but St. Louis definitely seemed more akin to it than Kansas City.

[Nearwest]

I'm located in Chicago, but used to visit St. Louis on a somewhat regular basis.


I found the older, residential areas in St. Louis to have a similar look and feel as 2 other river cities with ties to the South: Baltimore and Cincinnati.


These sections of St. Louis are basically masonry construction, with many brick and/or limestone facades. There are also parts of the older neighborhoods in St. Louis which have row houses. This adds to the aura of a built-up East Coast feel to those parts of the city.


I don't see much similarity in the built environment between St. Louis and Chicago. This is particularly true in the mid to outer ring neighborhoods in either city.

[Caesarstl]

Originally Posted by Koji7

I could possibly prefer St Louis but in my travels the constant putting down of the rest of the state is a turn off.

Living on the East Coast must be really hard on you...

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

Of note: Kansas City has the most evenly divided population of any bi-state metropolitan area in the United States. In most cases, the state containing the core city has two-thirds or more of the total metro population; in Kansas City, it's only 55 percent, and that gap will probably continue to shrink.

The Missouri side of KC has been adding twice as many people as the Kansas side for some time now, so for now anyway, the population is shifting back to the MO side and it seems like urban KCMO is really starting to see a major influx of residents. Jackson County is actually growing at a modest but decent clip again.

The different is that growth on the MO side is spread across the entire MO side of the metro from Platte to Downtown to Blue Springs to Cass. The Kansas side (or really, the entire state of Kansas) has only one area of decent growth (Johnson County). So it's more visible since all growth for for the KS side of the metro and the entire state is concentrated in a relatively small area.

[Koji7]

Originally Posted by Caesarstl

Living on the East Coast must be really hard on you...

I deal with it on a daily basis.

[frimpter928]

Neither IMO. To me St. Louis actually feels a lot like Cincy in regards to vibe and feel and look.