Should I live in MO - (Being transferred to Cahokia) (St. Louis: rentals, neighborhoods)

[NickHedge]

I am being transferred to Cahokia and was wondering if I would be better off living in Missouri and commuting over the bridge everyday? I have wondered about places such as Mehlville, Oakville, Arnold, etc but there is very little about them.

Does anyone have any suggestions about a nice small, quiet INEXPENSIVE place to live around that area. Inexpensive meaning rent, etc. I am not looking for buy since I will only be there about a year.

Any insight at all about anything would be greatly appreciated.

[aragx6]

Hopefully the moderator will move this to the St. Louis forum so you can get better answers.

Any reason you think you'd be happier on the MO side? You could also look at Fairview Heights which would be about the same commute as from Arnold.

Other than quiet and inexpensive, what do you like in a community? How important to you are things like walkability, access to shopping, diversity, age of the housing stock, etc?

[NickHedge]

I thought about putting this in St Louis, but I don't want to live in St Louis. I have been told that along the borders of the river on Illinois side is strewn with bars and strip clubs and that entire area is not livable. I want quiet, small, moderately inexpensive. I don't want to drive more than 15 miles one way to work. Shopping can be 5-10 miles away. Laundry facilities are important though. Just away from the city.

I had heard Missouri was a better living experience than Illinois was.

[aragx6]

Well the St. Louis forum is for all of the St. Louis metro area, and the regulars of that forum will know far more about the area you are looking at than the regulars on the Missouri forum.

The area near where you will be working on the IL side is not a nice place, you're correct, but Fairview Heights is just as close to your job as anything you're looking at in Missouri would be, so it's worth checking out. It's a nice, safe and quiet area.

The only reason I could think of to live in MO over IL is property taxes and the general state of affairs with their gov't. if you're not buying or staying, I wouldn't give two thoughts to that.

[lifelongMOgal]

Originally Posted by aragx6

.........The only reason I could think of to live in MO over IL is property taxes and the general state of affairs with their gov't. if you're not buying or staying, I wouldn't give two thoughts to that.

Unless you are a firearms owner and don't want to have to go through the whole FOID process in IL.

This previous thread may help the OP in tax considerations: //www.city-data.com/forum/misso...rking-ill.html

[NickHedge]

Yeah, I keep ending up over in that area for some reason. I was talking to someone there about corporate housing and the place that does the corporate housing is located in Missouri looking at properties around fairview heights, collinsville, swansea etc (go figure). So I guess that is the direction I need to take. Thanks

[Smtchll]

Originally Posted by NickHedge

I thought about putting this in St Louis, but I don't want to live in St Louis. I have been told that along the borders of the river on Illinois side is strewn with bars and strip clubs and that entire area is not livable. I want quiet, small, moderately inexpensive. I don't want to drive more than 15 miles one way to work. Shopping can be 5-10 miles away. Laundry facilities are important though. Just away from the city.

I had heard Missouri was a better living experience than Illinois was.

It's a forum for the St. Louis metro area as a whole, not just the city. You mentioned Mehlville, Oakville, Arnold; they are suburbs/exurbs of St. Louis, along with probably every other place you're gonna look into.

[pdm_ad]

OP, I live in Oakville so I may be able to offer some perspective.

First, you heard wrong about IL. Sure there are bad parts from Cahokia north but south is nice. Milstadt, Columbia and Waterloo are all good solid communities and the price for housing/rent tends to be relatively inexpensive. Columbia and Waterloo are more developed than Milstadt and offer more in the way of shopping and restaurants.

On the MO side, in STL county the price goes up the further south you go. Northern Oakville/Mehlville bleed into Afton and Lemay and those neighborhoods have very inexpensive housing options. I happen to have property in Lemay that is cheap and available. PM me if you want info.

Southern Oakville/Mehlville will get more expensive as the housing is newer and larger.

Everything changes again though once you cross the Meramec and enter JeffCo and Arnold where you have lots of inexpensive rentals.

Also, working in Cahokia won't be a bad commute at all from the MO side. Most traffic will be heading from IL into STL county so you will be heading in the opposite direction over the JB bridge.

[stlcitygirl]

You dont want to live in Stl, but you list off STL suburbs?