thinking of moving to St. Joseph, MO (Kansas City, Hannibal: crime, houses)

[ARCHIPHREAK]

My wife and I are thinking of moving to St. Joseph, MO in the not so distant future. I've seen previous threads for St. Joe on this forum but most going back to around 2007. Can anyone give me some updates on what life is like there these days? I know they were going through some kind of resurgence in recent years especially in the downtown. How has that panned out?
A little background, my wife and I are late 20's, early 30's. I'm an Architect and my wife is a stay at home mother working on a teaching degree. We've got 2 young children, so we're looking for a slower pace of life (currently living in Jacksonville, Florida), but we still want to be able to go out and have fun (i.e. drink and be merry, decent local bands, restaurants, pubs, movies, etc.). Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[misplaced1]

If you move to a better area of St. Joe you should be fine. Biggest issues seem to be thefts and vandalism in the city. As far as schools, I don't know. I don't live there and haven't been back since spring. Had a house with intentions of living there but it didn't work out so we sold and are moving somewhere else.

I absolutely love St. Joe but was wish more of those who lived there felt the same. So much beautiful historic architecture rotting away, so many streets with old homes in various states of decay.

[ARCHIPHREAK]

misplaced, thanks for the response. seems to be about the same opinion that I've been finding at other places. It seems to be a great little town, and, yes, the architecture is amazing. I think my wife and I have decided and St. Joe will be our home in the near future. From what I can tell it's got everything anyone would want and KC is a hop and a skip away, so....can't beat it. Thanks again!

[kcmo]

St Joe has the "bones" to be one heck of a little city. At one time it wasn't so little, it was a large city back in the day and had KC not built the Hannibal Bridge (first RR bridge across the MO River) before StJoe then today, St Joe would be the big city and KC would be some small town to the south.

And Missouri would be anchored by St Louis and St Joseph! No confusion with "kansas" (everybody thinks kc is in KS) .

I think the urban renewal is happening in St Joe, it's just occurring at a very slow pace. People in St Joe need to take more pride in what they have and stop trying to be the next KC northland suburb and bring back the city. Even St Charles has managed to maintian a nice vibrant downtown and riverfront community. St Joe could easily do the same.

[xanzzz]

I have lived here for over a decade and before that spent my whole life in various larger cities in the Midwest. I think a quick summary of Saint Jo would be depending where you have lived in the past tends to be huge.

Pros: To your face and basically overall some of the nicest, honest and caring people I have ever met. Any people that complain about crime or rude neighbors simply have not lived elsewhere. You will simply be blown away by how honest, fast and overall customer service you will get here on things like car repairs, utilities/cable and home repairs. You are an hour away from pretty much anything in KC so if you do not mind driving you do have the ability to get entertainment and choices you are accustomed to but do not expect many from this city to join you. I use to think the food here is good but we have had an invasion of chains take over and many local restaurants closed up, but we do have most of the common chain places here. Saint Jo has some nice sporting facilities for children and even adults. The housing is very affordable compare to major cities and the property taxes are dirt cheap. This is a couples community and social life is very couple orientated.

Cons: While the schools do teach all the important things and prepare a kid in general the facilities are totally run down and there is little chance of improvement in the near future. Being a college graduate from a major college and wanting any children of mine to seek that out to open them up to the biggest possibilities in life the atmosphere of the schools that has more to do with the people is very scary. This city unofficial theme is “good enough” and unless you as a parent do not strongly push your children toward academic excellence and a future career the local community atmosphere is more like the local school is good enough and why should you go to U. of MO.

This is a city that has two groups of people for the most part, long time older people of all types and the younger population that tends to be uneducated and blue collar. Most of the young and brightest that go off to college never come back whether of lack of desire or lack of good jobs and a career path. If you want your children to go off to college and move back to where you live so you are close to them this is not a city for you to relocate to. The city is filled up with nice people but they also are very ignorant and arrogant, despise anything that is not Saint Jo like some sort of inferiority complex and in general unless you only want to hear and talk about local history and gossip conversations will be difficult to be had. This city takes great pride in trying to pretend the outside world does not exist or matter. There is little culture but at the size it has more then one should expect. For the most part this city is extremely racist so if that bothers you do not move here. It is so accepted that people do not even bother to hide it thinking everyone is like that.

Job market is not good. Most who work here do not ever switch companies, really tough if you are from a corporate career track as we just have very little of that here. This town is a strictly who you know type place more so then what many other places who say that actually are. My company I have seen them re-hire worker comp scammers and even one that sued them before because they knew them over putting an ad in the paper and getting a stranger.

Overall: My experience has been that the people that move here and enjoy living here overwhelmingly tend to be from the Midwest and either similar sized cities or smaller communities. Overwhelming people either not from the Midwest or from larger to major cities dread living here and do not stay.

I am not saying Saint Jo just stinks outright but it is different and not for most.

[JetShadez66]

I'm from the area, Gower to be exact:
1. Make sure you have good employment lined up
2. New shopping adventures in the city is a plus
3. NFL training camp starts in St. Joseph this year (KC Chief's)
4. Transportation isn't that painful
5. Do note that petty theft is very common (as noted above)
6. Personally, I'd go for a home in a small town close to St. Joseph. I pick Gower for the fact that it is in the middle of farm ground, so no real city. Yet, it is 15 miles SE of St. Joseph and 30 miles N of Kansas City. I'd always go for bed and breakfast communities first with a small commute. Good luck!

[St. Joe's Finest]

As stated above, your educated children will leave and only come back if they work in KC and want to drive everyday. If you are a nurse, or teacher you'll have a job. Other positions are in the factories that make up this town, in retail, or restaurants. It was a good place to raise children back in the day!! The school system is questionable these days, they pretty much teach to a test given each April, the MAP Test. Education is therefore very fragmented. Progress is SLOW! Everything is moving and being built in the north, and the schools are better in the north, off the Belt Highway or Hwy. 71, not the north end off St. Joe Avenue. I'm actually in Andrew County, just south of Savannah, Missouri. Welcome to the area, my 30 something child just moved back and is based out of KC for work. The neighborhoods off Lover's Lane, and Ashland Avenue are attractive to the young couples in town.

[vmumford]

I'm from Gower also! If you go to the north end of St. Joseph the neighborhoods are not bad. There are also some nice neighborhoods outside of St. Joseph with good school districts. Savannah, Agency, Faucett, and Gower all have nice schools. I'm an agent in that area so I've seen some nice houses in those towns too.

Originally Posted by JetShadez66

I'm from the area, Gower to be exact:
1. Make sure you have good employment lined up
2. New shopping adventures in the city is a plus
3. NFL training camp starts in St. Joseph this year (KC Chief's)
4. Transportation isn't that painful
5. Do note that petty theft is very common (as noted above)
6. Personally, I'd go for a home in a small town close to St. Joseph. I pick Gower for the fact that it is in the middle of farm ground, so no real city. Yet, it is 15 miles SE of St. Joseph and 30 miles N of Kansas City. I'd always go for bed and breakfast communities first with a small commute. Good luck!